A Few BITS from Ridgefield Public School Superintendent Dr. Susie Da Silva
Board of Education
In addition to the full-day Budget Workshop on Saturday, January 22, we also have a Board of Education Public Hearing and meeting on Monday evening. View agenda here. The Board of Education will receive an update on Special Education, and the Elementary Mathematics Collaborative Action Team.
The public will also have the opportunity to comment on the Superintendent’s 2022-23 Proposed Budget at the BOE Public Hearing at 7:00 p.m. on Monday evening. We encourage questions, comments, or wonders. We will be creating a Q & A document about the budget that will be available to the community and on our district website.
Registration Public Comment: Click here to register to speak on Monday evening.
Once registered you will receive an email allowing you to join the meeting as an audience member on Monday evening. When it is your time to speak you will be promoted to address the Board for three minutes. Be sure to have a working microphone/WebCam on your computer or device. You may register as early as today, however, be sure to access the link from your email on the day of the meeting
If you are only planning on viewing the meeting, you may access the meeting for viewing on YouTube.
Important Note: The Central Offices for the district moved to a new location late fall. This means the Board of Education has a new meeting space. However, because of the worldwide shortages of electronics, the space does not have the needed equipment to broadcast meetings and show presentations. The space is waiting on crucial components for a live audience to hear Board members/presenters speak as well as special hardware needed for ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance. We continue to work with our vendors to get these items in as soon as possible. Please be patient, and know that while we are not “in person” you may still access public comment via this link: (follow directions above).
RPS NEWS FOUND here!
Ridgefield Tiger Talk
Big sports update on this week’s episode! We welcome back to Tiger Talk Dane Street, the Athletics Director for Ridgefield High School. In this show he updates us on the current COVID protocols with winter sports; how those protocols might change; a lot of great sports news; and all the impressive charity work our athletes are doing. Thanks for listening!
Parent Workshop Rescheduled
If you click on the RPS YouTube Curriculum Channel now, you will see the previous workshop from the World Language Department called, “Learning a Language for Life.” The department leaders did a great job communicating what learning a language looks like and sounds like in RPS. This link is the same link that will be used for all of our virtual parent workshops. For even easier access to the channel, subscribe!
Health and Safety
Families can order four free COVID-19 tests kits per household via the USPS. To get tests for your household follow this link.
RPS has received about 1,500 additional rapid COVID-19 test kits from the state of CT. They will be distributed by our school nurses to symptomatic staff or students who need them.
Food Service
In last week’s newsletter, Chartwells Food Service shared a simplified explanation of the “Need to Know” information regarding the National School Lunch Program. We hope that information was helpful! This week, Chartwells would like to share a follow up - a simplified explanation of how the program applies to breakfast at Ridgefield High School. You can view this information here.
District-wide, our cafeteria teams have been working diligently to continue serving hot meals daily despite staffing challenges with the uptick in COVID-19 cases. This has resulted in some last-minute menu changes in schools. As a reminder, cafeteria menus can be viewed online or via mobile app “Nutrislice.” Menus for the month ahead go live on the 15th of each month. Please keep in mind that menus are subject to change as the supply chain continues to experience shortages nationwide.