The Riccobono Reader

• February 10: Student Count Day
• February 12: No School
• February 15: No School

The shared bathrooms in the 4th and 5th grade hallway are not being used properly by the students. They have been rough housing, leaving a mess, and destroying items in the bathroom. We have talked to them countless times about what is expected and they continue to prove they cannot use the bathrooms independently. The teachers in that wing, therefore, are providing scheduled whole class bathroom breaks and then students are given 1 pass per day to use the office restroom. Please encourage your child to use the scheduled bathroom breaks and report immediately when they see the bathrooms being used inappropriately so we can get down to the bottom of this.

• 1/4: Mrs. Sunday had a shoutout for Victoria Weiss and Aubrey Parker for knowing 100% of their multiplication and division facts.
• 1/15: Mrs. Petzold had a shoutout for Silas Shepherd for earning 50 AR points! Keep up the reading, Silas!
• 2/1: Mrs. Brightman had a shoutout for Zayne Rushford for working hard to learn routines and procedures for Room 44. He is all set and part of the classroom family!
• 2/1: Mrs. Sunday had a shoutout for Elijah Pratt, Jackson Shepherd, and Victoria Weiss for earning 100 AR points; Ben McConnell and Aubrey Parker for earning 75 points; and Ina Dinsmoore, Grayson Gillett, Aleighya Haynes, Colby Hecht, and Alyssa Pileri for earning 50 points.
• 2/2: Mrs. Bilbee had a shoutout for Conner Keyser who is always the first one to jump in and help without being asked. He has helped our new students with all of our classroom routines and is a good friend to everyone.

Great job showing your Vulcan Values!

All of the students have completed taking their NWEA and Fastbridge Assessments to guide teacher instruction. In reviewing the data, our math scores showed improvement, but students lost a lot of ground in the area of reading, which we think is a result of having to go remote due to the pandemic. Teachers are working with their grade levels to target specific areas to improve within their classrooms. Please, please, please read to your child, have your child read to you, read with your child, or have your child read independently each day for at least 20 minutes. This will help a lot! Thank you for your support.

• Mr. Cahoon resigned and Mrs. Hudson, who was our Title I teacher, replaced him.
• We are currently in the process of finding someone to teach our Title I remote students.
• Mrs. Hoerlein who was teaching remotely has become a 3rd grade teacher.
• Mrs. Spaulding is teaching kindergarten, 1st grade, and special ed remote students.
• Mrs. Rittenberg is teaching 2nd-5th grade remote students.
• Mrs. Rushford has rejoined the staff as a paraprofessional.

We just received a grant from Building Healthy Communities and are using the money toward a program called Inner Explorer. Miss Castillo, our counselor, will be introducing it to students within their classrooms and then eventually, we plan to do the activities on the morning announcements schoolwide. The sound clips are between 5-10 minutes and teach everyone how to be mindful and calm. We are excited for everyone to learn new strategies that will get them in the mindset for learning! Please check out https://innerexplorer.org/.

Please contact Lisa Riccobono, Central Principal, at lriccobono@vassar.k12.mi.us or 989-823-8566. For the latest updates, please follow the Vassar Public Schools Facebook page and download the Vassar Public Schools app.