Parkside Post

Thank you to our families for helping us have a smooth and successful start to the school year!

The year is in full swing already and our students and staff are ready to tackle their goals! After students take their iReady Diagnostic, they have a personal reading goal to meet by the end of the year. Students will be tracking their progress towards their goal as they complete iReady lessons each week.

If you purchased a spirit shirt or hoodie, the order has been placed and we hope to be able to receive and distribute them within a week or two. Remember that on Fridays, students can wear ANY Parkside spirit shirt, so if they have one from past years, those are okay to wear!

There are many helpful links and important details in our monthly newsletter, so please take a few minutes to look through the information each month. If you have any questions, please contact your child's teacher or call the front office. We are here to help!

Mrs. Johnessee

Principal

johnessa@collierschools.com

Drop off begins at 7:30. Student should not be exiting vehicles prior to that time. Please pull all the way forward when dropping off your child in the morning. This helps us get more students unloaded in a timely manner. Students should not be dropped off until you pull up and are parked at a pole. The curve at the back of the line near the bushes is NOT a drop off location. Please follow these expectations for the safety of all students and staff!

September 1 ~ No School/Labor Day

September 23 ~ No School for Students/Teacher Prof. Learning

September 24 ~ SAC Meeting at 7:45am in Media Center

October 2 ~ No School

October 9 ~ Fall Picture Day

Our Parent Lighthouse Team is looking for volunteers to help support our students and staff! If you are interested in helping, please register as a volunteer and join us at our next meeting! Date will be announced soon!

Students must follow the dress code each day. Fridays are Jeans Days and students can also wear any Parkside Spirit T-Shirt on Fridays. https://www.collierschools.com/site/Default.aspx?PageID=10454

Please make sure you have a car sign in your vehicle every day. It significantly slows down our dismissal when we have to check IDs and verify approved pick ups. If you do not have a car sign, please come to the front office and we will provide one. You can also request multiple signs if you have different people picking up your child.

The safety of our students is a top priority. All kindergarten and 1st grade students who walk home, need to be met at the walker gate by an adult who has the walker tag. Students will not be released without the proper walker tag being presented. If you forget your tag, our staff will call the front office to verify approved pick ups. The person picking up the child must have a photo ID to verify identity, if they don't have the walker tag. Students who walk home with older students, with parent permission, are permitted to leave.

Thank you for partnering with us to make Parkside a safe place for all!

During rainy season, we occasionally need to have a Lightning Dismissal if there is lightning in the area. On these days, you will receive a text message letting you know to make arrangements. If your child is a walker, they will not be dismissed without an adult picking them up. If you can't meet them at school, please have a plan for someone else to pick them up and call the school with any changes. Please be proactive and have a plan for your child if they walk. We do not have staff to stay late and watch your child. If your child is a car rider, the dismissal may take longer due to moving down to one lane. Thank you for your patience and understanding!

Welcome to a brand-new school year! As your school’s literacy coach, I’m thrilled to partner with you to help our students grow as confident, joyful, readers and writers. Whether your child is just beginning to recognize letters or already diving into chapter books, we are going to continue to grow their reading skills this year!

Here are some simple, powerful ways you can support your child’s literacy development at home:

• Read Together Every Day- Even 10–15 minutes makes a big difference. Reading aloud to your child builds vocabulary, models fluent reading, and creates a love for stories. Try bedtime stories, breakfast reading, or even listening to audiobooks in the car!
• Talk About What You Read- Ask open-ended questions like:

“What was your favorite part?”

“Why do you think the character did that?”

“What would you do in that situation?”

These conversations build comprehension and critical thinking—and they’re fun!

• Make Reading and Writing a Natural Part of the Day- Here are some examples of things you can do with your child. Write shopping lists together, leave notes in their lunchbox, read signs, menus, or recipes out loud, and even encourage drawing and labeling at home.

Here’s to a fantastic year full of stories, growth, and discovery. Let’s help every child fall in love with reading—one page at a time.

