BSI Newsletter Week of 1/16/17
Good Afternoon Families,
We’ve had a wonderful turn out at our first round of grade level parent meetings. We’ve had K, 1st and 2nd-grade meetings in the last week or so and more grades are coming up in the upcoming weeks. Thank you for carving out the time to attend the meetings. We see it as a great opportunity to work together and be more transparent.
Next week there is a half day on Friday. There is a schoolwide PTO Meeting and a Family Friday Event for K through 3rd grade families.
In an effort to have you join classes after morning meeting, we have flipped the schedule to hold the PTO meeting first at 8:30 a.m. followed by Family Friday. Below is a schedule of events for 9:30 until 10:10 when you’ll visit your child’s classroom. 
Bus & Travel
Being that we are a commuter school, yellow bus service is a big part of the day for many of our students. We are constantly working on improving that part of the day for them and always remind students of the high expectations when it comes to safety on the bus. However, sometimes students do make wrong decisions, engage in rough play and even get out of their bus seat. Nevertheless for the most part, when something egregious happens, students report it, whether to you or to us.
The best way to monitor bus behavior is to check in with the kids about their daily ride. We do that at school when Ms. Antoinetta greets students as they get off the bus and Ms. Valerie greets them downstairs in the cafeteria. Another way is for parents to check in with their child and when something comes up to contact Donna or Anna immediately. We make sure to look into anything and everything that is reported to us.
Keep in mind that children often only tell what the other student did, neglecting to mention their part. That is why we interview each student involved separately and afterward get them together. Once we are all in a room together students’ stories align and we come to a common understanding and core of the issue. Only after all those steps can we make a decision on appropriate consequences.
Once in awhile, we have to suspend students from the bus, but for the most part, what works best is talking and helping each child to think about what he or she could have done differently. Bussing is an incredible privilege and an opportunity for our young ones to be independent and responsible for themselves.
Join us by checking up on the bus ride in order to help the kids be the responsible students that we know they can be.
Math Parent Workshop
We would like to invite you to a parent workshop where we will begin to share our approach to mathematics and what we value.
When: February 7th at 8:30 am
If you are planning on attending please pre-register: Click Here
FAQs
To continue with our FAQs below are two questions that will be added to the archive.
Why administer the Mock ELA & Math tests? The purpose of the Mock tests is to give students the experience of sitting for a longer test and to inform teacher instruction. Students do not receive a grade for these assessments. They are used internally by teachers only.
Who should I contact if my child is concerned about something that happens during arrival, recess, lunch or dismissal (i.e. times that their teacher may not be present)? Please contact Donna or Anna about these concerns. For all other classroom related concerns, the teacher is the first point of contact.
Middle School News
BSI Student Government
Elections took place on 1/12/17. We now have our very first BSI Student Government. Please enjoy a snippet of student campaigns:
- Middle School President: Madeline
- 8th Grade Council Member: Ben
- 801 Rep: Arinola & Arhur (tie for now)
- 802 Rep: Emmanuelle
- 7th Grade Council Member: Isabelle
- 701 Rep: Nora
- 702 Rep: Mimi
- 703 Rep: Eliza
- 6th Grade Council Member: Lewis
- 601 Rep: Milo
- 602 Rep: Amy
Upcoming Events:
(for details go to the main calendar and click on the event details)Outside
Outside Opportunities
- BEAM Ingenuity Festival https://beamcenter.org/festival
- Calling all young Inventors: The 2017 Antonio Meucci Young Inventors’ Competition is open to students grades 3-8. for more information download application materials.
- Free 2 week summer camp for rising 8th graders interested in applying to Arts High Schools. Application deadline is April 7, 2017. Runs July 31- August 11, 2017. For more information visit and to apply click :BOOTCAMP OR VISIT: Mayor’s initiative
- NYIT’s School of Engineering and Computing Sciences is hosting an event for girls ages 12-18 to increase awareness about engineering and the STEM fields February 17th, 2017 from 11am- 2pm RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/introduce-a-girl-to-engineering-day-ma-2017-tickets-30497061532
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