Dear Parents and Guardians,

March is here and we are all looking forward to winter’s end and thrilled that Punxsutawney Phil has predicted an early spring! The better weather is noticeable at recess, but there are still plenty of cold days ahead, so continue to send your children in with appropriate outerwear for outdoor recess each day. If your child is missing any gloves, hats or jackets, we have a healthy pile growing in our lost and found. Please have your child check for any lost items.

Important upcoming dates at Red Mill:

• March 4 – Red Mill Talent Show 7 p.m.
• March 10 – 5th grade Parent Orientation at Goff M.S. 6 p.m. (5th grade parents)
• March 12 – Grandparents and Special Friends Day 9:30 a.m.
• March 20 – Staff Professional Development Day – no school for students
• March 25,26 – NYS ELA Assessments (Grades 3,4,5)
• March 26 – Purple Day-(Districtwide) Epilepsy Awareness Month
• March 31 – Spirit Day: Twinning!

Student participation for our Read for Ronald McDonald House initiative has been strong. Students have been diligently reading and have some extra incentives to help reach our goal for pledge totals and participation rate. If we reach 50 students participating, I will dress as a book character (students choice!) for the day….and if we reach our donation $ challenge, Ms. Griffin, our Librarian, who is coordinating the drive, has bravely volunteered to get a pie in the face! Keep Reading!

CHARACTER CORNER: Our guiding principles during the winter months were Compassion, Tolerance and Integrity. 1st grade teachers and students led our Compassion assembly using an acrostic to demonstrate compassion and empathy. In January, our P.E., Music and Art staff, along with some of our 5th grade students showed the school the meaning of tolerance and and led us in signing the Red Mill Pledge against bullying during our assembly. Our pledge banner is hanging loud and proud in our cafeteria, signed by every student. Students from Mr. Harde and Mr. Wicks classes led our February assembly on Integrity with a great skit and hilarious video enjoyed by all.

VIP CLASSROOMS OF THE MONTH:
The following classrooms were recognized by our special area teachers for exemplary behavior and efforts in Art, Music, P.E., Library and the Cafeteria:

Best of the Bus
Congratulations to the following students who were recognized by their bus drivers for being outstanding riders, respectful and helpful: Ciara Cramer, Abigail Raymond, Filip Johnson, Talida Johnson, Andrea Johnson, Hunter Charland, Leo Gauvin, Peyton Charland, Vincent Jones, Xavier Anderson, Kaisyla Hamlin, Chance Scott and Gracie Carey. Thank you to these students for the example they set on our buses!

Student Council
Our Student Council Members have been working on a School Mascot Project! Students generated a list of Red Mill Mascot ideas and sent a survey to the staff and student council members. The mascot has been narrowed down to the two top vote getters from the survey: the Red Mill Robins and Red Mill Raptors. Now students are working with our Art teachers to design a mascot logo for both the Robin and the Raptor, so that our entire student body can have the final vote on their favorite and select our RED MILL MASCOT. We will be bringing in a real (old style) voting booth so our entire student body can experience an authentic voting process! Stay tuned……We hope to have our new mascot selected soon!

Spirit Days
Student Council has planned several school spirit days! Our first was mismatched-crazy clothes day and the students really got in the spirit, lots of zany outfit combinations and mismatched socks were seen all over school. This past Friday we had Team Day! Red Mill was full of Yankees, Mets, Rangers, Bruins and Red Sox gear, just to name a few. Our next school spirit day will be held on: TUESDAY MARCH 31- Twinning day!

Sincerely,

Helen Squillace
Principal

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