Weekly Director Letter 09/22/2023

Weekly Newsletter 09/22/2023

Dear Parents,

This year we have noticed incidents of lack of attention and kids misbehaving and imitating TikTok videos and fighting games at an alarming rate. It encouraged me to do research and put together a presentation for our oldest kids in VPK and Kindergarten. The parents who attended felt the presentation was helpful so I recorded the PowerPoint into a 16-minute video and the link was sent to all parents in Brightwheel on Tuesday evening. Please take a peek at it and let me know your thoughts. I am hopeful that with this information, parents can be proactive and support their child's development by decreasing screen time use. Feel free to share the video link with other families or educators.

On Wednesday, I had a little assembly with our K-2 Kids and talked about the importance of being kind to others and becoming good citizens. They all took a kindness pledge and I am hopeful by promising to be kind we can promote a more caring school.

In the spirit of Kindness...We started last week working with small businesses to help them and also help the Live Like Bella Cancer Foundation. We have been unfortunate in our 18 years open to have had 3 children in our school with cancer. We lost little Madison Star 10 years ago, but Mia and Gaby are both in remission. To support the work of Live Like Bella, we will be having a dessert truck on Mondays and a Dinner Truck on Wednesdays. Both will be donating a portion of the proceeds to the mission of Live Like Bella.

Joe's Pizza was a huge hit. Joe sold out all 50 pizzas so we will have him again next week. This week he only had cheese, pepperoni, or Blanca pizzas. Next week he will have other toppings. Everything is made fresh. We will put up an order form for those who wish to preorder. Since all is fresh and made to order, he will ONLY TAKE PREORDERS. All orders in by closing Monday will be sent to Joe and he will have them ready when you pick up on Wednesday.

Also in the spirit of giving, Kids For Kids Academy gives families opportunities year round to help others in our community to teach empathy. For the last 25 years every October, caring kids in my Kids 4 Kids Club and at Kids For Kids Academy donate 200 bags of candy so that homeless kids can enjoy the simple pleasure of a bag of candy. Despite living in a homeless shelter, they can experience a sense of normalcy on Halloween. We will soon ask parents to donate bags of candy for this purpose. For now, please look into your child's closets and if you have costumes they are no longer using, please send them in. That way when our candy bags get delivered, we can also deliver costumes for the kids. With your help, we can help so many kids this Halloween!

REMINDER: Monday is a NON-INSTRUCTIONAL DAY. This means kids in VPK and our K-2 program who do not attend school on Monday, will not be marked absent. We are open for kids who do need care on that day.

Finally, for those Jewish families who will be celebrating Yom Kippur this upcoming week, I wish you a happy holiday.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Beth Rosenthal Davis, Ed.S, NBCT