Clear communication and connecting with families are two of our top priorities at MLK! The Snapshot is our weekly information newsletter sent every Thursday afternoon. Our hope is that you will be able to use this Snapshot to stay connected with important calendar dates, events, and everything else related to MLK.

I want to thank our entire school community for helping our students successfully return to school.

As a father of twin 9 year old daughters, I know this is no easy task from the parent side - this is a complicated, multi-faceted major change in routines!

The same goes for our wonderful teaching staff, all of whom have worked tirelessly the past couple weeks to prepare welcoming learning environments for our students.

We hope your children have come home to report on a strong start to the school year. If you feel this hasn't been the case in any way - please do not hesitate to reach out.

All the best,

Andrew Kehoe, Principal

SEPTEMBER

Friday, Sept 5 - Safety Week Kickoff Assemblies (student in-school event)

Monday, Sept. 8 - MLK Safety Week Begins

Monday, Sept. 8 - MLK Music Shop Demos (student in-school event)

Wednesday, Sept. 17 - Back to School Night 6:00pm

Wednesday, Sept. 24 - Fundraising Kickoff Assemblies (student in-school event)

Monday, Sept. 29 - PTO Book Fair Begins

Every Friday at MLK is a special Spirit Day!

Here is a list of our September Spirit Days. We invite all students to dress up and participate!

9/5: Piscataway Pride - Wear a P-way shirt or wear Black & Gold

9/12: Favorite Place Shirt Day - Wear a shirt from your favorite place to visit

9/19: Hat Day - Wear your favorite hat

9/26: College Spirit Day - Show off your favorite college

We are excited to share the PTO has a new site devoted to all things MLK.

You can follow this link to check out the site, and find our flyer attached!

This upcoming week will be MLK Safety Week. Nothing is more important each day at our school than the safety of our students. Throughout this week we will focus on a few important goals...

1. Emphasizing the importance of our safety here at MLK each day.

2. Preparing for a variety of safety situations in various areas of the school.

3. Opening up a dialogue about safety and answering any questions regarding school safety that may be on the minds of students or staff.

Our Piscataway school safety procedures are well established and constantly reinforced throughout the year in our schools. At home, please consider talking to your student about the importance of keeping themselves and everyone safe. Student should always communicate with trusted adults about anything concerning, and parents can always bring any concerns expressed at home to the attention of the administration.

The National Safety Council, NJ Department of Ed, and many other online resources are available for parents to help generate these conversations. Please feel free to reach out to my attention at akehoe@pway.org if you have any questions regarding any safety items here at MLK.

On Monday, September 8th, The Music Shop will present an instrument demonstration for our 4th graders and any new students.

Ms. Kim, Mr. Plesnarski, and Dr. Sato will share more information about joining Choir, Band, and Orchestra during the remainder of the week.

Students will be given a welcome letter and packet that will contain sign-up and instrument rental information.

Our Back to School Night is scheduled for Wednesday, September 17th at 6:00pm.

I highly encourage all parents to attend this informative night! More information on our Back to School Night Schedule, including the evening's agenda, will come in next week's Snapshot!

You can fill out a repair ticket for your child's iPad at any time! Coming to school with a working device is important. If your child's device has been damaged in any way please use the following link to bring this to the attention of the district IT department.

Our birthday procedures at the Intermediate level have been updated for this school year. Please read carefully before planning any celebrations!

From the Intermediate Student Handbook:

All parents are strongly encouraged to review the letter regarding Parent access to the Schoology learning platform.

In the letter attached to this week's newsletter from Mr. Chris Irovando, our district Supervisor of Instructional Technology, you will find how to view your child's Schoology resources.

Please see below for an overview of our school-wide Social Emotional Supports at King.

In addition to individual and group counseling, we provide schoolwide support to all students through two initiatives - the Second Step SEL Program and our Pillars of Penguin Pride Positive Behavior Supports (PBIS) Program.

We want your child to be successful in school and that means supporting and encouraging their whole development. While excelling in academic classes is important, children also need skills to take on learning challenges, make good decisions, manage strong emotions, and get along with others.

We utilize resources from the Second Step SEL program, a research-based social-emotional learning program designed to improve children’s social-emotional skills. Second Step skills and concepts are designed to help children both in and out of school. Four units will cover the following:

We also want to continually recognize and celebrate our students. Positive Behavior Supports programs identify desired behaviors and recognize students that practice them around the school.

At King, we have identified a core behavior each month and recognition opportunities to encourage and promote schoolwide positive behaviors. This provides a fun schoolwide way to recognize our students.

Throughout the year we offer "lunch bunches" focused on specific social-emotional needs, individual counseling, and in class lessons along targeted themes for our students. Mr. Kaiafas, our wonderful school counselor, is always here to respond to any student needs. If you feel your child would benefit from any specific programming he can be emailed at nkaiafas@pway.org. You can also call the main office any time if looking for supports for your child.

President - Melissa Lieberman-Elimanco

Vice President - Deepna Javan

Treasurer - Jennifer DeQuattro-Haskin

Secretary - Rachel Sy