UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT
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First Steps through 12th Grade
Ms. Carrieann Sipos, Director of Elementary Teaching and Learning
Dr. Brian Alm, Director of Secondary Teaching and Learning
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Dear Families,
As the sun warms the earth and vaccinations are available to more and more Americans, our schools are becoming more and more like we remember and need. Do not underestimate the power of the human connection. This year is evidence that we cannot live without it. Everyone is smiling a little wider and walking a little lighter. Our heads are lifting up in hopes of rising above this challenging year. Thank you all for your sincere support and commitment to helping each other persevere and find the strength to overcome.
This month we celebrate some of the math learning taking place throughout the district. You will also see some STREAM highlights which are led by our Library Media Specialists. Please find a section on reopening and the beauty of seeing all the faces of our returning hybrid students.
It is hard to believe that we only have approximately nine weeks left of school. We would like to recognize all our Ossining educators who have done everything in their powers to support each and everyone of their students and families throughout this remarkable year.
Please do not forget to take advantage of our community schools efforts. OPRIME is available for all your needs. All you need to do is complete the form on this website.
Thank you again for all your support. In the near future, we will be highlighting all the offerings we have for the summer.
Warm regards,
Dr. Brian Alm, Director of Secondary Teaching and Learning.
941-7700 Ext. 1320
Ms. Carrieann Sipos, Director of Elementary Teaching and Learning.
941-7700 Ext. 1331
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The Return of Our Hybrid Children
Go back and remember the start of a school year without COVID. Can you envision the excitement and anticipation of a new school year? Do you remember preparing your children with new backpacks and supplies? Do you remember managing the butterflies in your child’s stomach, and the elevated heart rate you felt when you held them close? The return of our hybrid students in April felt a lot like the start of a new school year without COVID for everyone.
It was the first time since early March of 2020 that an entire class of students came together in person. Staff members planned thoughtful reentering activities to bring both the Ossining and Pride Cohorts together and to engage in a new learning community. There was happiness across the district and it could be felt throughout the streets of Ossining. Children jumped off buses, hopped out of cars, pulled their masks up above their noses, and skipped their way to classrooms. Teachers cheered greetings and gave bold gestures of air hugs and elbow bumps that could be seen everywhere. We did it, we got through it, we endured the challenges, and now we are more whole and better!
It’s a celebration, this remarkable return to school and all that we remember about the newness of this time. Thank you all for being collaborative partners and helping us transition many students back. It could not have been done without the support and collective effort of everyone.
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Math in Focus, our Core Math Program continues to be implemented across all grade levels through fifth grade. Our staff members have done an exceptional job bringing math to the remote and hybrid models. We are happy to have the final weeks of school to implement this hands on program live with our hybrid students. We are fortunate to have Teacher Leaders on each grade level. They are instrumental in the success of our program. Teacher leaders in all buildings have been working in collaboration with their building leaders, colleagues and our consultant, Shelly DuBose to provide professional development needed to implement the Math in Focus units and support the progressions in learning. Teacher Leaders have taken a deep dive into the math units and assessments and have outlined modifications to address the complexity of teaching in a pandemic. They have worked together to outline the pacing for each unit and to work with their colleagues to unpack content and plan for student learning. Throughout the planning and pacing process, teacher leaders carefully determined and selected necessary math skills in correlation to the math standards in order to close the gap subsequent to the pandemic. All along we have stressed the importance of power standards and the importance of math reasoning, thinking, and math language. Our consultant continues to provide support for our leadership team, staff and students. She has worked with teachers to develop their differentiation skills, and to help us monitor our pacing during this pandemic. We have been fortunate to have our consultant support students and teachers through remote studio lessons. |
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In their coordinate geometry exploration, Grade 6 students are extending their understanding of rational numbers and graphing points on the coordinate plane. Students are learning how to graph points with rational coordinates within all four quadrants of the coordinate plane. In addition, students are applying their understanding of absolute value to find the distance between two points on a coordinate plane. This has allowed students to learn how to determine the side lengths of polygons graphed on the coordinate plane in order to solve problems involving area and perimeter. |
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In Grade 7, students are building upon their Grade 6 understanding of algebraic expressions and equivalency to use properties of operations to generate equivalent expressions. Within this unit, Generate Equivalent Expressions, students are writing, simplifying, and evaluating algebraic expressions to solve real-life and mathematical problems. |
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In Grade 8, students are working with systems of linear equations in order to represent, analyze, and solve a variety of problems. Within this topic, students are working on writing and solving pairs of equations that describe the relationship between two unknown quantities. During their exploration of solving systems of equations graphically or algebraically, students are able to find the values for the unknowns that make all parts of the relationship between the two quantities true. |
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Park celebrated Reading Week right before Spring Break! Students participated in three virtual author visits from Deborah Underwood, Susan Verde, and Derrick Barnes. Students continue to read lots of books (over 5,500 have been checked out so far this year!). Ms. Valentine posts weekly thematic read alouds, activities, and choice boards. Themes have recently included poetry, traveling around the world, reading, and Earth Day.
Springing into Poetry and preparing for Earth Day were the highlights of STREAM/LMS at Brookside. After listening to some poems and also reading about sustaining our planet, our students became poets for the Earth! The first graders wrote Acrostic and “ I Wish” Poems while the Second Graders wrote Cinquains and Five Senses Poems. We will also be learning about plants, plant adaptations and seed dispersal. Our little engineers will be designing trash grabbers and tools for seed dispersal.
The brand new Claremont Learning Center is open, ready for business, and has been beautifully renovated. We have had amazing virtual author visits with Kwame Alexander, Lauren Tarshis. Anika Aldamuy Denise and Jarrett Lerner. We continue our partnership with Jacob Burns and are studying filmmaking. Wednesdays are for coding with Code.org and we are becoming expert coders. We are circulating books that children love and we are so excited to have so many new titles. Mrs. Lockwood and Mrs. Rossini are thrilled to share the love of reading with our Claremont Students in person and virtually. Read! Read! Read! and Read some more!
Roosevelt recently celebrated Reading Week with virtual author visits from Wendy Mass and Jerry Craft. Following Reading Week, the Roosevelt Library opened for students to safely browse and choose library books to bring home at least once a week! Roosevelt STREAM classes remain focused researching real-world science topics, such as coral reef conservation, space exploration, and studying cryptids. Students have enjoyed hands-on activities such as unscrambling poetry lines, testing the density of salt water, and playing an extinction survival board game in the library.
AMD recently finished our 6th grade author visit with award-winning author Jerry Craft. A collaboration between our Librarians, it was well-received. Eighth grade had a virtual author/photographer visit with Charles Smith, Jr. Both of these authors have been frequent AMD visitors. The last author was Torrey Maldonado, who is new to our author visitation program and will present to the 7th graders who are reading his book in a community-type read setting. Sixth graders are reading Class Act by Jerry Craft; for the 7th graders are reading Tight by Torrey Maldonaldo and our 8th graders are reading Stamped by Jason Reynolds. All of these titles are leased ebook "classroom sets" which are available through Mackinvia. Every student in their respective grades has access to a classroom copy of the books they are reading collectively as a grade. The Capstone project will soon commence and our AMD STREAM/LMS teacher will be working with the 8th graders to help them with this research project.
OHS celebrated Women's History month. Please see a clip of highlights.
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EBooks can be accessed on each building's website. Please encourage your children to visit often. There is a serious connection between the number of books children read and achievement.
Read! Read! Read!
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- Dual Language
- Science
- Summer
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400 Executive Boulevard,
Ossining, NY 10562
Phone: 914-941-7700 • Fax: 914-941-7291
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