Maria L. Varisco-Rogers Charter School Home

EmPOWERment Friday's are electives built into the school day schedule for 7th and 8th graders to address SEL and provide an elective that they are interested in learning more about. The electives run 9 weeks, every Friday in two sessions. Students choose from Guitar Club, Gardening Club, Drama Club, Creative Arts, or Chess Club. Each student is in either female/male empowerment, where they openly discuss their social emotional topics related to them in a smaller group setting. This year we earned a Grant with Rutgers, called MAD Cool Girls, that will be joining our Female Empowerment classes, in February.

On Friday, November 17th, Mrs. Villanueva: the Director of ESL and Bilingual Education, invited Vida Fernandez a published author, to visit our school and read to our kindergarten students a special Thanksgiving book she wrote. The students were excited to hear all about Scar, The adorable and clever Rottweiler, who awakens to find chaos in his home on Thanksgiving. To see our students' faces light up with joy and wonder as they listened to Vida's words was breathtaking.

On Thursday, November 9th the students in Grades 3-8 had special visitors (Veterans from the VFW in Garfield) come speak to them about the importance of November 11th - Veterans Day. The students were very respectful and enjoyed hearing their stories, including Commander Hunter (the 4 legged friend). Thank you again to all Veterans!!!

Last night, November 29th, was our first Parent Engagement Night. The teachers focused on teaching parents various academic games they can play at home with their children to reinforce what is being taught in the classroom. The parents enjoyed all of the activities in which the teachers prepared ahead of time. Huge thank you to the following teachers and administrators who did a phenomenal job with the activities and engaging with the parents: Mrs. McCormick, Ms. Salazar, Mr. Mignogni, Ms. Gangala, Ms. Cerami, Mr. Posten, Mr. Chodes, Mr. Kreiger, Ms. Batista, Mr. Brown, Ms. Connolly, Ms. Fumero, Mrs. Fartura-Cortés and Ms. Carbonell. We look forward to starting the focused sessions in January 2024.