 The Irvington PTSA in partnership with the Irvington Union Free School District is excited to host two live Zoom events with Judith Warner, a New York Times best-selling author of “And Then They Stopped Talking to Me: Making Sense of Middle School” Through the stories of kids and parents in the middle school trenches, Warner reveals why these years are so painful, how parents unwittingly make them worse, and what we all need to do to grow up. With deep insight and compassion, Warner walks us through a new understanding of the role that middle school plays in all our lives and argues that today’s helicopter parents are overly concerned with status and achievement—in some ways a residual effect of their own middle school experiences—and that this worsens the self-consciousness, self-absorption, and social “sorting” so typical of early adolescence.  Join the PTSA for our annual spring fundraiser, celebrating and supporting our schools and our community.
Each year, our annual Spring Luncheon provides an opportunity for our community to gather, hear from interesting speakers, share a meal, and shop. This year we have created a virtual version of our annual event to capture the spirit of what we all loved and enjoyed in the past while remaining safe.  Join us for this year's PTSA March Madness Challenge!
Brackets are
Information to join the pool and complete brackets will be sent out after the field is announced on Sunday, March 14th. **50% of the entry fees collected will be available for prizes:
**50% will go toward PTSA programs Click here to purchase brackets. Please email irvmadness@yahoo.com with any questions.  Good news! We've extended the deadline to apply for PTSA scholarships to April 1, 2021. For decades the Irvington NY PTSA has awarded scholarships to graduating seniors who have made a commitment to continuing their education. This year the PTSA will award five $2000 PTSA Scholarship Awards to graduating seniors. In addition, applicants will also be considered for the Michele Buell Memorial PTSA Scholarship ($2000). Awards are paid directly to the recipient upon successful completion of the first semester in college.
 The Executive Committee of the Irvington NY PTSA serves as our leadership board and has fiscal responsibility for our operations. Roles on the Executive Committee provide a great volunteer leadership opportunity that can have a real impact on our school community. Each year, we run a selection process to nominate and elect new members of our committee. This year's process is now open! Read on to learn more about how our process works, and how you can get involved in PTSA leadership.
 Each year, the Irvington NY PTSA partners with Square 1 Art to help foster creativity in our school community while supporting our work in the schools. If you've never participated before, it's simple and easy to get started. Reminder: The deadline to submit art work online for IMS and IHS is February 5, 2021. For Dows Lane, the deadline has been extended to February 1. First, create a work of art.
After your art work is processed, you'll receive details on how to purchase keepsakes and gifts featuring your child's art! Every order will profit your school. Please note that, this year, purchased items can be shipped to your home only, not to the school.
For questions or if you need support, please email Marianne Chafizadeh or Stacy Ciaravella at mveehoff@aol.com or sciaravella@hotmail.com. 1/27/2021 Happy new year from the SCAFLD Committee Happy New Year from your SCAFLD co-chairs, Alejandro and Stacey! We hope that despite the current challenges we all face you remain healthy and happy. SCAFLD is a PTSA group created by parents/guardians in Irvington who have a child(ren) with learning differences, including (but not limited to!) those students with an IEP or 504. All parents/guardians are welcome! TELL US WHAT YOU THINK In order to better serve our community the SCAFLD committee would love to hear from you. Please fill out the survey which is strictly confidential. Tell us what you want, what we can do better and share your expertise with us! We want to hear from you! CAN YOU HELP? We want to provide a role for you in our group no matter your schedule or ability to commit and we want to connect our Irvington families. Sharing common experiences and lending an ear is always helpful. Younger families or families new to the district who have children with learning differences sometimes have questions or are in need of some support. Would you be available to listen to or chat with people who have questions? Please indicate your interest when you complete the survey, or send us an email at scafld.irvptsa@gmail.com. LET’S CHAT
We would love to connect and see you, even at distance! We have two virtual meetings planned where we hope to learn how your year is going, hear your feedback and grow our community. We have an evening Zoom planned for February 2nd at 7:30pm and a daytime zoom scheduled for March 2nd at 9:30am. Even if you can only make it for a little while, we would love to see you! Zoom link February 2nd https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87278436383?pwd=NnhCdGNzc3Mycmp2N3hKNVEyK2MyQT09 Zoom link March 2nd https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87164486026?pwd=bEE5N2ZKQlVNNlFtNzhURStpVXRlZz09 Please don't hesitate to reach out to us with your thoughts, suggestions and questions at scafld.irvptsa@gmail.com 1/27/2021 Announcing: The 2021 Read-a-Thon Event The PTSA is holding our annual Read-a-thon starting January 25 and running through February 5. It's a great way to encourage a love a reading with your kids while helping raise money for our school community. Let's get reading!
