Greetings Fashion Families from your Principal, Daryl Blank.
As you are planning your schedule for
the week, I hope you can attend our April Parents Association meeting this
Wednesday, April 10 at 6:00 pm in Room 821.
This Monday, April 8, HSFI families are invited to join our
Assistant Principal of Family Engagement Danielle Silva for coffee, bagels and
muffins from 9:00 am -10:00 am in room 127.
This is another opportunity for HSFI families to share their ideas and express
what is on their minds.
As I mentioned in last
week’s bulletin, we were being showcased this week by the NYC Department of
Education for our efforts with Social Emotional Learning and our partnership
with Yale University as well as our collaboration with Harvard University in
trying to have discussions around race and equity. Thursday was the day of these conferences and
I wanted to share that the showcases went extremely well. It is important that we all recognize how the
Social Emotional Learning and Race & Equity efforts complement one
another. Access to Social Emotional Learning is an equity issue – our
students’ access to these SEL tools is critical for them and their ability to
function now and in the future. At the same time, discussions about race
create discomfort and bring out a lot of emotions in people, in both adults and
children, and if we are going to have these conversations with one another, we
need to have the emotional intelligence to handle these emotions. We need
to understand how Social Emotional Learning and Race & Equity are not
separate entities, but are done in tandem with one another. We should all be very proud that we are
leading these efforts in the largest school district in the country!
All Fashion families
should check out the ‘Student Opportunities’ page on our school website. Applications from Summer Youth Employment
2019 are now available. This page has a long list of opportunities that HSFI
students can apply to including summer programs. You should check it out on a regular basis as
new opportunities are constantly being added to the page. The link on the website is:
If your child needs working papers, please visit Ms. Trotta
in Room 101. Working papers take one school day to process if the
application is submitted with all the proper documentation. Please note
that all applicants need a letter from their pediatrician on official
letterhead stating they are fit to be employed. School physicals cannot be used
in place of a pediatrician's letter.
I receive
a weekly message from the NYC Department of Education about how many Fashion
Families have done their Parent Survey – right now we are at 14% which means that
only 214 HSFI families out of over 1600 families have completed the survey. This is way below our percentage from last
year when over one third – 36% - of HSFI families did their survey. The deadline to complete the survey has been
extended to Thursday, April 11. Please
fill out the survey – we need a high percentage of Fashion families to fill out
the survey and show all of NYC what HSFI is all about.
You can fill out the survey in 2 different ways – by filling
out the paper survey that you receive in the mail in a green envelope or you
can fill it out online.
To complete the survey online:
(1) Go to nycschoolsurvey.org.
(2) Click on the link to the parent and guardian survey.
(3) Enter your access code found at the bottom of your paper
survey.
(4) Complete the survey.
(5) Click ‘Submit’.
If you don’t receive a survey in the mail? Don’t worry! You
can also call the school at (212) 255-1235 where we you can get your Access
Code for the survey or call the NYC Department of Education at 1-877-819-2363 to get an Access Code to
complete the survey online.
I would be so grateful if you filled out the survey to reflect all
the hard work that I, along with my staff, put into making HSFI a unique
learning community. Please consider how
we work to build partnerships and relationships with you as Fashion Parents to
help your children learn, perform to their highest levels and meet their needs
inside and outside the classroom.
Students’ needs are met academically through challenging instruction and
industry partnerships connected to our fashion, art and business major classes;
social-emotionally through all our clubs and activities, Fashion Dollars and
our partnerships with Yale University and Harvard University; and health-wise with
our School Based Health Center that provides free health and dental care to all
Fashion students.
Please consider all our communication efforts – my weekly Sunday
at 5:00 pm phone calls and emails through School Messenger; our use of Jupiter
Grades for messages and updating you on your child’s grades; our maintenance of
a private website along with social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram; and an Assistant Principal specifically devoted to Family
Engagement and who makes sure all parent communication with the school is
followed up on.
Please consider our weekly invitations for you to volunteer at the
school. Please consider our Family
Visitation Days in the Fall and Spring where families are invited into the
school to observe classes and see your children and our teachers in
action. Please consider our invitations
to you to attend student performances like our SING musical production and the
Holiday Windows Unveiling with Barneys NY – these invitations will heat up in
the Spring with our annual Fashion Show, the International Center of
Photography exhibit and our Senior Art Show.
HSFI parents’ participation in these NYC Department of Education
surveys mean a tremendous amount to me, so please when you get the survey, fill
it out to reflect our efforts to make the High School of Fashion Industries the
best school possible!
It is critically important that all
HSFI students check their HSFI email & Jupiter Grades everyday. We will be sending important information out
through these tools – if students do not check them, they will miss out on some
valuable opportunities and not know what is going on in the school.
Thank you! Again, please fill out the family survey if
you have not done so.
