The Fashionable Times Blog Principal's Message 5.27.19

Greetings Fashion Families from your Principal, Daryl Blank.

I hope you all have enjoyed a nice Memorial Day weekend.

As you are planning your schedule for the week, I hope you can attend our May Parents Association meeting this Wednesday, March 29 at 6:00 pm in Room 821.  This month’s Parents Association meeting is ‘Sketch Night.’  All HSFI families are encouraged to attend this amazing event, a full night of live model sketching and free art supplies. Dinner will be served and attendees will receive a metro card. 

We have 3 weeks of classes left before Regents examinations.  Make sure your children know this and appreciate the importance of finishing the school year strong.  Students must understand the grades that they receive in June will be the ones that colleges will see.  Make sure you and your children know that that student grades are cumulative, meaning that all grades count during a given term.  Grades do not start over with the third marking period and there are not separate grades for each marking period.  It is important that you and your children know where they stand in their classes and what needs to be done to pass if they are in danger of failing.  If a student fails a class, it should not be a surprise to you or them

I wanted to make all Fashion families aware of next week’s schedule.  Next Monday is the administration of the new Global History and Geography Regents that will be given to all our 10^th graders.  These 10^th graders are the only students in attendance next Monday.  Next Tuesday is no school in observance of the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr.  Next Thursday is a staff development day where school staff will be attendance, but no students will be in attendance.

All Fashion families should check out the ‘Student Opportunities’ page on our school website.  Applications for 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:

https://fashionhighschool.net/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=393273&type=d

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!

The Fashionable Times Blog Principal's Message 5.12.19

Greetings Fashion Families from your Principal, Daryl Blank.

First of all, Happy Mother’s Day to all of our HSFI Moms!

We have 5 weeks of classes left before Regents examinations.  Make sure your children know this and appreciate the importance of finishing the school year strong.  Students must understand the grades that they receive in June will be the ones that colleges will see.

This is an exciting week as our Fashion Shows are taking place.  We have two shows this week.  The first one is this Tuesday, May 14 at 7:00 pm and all Fashion families are invited.  There is no admission to this show.  This version of the show is different from the show will take place this Friday, May 17.  This Tuesday’s show will run a half hour and contain about half the fashions that will be shown on Friday.  This show is sponsored by our Advisory Board which is the group of fashion industry professionals that look out for the school.

Our public Fashion Show is this Friday, May 17 and will show all of the fashions designed by our senior class.  There will be two shows on Friday – one at 5:00 pm and one at 7:00 pm.  Tickets to the 5:00 pm show will be $5 and tickets for the 7:00 pm show will be $7.  All money raised from ticket sales will be reinvested in our fashion design program for next year’s show.  Tickets are available online at our HSFI Webstore - https://webstores.activenetwork.com/school-software/high_school_of_fashi/

HSFI looks great now as our entire lobby is decorated with amazing pieces of art from our senior art show and the fashion show window displays are up.

As I messaged to you on Friday, a NYC Department of Education official will be at the school to do a review of the school on Thursday and Friday.  They will be meeting with a group of Fashion parents.  The meeting will be from 12:15 pm to 1:00 pm in Room 821 at the school.  We need some parent volunteers to attend this meeting this Friday to share their positive experiences with the school.  I know so many families that would want to come to the meeting to show their support, but I know the timing might not be convenient with work and/or family responsibilities.  The reviewer will be asking parents about the following topics:

(1) How the school supports your children’s learning

(2) Your impressions of school culture

(3) The manner in which expectations are communicated and how you are able to partner with the school to help your children meet the expectations

(4) How the school sets goals and communicates with you

We can only have 10 families represent the school.  The reviewers will want a variety of parents representing different grades, so even though you volunteer, you might not get selected.  I appreciate you making yourself available.  I will let you know who is selected at the beginning of this week.  If you are available and would like to participate, please send me a message through Jupiter Grades OR send me an email at dblank@schools.nyc.gov OR fill out this Google document – here is the link: https://forms.gle/i1sj2AQknxTecZxx9 -  Please identify your child’s name and best contact number and/or email.

All Fashion families should check out the ‘Student Opportunities’ page on our school website.  Applications for 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:

https://fashionhighschool.net/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=393273&type=d

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!

The Fashionable Times Blog Principal's Message 5.5.19

Greetings Fashion Families from your Principal, Daryl Blank. 

We have 6 weeks of classes left before Regents examinations.  Make sure your children know this and appreciate the importance of finishing the school year strong.  Second marking period report cards were distributed this past Friday.  Counselors will be programming students for summer school based on these marking period two grades.  Students must understand the grades that they receive in June will be the ones that colleges will see.

It was great to see Fashion families at our student work showcases this past week that included the opening of our International Center of Photography exhibit and our Senior Art Show that featured our Graphics & Illustration students.  When you get a chance, please take some time to visit Room 821 (Principal’s Conference Room) to see the amazing photos in the International Center of Photography exhibit and the school lobby to see the spectacular art work from our seniors. The work is a testament to the community we have built here at HSFI to see these work products.

Our Fashion Show is next Friday, May 17.  There will be two shows – one at 5:00 pm and one at 7:00 pm.  Tickets to the 5:00 pm show will be $5 and tickets for the 7:00 pm show will be $7.  All money raised from ticket sales will be reinvested in our fashion design program for next year’s show.  Tickets are available online at our HSFI Webstore - https://webstores.activenetwork.com/school-software/high_school_of_fashi/

As always, our window displays will reflect the amazing work that our Visual Merchandising students do on a daily basis.

Our presentation at Harvard University’s  ‘Beyond Desegregation’ conference was very well received by attendees from all over the country.  Our biggest stars were three of our students who are taking leadership roles with this work – Analia Firpo (11^th grader), Ocean Hardwick (11^th grader) and Rukaiyaa Arssath  (11^th graders).  We shared our attempts to create a vision of race and equity at HSFI.  We have certainly not solved these issues, but we are headed in the right direction by trying to address them.  Thank you to all of you for the support of these efforts and feedback to improve the quality of our work.  We should all be very proud that we are leading these efforts in the largest school district in the country!

This week, May 6-10, is Teacher Appreciation Week.  Please feel free to email or send a Jupiter message to thank our teachers for their efforts and dedication to your children and the HSFI community.

All Fashion families should check out the ‘Student Opportunities’ page on our school website.  Applications for 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:

https://fashionhighschool.net/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=393273&type=d

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!