NOVEMBER Family Newsletter

This month, our second-grade scholars are exploring the concept of change through their Wit & Wisdom curriculum, and what a beautiful reminder of the journey we are experiencing together as a school community!

Change is the process of becoming different, growing, evolving, or moving from one state to another. Change creates opportunities to learn, improve, and become better versions of ourselves.

“When a community embraces change, honors its past, and grows together, it creates a stronger future for everyone.”

At P.S. 219, we embrace the African principle of Sankofa, which teaches us the importance of looking back, learning from our past, and carrying those lessons forward to build a better future. Sankofa reminds us that growth does not mean forgetting where we started. It means honoring our journey while being intentional about where we are going. When we reflect on how far our P.S. 219 community has come, we have so much to celebrate! Our school has grown in enrollment, expanded academic opportunities, strengthened instructional practices, increased access to enrichment, and continued creating spaces where scholars feel safe, valued, and loved. Every improvement represents our collective commitment to doing what is best for children.

🌟 Growing, Glowing & Making Moves at P.S. 219!

We are proud to share some of the exciting ways our school community continues to grow:

• 📚 Literacy Excellence! P.S. 219 was the only elementary school in District 18 that did not experience a decline in literacy proficiency on the NYS ELA exams. We are proud of our scholars' progress and remain committed to continued academic growth!

• ➕ New Math Curriculum! We have launched i-Ready Classroom Mathematics, strengthening mathematical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and academic discourse.

• 👩🏽‍🏫 100% Small Class Size Compliance! We are proud to share that P.S. 219 has achieved 100% compliance with New York State's Class Size Law! Smaller classes create more opportunities for individualized attention, meaningful teacher-student relationships, targeted instruction, academic discourse, and timely feedback. Most importantly, they allow teachers to better identify and respond to scholars' individual learning needs.

• 🎯 Year 3 of High-Impact Tutoring! Through our continued BrainTrust High-Impact Tutoring Grant, scholars in grades K–2 receive targeted support to strengthen foundational literacy skills.

• 💃 Year 3 of Arts Education! Our continued arts grant brings Notes in Motion dance programming to our scholars, supporting creativity, confidence, movement, and artistic expression.

• 🍎 Investing in Our Teachers! Ongoing instructional coaching in i-Ready Classroom Mathematics and Wit & Wisdom strengthens teaching practices, student engagement, and academic achievement.

• 💜 90% Overall Attendance! Our scholars continue showing up because it's COOL to come to school! Every day matters, and consistent attendance creates opportunities for learning, friendships, and growth.

• 📊 Personalized Learning! Through i-Ready and Acadience data, our teachers provide targeted small-group instruction and interventions that meet scholars where they are and move them forward.

• 🌈 Year 3 of LEAPS! Our continued LEAPS Grant provides enriching after-school opportunities through Community Mediation Services and support for 50 scholars.

  
  

🌊 Riding the Wellness Wave: Growing Hearts & Minds

Academic excellence is only one part of a child's success. At P.S. 219, we believe that how scholars feel matters just as much as what they learn.

We are especially proud of our Wellness Wave Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Room, a calming, student-centered space designed to support emotional wellness, self-regulation, mindfulness, and a sense of belonging.

Social-emotional learning helps scholars recognize and manage emotions, develop empathy, build positive relationships, make responsible decisions, and navigate challenges with confidence.

Our Wellness Wave is another example of positive change in action. By investing in the whole child, we are building a school community where scholars feel supported emotionally, socially, and academically. When children feel safe, connected, and valued, they are better positioned to learn, grow, and thrive.

🤝 Partnership Is Our Superpower!

One thing that will never change at Kennedy King is our belief that families are our scholars' first teachers and our most important partners. The positive changes we celebrate today are possible because of the collective efforts of our scholars, families, teachers, staff, and community partners. Strong school-family partnerships create consistency, strengthen trust, support attendance, and positively impact academic achievement. Thank you to all families who will join us for Family Conferences! Remember, our partnership does not end when conferences conclude. Continue connecting with your scholar's teacher, asking questions, celebrating progress, and reinforcing learning at home. Your voice, presence, and involvement matter!

💜 Looking Back With Gratitude, Moving Forward With Purpose

As we reflect through the lens of Sankofa, we recognize that our journey has included challenges, lessons, celebrations, and tremendous growth. We are not the same school community we were when this journey began, and that is the beauty of change!

We have grown in opportunity, strengthened our systems, expanded our programs, and continued raising expectations while leading with love.

Most importantly, we are creating a school experience where every scholar is seen, every scholar is valued, and every scholar has the opportunity to succeed.

This November, we are grateful for how far we have come, excited about where we are going, and committed to growing together. And through every season of change, we will continue to BUILD ANYWAY!

With gratitude and Kennedy King pride,

Mrs. Cierra Williams
Proud Principal 💜
P.S. 219 The Kennedy King School
CRobinson57@schools.nyc.gov
929-202-3293

i-Ready Personalized Instruction Guidance for Families

As a school community, we've completed our beginning of year ELA and Math diagnostics through iReady. iReady is a web-based program that helps teachers personalize instruction for students in grades K–8 in reading and math.

Please click on the link below to support your scholar using i-Ready. At home you can access guidance for using i-Ready including login and technical support. Learn how you can support your student with i-Ready.

curriculumassociates.com

Acronyms are a great way to help students remember important steps and strategies during instruction. Two of our school wide learning strategies and favorites are the RACE and CUBES. The RACE strategy helps students remember the steps to write an awesome reading response and the CUBES problem solving strategy helps students slow down when solving math word problems!

RACE Strategy Set

This Race Strategy Set can be used at home while scholars are practicing and doing their homework to help your students learn the steps to achieve a perfect score on their short response! It includes the resources you need to help them learn, practice, and reinforce the steps of RACE.

CUBES Strategy Set

This problem solving strategy helps our scholars slow down and really think about the problem. This strategy should also be used at home to support your scholars with solving their math problems accurately and helps them check their work.

Our school-wide attendance goal is 90%...DAILY! You can help us continue maintaining a strong scholar attendance by continuing to make sure that your scholar(s) arrive on time, every day and communicating with our attendance team for excused absences. Thank you for supporting our increased efforts for timeliness, so we can maximize learning time. Scholars with perfect attendance for the month of November (No absences + No Lateness) will receive a SPECIAL CELEBRATION!

We want to make sure that you are fully connected to us. Please make sure that the main office and your scholars classroom teacher has the correct email and most updated phone numbers for you. It's crucial that you receive all the texts and memos throughout the school year. For some of you, it may be that your email settings block our messages and for others, it may be that we do not have accurate information. If your phone number changes, please call the main office 929-397-9566 so that we can send home a blue card to be updated of any new information.