We’re excited to kick off a new school year filled with curiosity, problem-solving, and growth in math! This year, your child will explore math in hands-on, engaging ways that build number sense, critical thinking, and confidence. Whether it's counting, adding, exploring patterns, or solving real-world problems, we’re focused on helping every student develop a strong foundation—and enjoy the journey! You can practice math at home by using everyday moments to build skills and confidence:

• Use dice to practice addition, subtraction, or multiplication facts
• Count down days on a calendar or track events with simple graphs (like weather or chores)
• Count cars, signs, or patterns while driving or walking

Most importantly, keep it positive—celebrate effort, talk through mistakes, and show that math is about thinking and exploring, not just getting the “right” answer. Let your child see that math can be both useful and fun!

Thank you for being a partner in your child’s success!

It is a big year for science at Parkside and throughout the rest of Collier County. All K-5 students have a brand-new textbook and techbook. No, that’s not a spelling mistake; this year, with the adoption of Discovery Education, all students have an amazing online resource called a Techbook. It has everything from videos, interactive activities, text to read, hands-on labs, and much more. Students and staff have been loving this new resource, and we are looking forward to an engaging year of science.

In other (good) news, we are proud to announce that Parkside we are a Gold Level Everglades Champion School for the third year in a row! Parkside continues to innovate and lead the district and state in our amazing Everglades Education during what we call our “PSE Everglades Week”. Something special that our students did last year was raise money to help buy a tracker for a Swallow-tailed Kite. Our students chose the name Suwannee Scout, and a male kite was successfully captured in June. Suwannee Scout is currently making his way to South America, and our students will be able to track his journey with the data collected from the tracker they helped to raise money for.

Welcome back to a brand-new school year! I am so excited for this school year and seeing our students in the building, ready to learn and grow. This month I’ll be visiting classrooms to begin our counseling lessons which focus on building strong friendships, problem-solving, and skills for success.

I will also be starting Lunch Bunch groups as a way for students to connect with other peers and practice teamwork in a smaller setting.

I look forward to working together with you and our amazing teachers to support every child’s journey. We truly are a team, and I can’t wait to see all the growth this year brings!

-Ms. Perez

As the new school year begins, here are some ideas and resources on ways to prepare your child. The educational resources below are targeted for students to use at home. While they focus on language and literacy, there may be some that also include activities in other subject areas such as science, math, and social studies.

Parent Resources:

Book Buddy (PDF) – Assists parents who do not speak the English language and want to help their child with learning some Basic English words.

Spanish/English

Haitian Creole/English

Duolingo- A free language-learning website and app for elementary and middle school students. Information available in multiple languages.

Fun Brain- Online books and learning games.

Games to Learn English- Free games to support English language development for all levels.

The new school year is off to a great start in the PSE Media Center! We’ve kicked things off with book checkout for our second through fifth grade students, who are already diving into their reading adventures. Our weekly read-aloud sessions for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and 1st grade will begin on September 2nd, and we’re looking forward to sharing some wonderful stories with our youngest readers. Students in grades 2–5 have also entered a raffle for the exciting chance to be the first to read this year’s brand-new Sunshine State Young Reader books. It’s shaping up to be a fantastic year full of discovery, imagination, and a love of reading!

We will continue to recognize students for exemplifying our PSE Expectations...Prepared to Learn, Show Respect to Ourselves and Others, Be Responsible...We will also be recognizing our students for modeling the 7 Habits, as part of the Leader in Me Framework. For August and September, we are focusing on Habit #1: Be Proactive & Habit #2: Begin with the End in Mind.

For the 2025-2026 school year, Parkside students are provided with Breakfast & Lunch at no cost.

Contact our Nutrition Services Manager, Josefina Hinojosa, at 239-377-8912 if you have questions.

FortifyFL is a suspicious activity reporting tool that allows you to instantly relay information to appropriate law enforcement agencies and school officials.

FortifyFL was created and funded by the 2018 Florida Legislature as part of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. The application was named by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The Office of Attorney General, Department of Education and Florida Department of Law Enforcement coordinated its development and roll-out.

https://getfortifyfl.com/

Parents may review their children’s instructional materials at the school site. Parents may also schedule an appointment to review currently adopted instructional materials at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Administrative Center. Please contact Julia Lorenzo, Instructional Materials Manager at LorenzJu@collierschools.com or 377-0103.

Website: collierschools.com/pse
Location: 5322 Texas Avenue, Naples, FL 34113, USA
Phone: 239-377-8900
Facebook: facebook.com/parksideproud
X/Twitter: @parksideproud