Author: mrsfoxe

We were all sorry to hear our wonderful principal Mr Richard Marowitz made the decision to retire earlier this year. Mr Marowitz has been an integral part of P255Q for over 20 years. During his career he has been an instrumental advocate for students with disabilities in District 75. He has seen our marvelous school grow from its infancy to eight sites. We are excited to be honoring him at a retirement party in October.

Although we are sorry to lose Mr Marowitz, the staff of P255Q was delighted to hear that Gregg Lopez was formally appointed principal of our school on June 21st. Mr Lopez began his career with P255Q as a teacher and has been assistant principal with our school for over 16 years. He has supervised almost every site at one time or another and is very familiar with all our staff and students, making him the perfect leader to continue with the vision and mission of our school. Congratulations, Gregg. We welcome you as our new principal and look forward to working with you.

Teachers across all sites have been brainstorming how to improve our communication with parents. At 397Q some teachers began to use their new technology skills and resources to create class websites so parents can see some of the amazing work that their students are doing in their classrooms. Here are links to the first ones to be published. I hope there are more to follow soon. Click through the links to explore the wonderful work our teachers and students are doing.

Ms Melissa’s Class

Ms Victoria’s Class

Technology Lab News

Ms Clara’s Art Class

We had a very exciting morning on January 24th at 397 when Mr Marowitz, all four Assistant Principals, City Councilman Costa Constantinides, Lt. Suzanne Catoggio, commanding officer of Patrol Borough Queens North’s School Safety Division, Josephine Morales, former unit coordinator at  our P151 site, and some of our amazing parents of current and past students came to celebrate the official opening ceremony of our new building with us.

We started the celebration with a few words from Mr Marowitz, former PTA presidents, Victor Ty and Nora Echart, and Mr Constanitinides who gave us the fantastic news that we are getting a grant for a technology upgrade! Then, teachers Ms Jennifer and Ms Rebecca brought tears to our eyes with their fantastic presentation remembering the chaos of packing up while teaching summer school, the complicated logistics of moving an entire school, setting up 17 classrooms and finally some words about our new luxurious-to-us surroundings.

Miss Victoria’s class outdid themselves with their words about what they love about our new building. Afterwards, we headed outside for a ribbon-cutting ceremony with a real-life drumroll, followed by the awarding of Honorary P255Q Member certificates to our wonderful advocates. The morning ended with a quick tour of some of our fantastic new learning spaces and classes for the attending parents. It really was a wonderful morning and we hope to have many more such events in our wonderful new building. Thank you so much to all that made it happen and of course to our wonderful coordinator Katie McLaughlin who makes it all work. You can check out some videos and photos of the event at our photo site here.

Wishing all our families a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. We have fabulous Thanksgiving feasts happening across our sites. Thank you all for your kind donations. Our students are having a fantastic time and really appreciate it.

Here is a link to some marvelous Thanksgiving work created by some of the students at our Q397 site.

Thanksgiving Site

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

The last few days of summer school at 151 were hectic to say the least. Trying to keep our students occupied and engaged between last-minute packing, labeling and the loading of the giant moving trucks, alongside the ongoing refurbishment of the roof of the main building was rather challenging. Our students got lucky with a few extra trips and had plenty of fun bowling, at the movies and in the park. We thought we’d share a few of our moments as we said goodbye to our trailer park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But look where we are going!

 

School reopens on September 7th at 8.10. All former Q255@151 students should report to Q397.  32-52 37th Street, Astoria, NY 11103.

See you all there for the next chapter!

We had lots of edible, under-the-sea, seafood-free fun at our 151 site this week as we celebrate the last weeks of summer school. It’s a bitter-sweet time for us as these are also our last days at 151 in the little trailer park that we have now outgrown. Although, we are moving on to bigger, better things at our new PS397 site, we have been here a long time and we don’t all do so well with change.

Our culminating event was a Jr Chef competition. Students worked really hard, aided by our amazingly creative paraprofessionals and teachers. We created grocery lists, took community walks to shop at local stores (they will miss us!) and used joint-action routines to create some of the most remarkable under-the-sea themed feasts for our judges to taste.

 

Our judges were the wonderful school-aide Rosemarie and our favorite summer nurse Phong but students were especially delighted to see the special guest judge, their friend, Josephine. Dishes were marked on presentation, creativity and taste. Congratulations to the winners in each team Ms Rebecca’s class, Mr Shaun’s class and Ms Jenny’s class but it was agreed that all the dishes were amazing in their own special way.