What's new this year? We're using Read-a-thon.com, an online provider, to help make it easier than ever to participate in the Read-a-thon. Children who attend Dows Lane, Main Street School and Irvington Middle School are welcome to participate. Irvington High School students can help support by cheering on their younger siblings and friends! How do I join the Read-a-thon? To participate, you'll need to activate your child's account. For children in Dows Lane and Main Street School, you should have received paperwork from your child's teacher with instructions. For Irvington Middle School, you can go directly to the site and search for your child's ELA teacher. To get started, go to our Irvington NY PTSA Read-a-Thon page and follow the onscreen instructions. It's fast and easy. How do we log our reading minutes? Once you've activated your account, your child will be able to login using their personal code to log their reading minutes on their own, or you can log minutes yourself by logging into the site. As your child logs reading time, they can earn rewards and fun prizes. How can I help with fundraising? You can participate in the Read-a-thon just by logging the minutes your child reads during the event. But part of the fun of the read-a-thon is helping to raise money for the school community. To do that, you'll want to find sponsors who are willing to support your child's efforts. Read-a-Thon.com makes this super easy. When registering your child on, you'll be provided with options to share your child's donation page on social media or via email with folks who might want to support -- think grandparents, coworkers, and friends. Not sure where to share? You can skip these steps during sign up; they'll be available to you anytime if you want to share later on. I need help or support! No problem! Reach out to use at irvingtonynyptsa@gmail.com and we'll be in touch just as soon as we can. 11/21/2020 HeadsUp Rivertowns Update: November 2020 It truly feels like a lifetime ago that our HeadsUp Rivertowns committee, which was created to bring education, awareness and support in creating a screen smart community, was implementing “screen smart” initiatives throughout the school districts in the Rivertowns.
Even in the virtual world we are all largely living in right now, there are still opportunities for our children (and ourselves) to be Screen Smart: Help your children with “smart screening”. We know that in the current world our kids may need to sometimes use their phones while attending virtual school, in particular to photo-submit work. However, what they don’t need for school are apps like Instagram and Snapchat. Did you know there is an easy (and free) way to schedule these apps to only work during non-school hours? Click here to learn how to set up “smart screens” for our children when they are learning at home. Protect our children's eyes and growing bodies. With all of this extra unwanted screen time, Irvington resident and Optometrist, Dr. Laurence Lonky suggests the 20/20/20 rule to protect our children's (and our) eyes. Every 20 minutes you should look up at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. Additionally, the computer should be 2 feet away. This article cites some good suggestions to protect our children's eyes. Irvington resident and Physical Therapist, Karen Gstalder-Dring has suggestions that will benefit our children's (and our) bodies considering the variety of the positioning, the chair/desk and the environment. Is the chair fitted to your child's size? What are the best ergonomics for the chair/computer screen on the desk? How can you have your child move a bit in their "home classroom? Please click here to read our latest blog from Karen. Need something to watch as a family over the Thanksgiving Holiday? Try The Social Dilemma. Highly recommended! We know this is a tough time for everyone, and we're all trying to keep our families safe, sane and healthy. We hope everyone has a happy and healthy Thanksgiving! 11/10/2020 Virtual Book Fair: November 15 - 22, 2020 Each year, the Irvington NY PTSA sponsors a Book Fair at Dows Lane Elementary School to help raise money for our community. This year, our Book Fair will take place virtually in partnership with Main Street Books, making it easier for everyone to participate.
How It Works Between Sunday, November 15th and Sunday, November 22nd:
You're Invited: A Special Read Aloud Event Join Dr. Kantor on Wednesday November 18th 12:30-1 pm via Google Meet for a special school-wide read aloud of It is (Not) Perfect by Anna Kang and The Color Monster by Anna Llenas. Can't join the read aloud live? Click here to view a recording. Browse Book Recommendations Teachers, staff and parents at our schools have compiled some lists of recommended books for your consideration.
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IRVINGTON NY PTSA | P.O. BOX 245 | IRVINGTON, NY 10533