TPS Principal's Page

It was so nice to see so many families at the Open House this week! It's a great reminder of how fortunate we are and the value we all place on education. As we move into next week, the PTA was able to meet and exceed their goal of $20,000. As a building, we had over 72% participation and on average raised approximately $102/student! All of this means we have to plan for a pajama day, I have to prepare myself to be duct taped, and Mrs. DiFonso has to find a chicken suit! We'll plan to do all three on Tuesday (10/3) and limit the zaniness to one day.  "Third grade had an amazing trip this week visiting the Plimoth Patuxet Museum!  They were able to step back in time into a 17th-century English Village and Patuxet homesite.  Students saw the things they are learning about in their Massachusetts history books come off the page and into real life.  If you see them, be sure to ask them about their favorite parts of the trip." - Mrs. Kristoff As we approach cold and f...

I'd like to introduce our newest staff member. This week, we were lucky to have Caitlyn Lafleche join our team as a paraprofessional. She mostly works in 5th and 6th grades but we all know our paraprofessionals jump in to help everywhere so you may hear her name. This means we are nearly fully staffed! We are, however, still looking for help in the kitchen. We have a great team down there in a newly updated kitchen. If you'd like to learn more about joining us, please don't hesitate to reach out with questions or even better, apply here .  As we look ahead to next week I wanted to remind everyone that Wednesday is a half day with dismissal occurring at 11:55. Please make sure to update your School Dismissal Manager if your child's dismissal will be different on that day. If your child will be taking a different bus or getting off at a different stop, please send them in with a paper note as well to give to the driver.  This is followed by our Open House on Thursday even...

Bus riders! The DPW has been working overtime to get the roads back to where we need them to be. Starting on Monday most families can return to their typical bus stop. We will reach out specifically to those who need a new community stop. Thank you all for your patience on this! Despite the rain, there were so many cool things going on in the building this week I just have to share. In the 4th grade, students enjoyed a lesson about the migration patterns of monarch butterflies with special guest Jessie Trowbridge. Students learned about their migratory journey to Mexico and read the story "Ghost Wings." Afterward, they tagged a monarch and sent it on its journey outside. Did you know TPS had a monarch waystation garden for butterflies to stop at on their journey south?   The 6th grade started off the week with a challenge. Students were challenged to travel across "molten lava" (i.e. the outdoor basketball court) across "igneous rocks" (i.e. small dots). T...

We managed to survive the heat this week and I realized I never shared the approach we were taking. Based on the weather advisory, when the temperature was at or near 90 degrees and the humidity was over 60% (basically Wednesday and Thursday) we followed the  guidance  provided by our Nurse Leader and kept the kids inside. Believe it or not, it was actually cooler inside. We discovered quickly that if we kept the windows closed we could maintain the temperature inside better. It was still hot though as I'm sure you heard. We also encouraged plenty of water drinking and identified different spaces in the building that did have air conditioning that classes could visit. It was rough but the kids did great and the staff were the real heroes of the week. Thank you to everyone for your support.  This week, we kicked off with our first fire drill of the school year. We were all out of the building in about 2 minutes and everyone accounted for in about 3. It was a tremendous job...

It was a wonderful week back at TPS! I'm not sure what these kids ate over the summer, but they came back taller and with bigger smiles on their faces. It was fun to hear about everyone's summer vacations and the kids seemed genuinely happy to be back, even if the morning seemed to come earlier than they would have liked. We jumped right into routines and by today, the building was humming right along like we never left. Just a quick reminder that if you drop off after 8:25, you need to bring your students into the building and sign them in.  When I was talking with the incoming Kindergarten parents on Wednesday, I realized there was  something I forgot to talk about in my lengthy back-to-school communication (can you imagine if it was longer!). We value communication here at TPS and I try to model that by sharing out information every Friday. However, this only works if we have two-way communication. We need to hear from you if you have questions and/or concerns. We want to b...