Parkside Post

This month's newsletter has A LOT of information! Thank you for taking time to review it!

We are just a few days away from the end of Quarter 1 already! Our students continue to show leadership and focus each day! We have also had our first Student Club Day of this year. Crafts, dancing, sports, and cooking club are just a few of the experiences students enjoyed and a great time was had by all! This year our Student Clubs will be completing a service-learning project in which they will do something that benefits the school or our community. Think of this as a community service type of project! Ask your child what their club is planning do to do!

The Fall season is upon us and for those who celebrate Halloween, we hope you have fun trick-or-treating on October 31. Please remember that students are NOT to wear their costumes to school. A piece or two of candy in a child's lunchbox is okay, but bags of candy should be kept at home.

October 31 will be an early release day at 12:05 and it is also a Crocs & Socks Day! Students can wear Crocs & Socks for $1. All proceeds benefit the students, staff, and families at PSE through our Parent Lighthouse Team.

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

Please do not drop your child off or have them arrive by walking or biking before 7:30. We do not have staff here to supervise them. For your child's safety, please wait until 7:30.

October 2 ~ No School

October 8 ~ Wear Orange for Bullying Prevention Day

October 9 ~ Fall Picture Day

October 10 ~ End of 1st Quarter

October 13 ~ No School

October 20 ~ Quarter 1 Report Cards Sent Home

October 31 ~ Early Release at 12:05/Crocs & Socks for $1

LAST School-Day Friday of Every Month

OCTOBER 31 is our next Crocs & Socks Day!

$1 donation

Sponsored by Parent Lighthouse Team

to benefit PSE Students, Families & Staff!

OCTOBER 9, 2025

All ELL parents are invited to our meeting at

Shadowlawn Elementary School!

6:00-7:00pm

Please come to the ELL Parent Leadership Council to support

your children’s English language learning.

Click on the flyers below for more information!

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!

One of the ways our PLT is recognizing students is by providing a small birthday gift bag to each student during the month of their birthday! They are also facilitating our Crocs & Socks Fundraiser which takes place on the last school day Friday of each month.

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!

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!

Fall is here, and it’s the perfect season to snuggle up with a good book! Here are some great ideas to practice reading skills with your child.

🌟 For Our Primary Readers (K–2)

Students are learning the building blocks of reading—sounds, letters, and words. You can support them at home by:

• Sound Play – Practice rhyming words (cat, hat, bat) or play “I Spy” with beginning sounds.
• Word Hunt – Look for sight words in books, on signs, or even on food packages.
• Echo Reading – Read a page aloud, then have your child echo it back to you, helping them hear how fluent reading sounds.

📖 For Our Older Readers (3–5)

As students become more fluent, comprehension is the goal! Try these strategies together:

• Ask Why & How – Go beyond “what happened” by asking your child why characters acted a certain way or how problems were solved.
• Summarize Together – After reading, encourage your child to explain the main idea in their own words.
• Make Connections – Talk about how the story connects to their life, another book, or something happening in the world.

This month, we're falling into fun with math! Students are exploring number patterns, practicing math facts, and solving real-world problems. Below are activities you can try at home:

1. Pumpkin Math
• Use a small pumpkin to estimate and count seeds. Make a guess, then count in groups (by 2s, 5s, or 10s).
• Measure the height of a pumpkin with a ruler or string.
2. Leaf Sorting
• Collect different leaves and sort them by color, size, or type.
3. Spooky Story Problems
• Make up Fall themed word problems:
  “If you get 3 pieces of candy at 5 houses, how many pieces do you have?”
4. Baking with Fractions
• Bake together! Let your child help measure ingredients and double or halve a recipe to practice fraction skills.
5. Math Scavenger Hunt
• Go on a walk and find numbers in the environment: house numbers, signs, etc.
• Challenge your child to find even numbers, odd numbers, or add two numbers they see.
6. Calendar Math
• Practice addition and subtraction with dates (e.g., "How many days have passed since October 1?").

Did you know that each grade level has a special event called ZooCon? ZooCon is an amazing partnership between CCPS and the Naples Zoo. Each grade level has a special animal that students spend time learning about ahead of the event. On ZooCon day, students from all around the county tune in to watch a live presentation from the zoo, where handlers and experts discuss the animals and answer students’ questions. Families can watch the live broadcast from home on the Education Channel or online at https://www.collierschools.com/educationlive.

All grade levels are now utilizing our new science curriculum, Discovery Education, and the feedback from students and teachers has been overwhelmingly positive so far. Discovery Education engages students with amazing videos, interactive activities, and lots of hands-on lessons in each concept. Ask your student what they did in science class today and which DE lesson they covered.

October is Bullying Prevention Month!

As PSE, we believe every child deserves to feel safe, accepted, and valued. This month, we will focus on the power of kindness, respect, responsibility, and looking out for one another. To show our support, we invite students to wear orange on Wednesday, October 8th! Together, we can say: bullying has no place here!

Visit the Collier County Public Library! The gift of reading can bring your family closer together! Reading with your child gives the gift of time together while supporting your child as they learn to read. The library offers books for people of all ages, and much, much more — they are places of learning and discovery for everyone. They offer story time, resource training, crafts, activities and games. They have books in several languages available as well.

https://www.collierlibrary.org/

Students are diving into this year’s Sunshine State Young Reader Award selections! To make reading even more fun, the list has been split into three groups—picture books, chapter books, and novels—each with ten exciting titles to choose from. When students finish a book and pass the Accelerated Reader quiz, they’ll earn a special prize from Ms. Kennedy. All of the Sunshine State books are available for checkout in our school library, as well as at the local public libraries. See below for the titles in each category! Happy reading, everyone!

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 October, we are focusing on Habit #6: Synergize & Habit #7: Sharpen the Saw

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.

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

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