Mount Pleasant 
Central School District
newsLINK  Superintendent Email
Dear Parents and Guardians,

Welcome Back!

The 2015-16 school year officially opened on Tuesday, Sept. 2 and the Mount Pleasant Central School District staff welcomed our students back to school for an exciting new year. It was a very smooth opening day with students acclimating quickly to the new classes that will define their year.

Knowing that first day bus runs can vary as picture taking and greeting friends, neighbors and bus drivers takes place, the opening day transportation schedule went pretty well. It can take a week for the buses and students to fall into a routine, so please bear with us during these important first days. We will be monitoring the ridership of all morning and afternoon buses to ensure that the routes continue to run efficiently. If you have other bus concerns, please contact Andrew Lennon, our new director of business administration, via email at  alennon@mtplcsd.org.

Speaking of new, we wish to welcome the cadre of recently-hired staff members and administrators to our district, including Terry Outhouse, our new assistant principal at Hawthorne and Columbus, Anne Stern, the new principal at Hawthorne, Dr. Adam Bronstein, new principal at Westlake Middle School, and Mr. Lennon who will head the business office. All of our new staff is enthusiastic about joining the Mount Pleasant school community and quite eager to get to know you and your children. We are excited to welcome each of them.   

Teaching and learning
Academically, our district continues to focus on excellence as classrooms remain centered on students engaged in critical thinking, creating, collaborating and communicating through all subject areas. We welcome the highly-regarded professional developer and expert in differentiated instruction, Cindy Strickland, to Mount Pleasant this year. The professional learning led by Ms. Strickland will increase our teachers' instructional expertise and allow them to share best practices in creating learner-centered environments that provide all students with choices of how to learn and how to demonstrate their learning. We also look forward to continuing our association with the Tri- State Consortium of high performing school districts and to welcoming these critical friends back to Mount Pleasant in early December. During the December visit, Tri-State will help us reflect on literacy at the elementary level. There will be much more information on this as the year gets underway.

Food service update
Due to overly restrictive compliance issues and nutritional guidelines and decreased student participation, Mount Pleasant will no longer participate in the National School Lunch Program. We welcome a new food service management company, Chartwells, that will offer our students nutritious and well-balanced meals on a daily basis.  Some noticeable changes to the program will include increased portion sizes and a new variety of meal selections. Chartwell's K-12 food service is now serving lunch (and breakfast at Westlake) to our students. Menus are available on our school websites and we're hoping that this year is delicious!  We will continue to offer free and reduced meals to those families who qualify under the 2015-16 Income Eligibility Guidelines established by the National School Lunch Program and qualify and complete an application available on the district's Food Service web page.

Building maintenance
This summer our operations and maintenance team led by Ed Kear did an incredible job on preparing our schools to welcome students back on opening day. Our school facilities continue to be addressed in increments. This summer, some of the work completed includes a renovation to the high school lobby, guidance office and cafeterias. The high school kitchen was given a facelift as well. The completed work included the addition of LED lighting that is energy and cost efficient. The high school auditorium roof was patched, the gym has new curtains and banners, the middle school gym floor was refinished and LED lights are being installed. Columbus Elementary has new curbs and the 1950's boiler plant is scheduled for replacement. All of this work will be completed using funds originally allocated for a tax certiorari reserve fund and funds budgeted in the annual budgets. As part of this ongoing process to address the aging infrastructure of our schools, the district has hired a new architectural firm, H2M, who will conduct the NYS mandated Building Condition Survey for us. A master plan for the facilities will be developed and the facilities work will be ongoing.

As we begin the new year as partners in education, I am confident that together we can make all things possible for your children.

I look forward to seeing you throughout the year and hearing from you as well! Have a great first week of school.

Regards,

Dr. Susan Guiney,
Superintendent of Schools


 
MPCSD Bell

Looking Ahead

September 7
Labor Day
School closed

September 8
Modified Sports begin

September 9
WMS Picture Day

BOE Work Session
7:30 p.m. District Office

September 10
CES Back to School Night
6:30 p.m.
    
MPCSD News 
Thornwood, New York 10594

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