Dear Families,
Tomorrow evening is Curriculum Night at NPE. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn about all the wonderful things your child does when he/she is in school. It is also the first step in building a positive relationship with the adults in your child's life. My welcome message will stream to your child’s classroom at 6pm. Session 1 will run from 6:10-6:30 and session 2 from 6:40-7:00 pm. This year we are having parent teacher conferences centrally located in the NPE Café. The courtyard doors will be open at 5:30 for conference sign-up. The Café will have a sheet for each teacher and will be available until 7:15. We look forward to sharing in the excitement of the year ahead, together we will help each child succeed.

We also look forward to our new adventures with the NAO Robot. I am sure the kids of NPE will be supporting our learning journey.

Monday September 29th is the first 1/2 day with an 11:20am dismissal. We will kick off our Mindfully Green school-wide project days with an exciting opening. Staff will spend the afternoon studying and learning new technology and instructional methods that new tools will support.

Thank you for all you do, and for sharing your child with us.

Warm regards,

Dana Ziegler

Principal

The NPE Back to School Picnic is one of my favorite events. The turn out is overwhelming and excited students, families and staff members fill the NPE grounds, even when the weather is less than ideal. The extra twist with the ice bucket challenge this year, allowed Superintendent Potter to see the wonderful, child-centered community we have at NPE. I couldn’t have been more proud to show off NPE and I appreciate Mr. Potter’s support for all we do for our kids.

We started our week, early Monday morning, with our first official Safety Committee meeting. The NPE Safety Committee meets monthly to address health and safety concerns, and to go through tabletop drills for all types of safety situations. Practice, and thoughtful discussion is the cornerstone of the safety practices we employ at NPE. We have also begun our first type of drill we will focus on this year, fire drills. Ask your child to tell you what this looks like at NPE.

This week, we have our first PTO Meeting at 6:30 in the NPE library. I will share with our families, how we met our learning goals for the 2013-2014 school year and all the exciting plans and goals we have for the 2014-2015 school year.

Mindfulness is going very well throughout NPE. Ask your child to share with you what they know about Belly-Breathing!

Another great week is well underway!

Thank you for sharing your children with us, together we can support each child!

Warm regards,

Dana Ziegler

Principal

NPE Families,

A few days have come and gone for the 2014-2015 school year at NPE and the enthusiasm and excitement felt by all is overwhelming. The staff is ready to challenge students and explore with new tools, and methods of instruction. Mindfulness is a big focus for us this year connecting our hearts and minds to help each of us thrive. We are gathering all types of information and data with your child, to best serve him/her this year. Our PTO have many exciting events planned starting with this week's back to school picnic. To say we are more than ready, is an understatement.  Hope to see you all at the Back to School Picnic! Together, we will all learn and grow to provide the best for each child at Nate Perry!

Dear NPE Families,
The entire learning community is growing each day with excitement for the return of our kids. We have planned many wonderful events, set up activities to build classroom communities and collaborated on ways to connect families to NPE and learning throughout the school year.

You will receive an email requesting your input for Curriculum Night. Please take a moment to click the link and provide us with your opinions.

Our website has a new look, which will allow you to have up-to-date information via the Twitter Feed, Nate Perry News(blog), the news alerts and more. We continue to grow in ways to utilize this tool, but I look forward to providing our families more up-to-date information via this resource rather than utilizing a newsletter.

With the increasing demands of the Food Regulations, as well as allergies, birthday celebration at NPE will continue to take place, but will utilize non food methods for celebration. Your child's classroom teacher will explain the classroom procedures for birthdays in more detail in the weeks to come.

Our building will be studying the most current research on homework practices throughout this school year. With the current research we will only be providing students with homework in reading or writing and math with developmentally appropriate expectations at each grade level. Homework is to serve as routine and practice not a frustration for a child or parent. We are all committed to working together and  assuring our homework practices are in line with our vision and hopes for what is best for the whole child. We will include you in these discussions and our research through the year.

Important Events
Sept 3rd- K-Orientation 11am
                 Find Your Classroom- 2-3pm
Sept 4th-  First Day of School
Sept 9th- Picture Day
Sept 11th- Back to School Picnic 5-7
Sept 23rd- Curriculum Night 6-7
Sept 29th- 1/2 day Professional Development Day 11:20 dismissal

Warm regards,
Mrs. Dana Ziegler
Principal

School is just around the corner and my excitement for the return of students and staff continues to grow. Kindergarten Orientation will take place on September 3rd from 11-12 beginning in the NPE Cafe. Find your Classroom for 1-6 graders will take place from 2-3pm on September 3rd as well. September 4th is the first day of school and our day begins at 8:20am. 

Get your smiles ready for September 9th is Picture Day

Our annual Back to School Picnic will be held on September 11th from 5-7 in the back playground. Families can come and building positive relationships with the entire NPE learning community.

As welcome back letters arrive this week, remember that at NPE we pride ourselves on everyone supporting every child for him/her to reach his/her fullest potential in a collaborative learning community.

Mark your calendars for Curriculum Night on Sept. 23rd from 6-7:30pm.

Thank you for sharing your children with us on our journey this year!

Summer time at NPE brings a variety of activity, and people always ask me, "What do you do all summer?"So I thought I would share as we are a few weeks into the summer what I am actually doing when I am at school.  I continue to reflect and take the feedback from this past school year and plan out many details of the upcoming school year.  My excitement for the 2014-2015 school year continues to grow. I had the pleasure of meeting and planning with our PTO Officers this week and I am excited about the collaboration, support and events for the upcoming school year. Summer is a funny time for me as it is drastically different than the school year, without kids and many adults there is time to slow down think and plan, but I do miss the kids, adults and all the action quite a bit! Our custodial staff is amazing and they continue to work to clean and set up all of our learning spaces. In the office, we too are busy ordering, organizing mailings and welcoming new students as they arrive to us. We have a good amount of trainings too in the summer for teachers but also for the administrative group to continue to focus and plan for the vision in Liverpool.
My goal this year is to blog weekly to give an honest, open reflection and update to the NPE Community. I hope everyone is reading and enjoying some summertime fun!

Dear Nate Perry Families,

As the school year comes to a close, our minds and hearts are filled to the brim. It’s been a great year! What a school! Together we’ve learned much and shared experiences that will long remain with us in the years to come. The strength of our community and wholehearted passion to make our school a wonderful place of learning for our children primarily, but for all of us, makes Nate Perry a truly a special place.

I want to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful PTO for all the time and attention they give to our children. We have many families who give of their time to our classrooms and our school in so many different ways. Even the smallest donation, and support goes a long way for our kids. I look forward, and thank our newest officers for volunteering their time for the 2014-2015 school year. At NPE, we strive to have our families connected and a part of our school, and next year we will continue to work towards this goal.

Please remember summer time is a time for children to learn, grow and play outdoors with less structure. Reading and maintaining fact fluency are easy ways to keep our brains connected to our learning. The summer months at NPE are quieter, but very busy with the exciting plans for the year ahead. I always welcome feedback.

If you are looking for a good summer read, The Mindful Child, by Susan Greenland is a book many of the staff will be reading to gear up our teaching of the whole child and Mindfulness next school year. I wish everyone a joy filled summer, and hope our 6^th graders leave Nate Perry with pride for the accomplishments and a taste for the opportunities and learnings ahead.