“Let us encourage one another!” _{Hebrews 10:25}
 
Dear St. Peter’s School Families: 

I am honored to welcome you back to St. Peter’s School for the 2017--2018 School Year! I am truly privileged to serve you and your children as Principal of St. Peter’s School. 

As always, St. Peter’s School will strive to develop and express our Catholic identity by working closely with our Parish.  Please join me in welcoming Fr. Donald Kaufman, LC as the new pastor of St. Peter’s--St. Denis Church.   We are grateful for Fr. Kauffman’s commitment to continue our attendance at the 8 a.m. Mass each Friday (Grades PK-3, K-8).  Our weekly celebration of the Sacrament of the Mass allows our students to engage with and deepen their Catholic faith.  

St. Peter’s School students, like all students throughout the Archdiocese of New York, will participate in the NWEA MAP Assessment (Measure of Academic Progress).  MAP measures each individual student’s academic growth.  The first MAP assessment establishes your child’s current progress.  Our teachers will use the data to identify what our students are ready to learn, so our daily lessons can be differentiated to foster our students’ continued growth.  Subsequent MAP assessments will measure your child’s growth throughout the school year. 
As always, our students’ academic growth is important to us.  We will continue to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all our students.   

During the 2017--2018 school year, we will support our students’ academic growth by focusing on Math and language  fluency.  We will plan activities that will help our students learn their Math facts and that will strengthen their vocabularies.  We want our students to come to school each day ready to dive into learning!  

Our students will continue to benefit from the use of Blended Learning in Math and ELA for Grades 3-8.  This individualized program incorporates technology into our daily lessons.  We continue to expand our technology, which includes a Chromebook for each student (Grade K -8) to use in school, as well as an iPad cart for the Early Childhood Program (Pre-K 3 to 1  ^stGrade).  We are truly blessed! 

We are looking forward to upgrading our first-floor bathrooms. We are also going to renovate our Science Lab, thanks to the generous financial support of the American Sugar Refinery.   

We know our parents are our children’s first and most important teachers.  Please use the following online resources when you are helping your children with their schoolwork: 

Catholic Schools NY--The official Archdiocese of New York website. 
Engageny—The official New York State ELA and Math Curriculum website. 
Great MInds—The official Eureka Math website. 
  
As always, please feel free to contact me at school if you have any questions. 
  
Mrs. Sheila Alagia 
Principal