Many Important Updates

Registration
Many of you pre-registered at your zoned school, either P.S. 234 or P.S. 89. If you did in fact fill out and provide all of the necessary documentation, including proof of address, birth certificate, etc., I have those packets of information ready to go. Many of you have asked about the medical form you received from 234 or 89 during this pre-registration period. You have two options for returning this form. If you have the medical form completed, you can return it to Lucille or Pam at P.S. 234 by Thursday, June 25th. You can also hold onto it, and I will let you know once we’re all set-up in our new space. Once we have a functioning office space, we’ll open up times for collecting medical forms and any other documentation.
If you are new to the neighborhood/Spruce Street community, or if you did not pre-register at your zoned school, I will be reaching out to you to make a one-on-one time to do so. I’ll email you directly letting you know what documentation we’ll need, as well as where/when you can submit it. Thank you for your patience and cooperation with this!

School Dates/Times
Please note that the first day of school is Tuesday, September 8th. The first two days of school are half-days for kindergarten students citywide. The general times for our school day will be 8:30 a.m. – 2:50 p.m., though we will be finalizing this very shortly. As the summer moves forward, I’ll be in touch with more specifics around arrival and dismissal procedures, as well as transportation options for families. As a reminder from last letter, we will have daily, on-site afterschool programming provided by Manhattan Youth. Registration information is available via their website, www.manhattanyouth.org. Information is also forthcoming about Gil’s Sports, who will be offering pick-up service to Spruce Street students on Thursday afternoons. You can access the complete calendar for next year on the Department of Education’s website, by using this link: http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/F5C4C865-B4FF-45BE-A396-536C0695EEDB/61185/20092010SchoolYearCalendar1.pdf.

Summer Family Event
We plan on coming together this summer as a complete school community – parents, staff, and students. Please save the date of Wednesday, August 19th for this family/staff event. The plan is to hold this event in the classrooms of Tweed, so I will surely keep you posted as we prepare to move into the space. I understand some of you may have summer plans that will preclude you from joining us on August 19th. We will certainly have another event once the year kicks off in early September.

Spruce Street Staff
I am in the final phases of hiring teachers and staff, and I am thrilled to introduce them all to you! I will be sending out a separate letter with information about each of them in the coming days. I think you’ll be excited about team I’ve assembled – they are a talented, special group.

Spruce Street Families
Once the school year launches in September, we will officially form a Parents Association, and a School Leadership Team. Beginning with our official Meet and greet in April, it is fantastic that some families have begun gathering and getting to know each other. Collective efforts are often more successful than individual ones! As a reminder from an earlier email, I want to provide information on Spruce Street Parents Yahoo Group. This group has been meeting for several months now, and is hard at work planting the seeds for a strong parent body and, eventually, a dynamic PTA. If you are interested in joining this group, click here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpruceStreetSchoolParents/.