Jefferson School Strides Confidently into 2023
january 5, 2023
Jefferson Primary School students and faculty welcomed the new year by striding confidently in 2023. The building welcomed students for the first time nearly 60 years ago and it hasn’t missed a beat since then.
“I want to extend my thanks to faculty, staff, parents and students for everything that they do to make Jefferson Primary School a wonderful community school,” Principal Valerie Capitulo-Saide said. “It gives me a great sense of joy and gratitude to work with our students, staff and families each day. Our school is truly a community school and it is at this time of year that the closeness of our students and staff and our abundant feelings of care and good will shine through.”
Ms. Capitulo-Saide has been Jefferson’s principal since August 2012. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative studies-dance at Hofstra University and a Master of Science in elementary education at LIU-C.W. Post College, where she also obtained a certificate in educational administration.
It gives me a great sense of joy and gratitude to work with our students, staff and families each day. Our school is truly a community school and it is at this time of year that the closeness of our students and staff and our abundant feelings of care and good will shine through.
“I wish all Jefferson families peace, joy, hope and happiness throughout the New Year,” Ms. Capitulo-Saide said. “Aligned with our school-wide parent engagement goal, our school has been busy planning special events to engage all of our families.”
Jefferson galloped into January with many successful initiatives and events already in the history books for 2022/23.
“The fall and early winter have been a great success at Jefferson Primary School,” Ms. Capitulo-Saide said. “This fall, we hosted a parent engagement night focused on the implementation of our newly adopted Reveal Math program and social and emotional learning. We also held our annual costume parade in our traffic circle with many guests visiting us. Later in the fall, we hosted a dual language math night hosted by our dual language coordinator Desire Lahoz and supported by all our dual language teachers Cristina Campagnoli, Yesenia Cortes, Wendy Gallo and Flor Salmeron. Dual language parents and guardians learned about how their children learn math in their dual language classrooms.”
Jefferson is able to boast of having held 250 parent-teacher conferences as well as having opened its doors to over 150 families as “reading buddies” during American Education Week.
ENL program parent orientations were hosted several times thanks for Jefferson’s parent liaison Dr. Julissa Garris-Shade.
Jefferson’s seventh annual STEM night was coordinated by RtI math teacher Luz Marotta. “Families engaged in hands-on science, technology, engineering and math activities,” Ms. Capitulo-Saide said.
December saw Jefferson host its first in-person holiday read aloud event led by reading specialist Lisa Sejarto. “Mrs. Claus” and her elves served free cookies and milk and handed out crafts to go along with the holiday read alouds.
“We ended 2022 hosting an amazing winter songfest directed by Ashley Berrell, our new music teacher,” Ms. Capitulo-Saide said. “Students enthusiastically sang holiday songs with an audience full of families and friends.”
The fun and learning resumed on Tuesday morning as Jefferson ushered in 2023 to much fanfare before getting back to work.