November 27, 2024

Dear Pleasantville Families,

As our students and staff members prepare to celebrate the holiday, I am reminded of how thankful I am to have the opportunity to serve the Pleasantville community in my role as Superintendent of Schools. I get to work with incredible faculty and staff members every day to create a positive and effective learning environment for our students.

Have a happy Thanksgiving. We'll see you in December!

For the youth,

Dr. Tina DeSa

Superintendent of Schools

Happy Thanksgiving from Bedford Road School

Today our kindergarten donned matching turkey costumes and marched through the top floor of Bedford Road School for the annual Balloons Over Broadway tradition. Fellow Bedford Road students lined the hallways cheering and high fiving the school's youngest students as they passed.

Students Join Community and Staff for

Viewing of "Landfill Harmonic"

Over 100 Pleasantville High School students walked through town alongside teachers and community members to the Jacob Burns Film Center earlier this month. Freshmen Spanish students, members of the orchestra, and the Sustainability Club all took their seats and watched the 2015 Spanish language film, “Landfill Harmonic.”

The movie is based on a true story and follows the Paraguayan musical group, the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura from humble beginnings to stardom. Luis Szarán and Favio Chavez sought to start a music school in Cateura Paraguay but found that they didn’t have enough instruments for all of their students. Using creativity and ingenuity, the soon to be orchestra constructed violins, cellos, and other instruments from assorted items of trash.

The Pleasantville High School students came to appreciate how the characters, based on real people, did so much with so little. The characters experience challenges from disastrous floods to suffocating poverty, and yet, their spirit and music went on. As the orchestra’s director, Favio Chavez, said, “The world sends us garbage. We send back music.”

While we gather with friends and family this holiday season, stories like that of the Landfill Harmonic remind us and our students to be thankful for the opportunities that we have and for the people in our lives who inspire us.

Thankful Turkey Returns to

Pleasantville Middle School

Every student who walks the halls of Pleasantville Middle School knows the tradition of Thankful Turkey. Every teacher across the school prepares lessons in conjunction with the activity, involving everyone from our newest students in the fifth grade wing to the eighth graders looking ahead to high school.

Students write out what they are thankful for on construction paper feathers and then each feather is added to the turkey. In the end, the collage of gratitude is displayed for the whole school to see.

Students show their appreciation for family, friends, and all of the things that bring them joy. This year, one particular trend stuck out to Eighth Grade ELA Teacher Tracy O’Sullivan.

“I've seen so many feathers written in gratitude to faculty members,” O’Sullivan said. “I think that speaks to the heartfelt connections between students and their teachers!”

Thankful Turkey bridges classes and grade levels by celebrating the things that we’re all grateful for.

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