Dear Parents,

 On behalf of the staff of P.S. 186, we would like to thank all of the parents we were able to meet with and talk to during our November Parent-Teacher conferences. We are proud to announce that 992 of our 1060 families came to meet with our teachers. We were also very excited to welcome many of our families during our many feasts and Family Fun Friday events over the past few weeks. It’s wonderful to see the partnerships that have been formed between our teachers and our parents and we look forward to continuing to work together to ensure a successful school year for your child. We have so many more events to come so we hope you can join us!

 Thank you for all your contributions to our Thanksgiving Food Drive and Operation Gobbler Giving which helped feed 40 families. Join the District 20 Day of Giving on December 5th, as we come together to help the families in Paradise, California.  Our students will be making cards and sending good wishes to the students displaced by these fires. We look forward to spreading some cheer to those in need with all the toys we will collect during our annual toy drive on December 7th. All students are invited to come in wearing pajamas on Thursday, December 20th and donate a dollar to support the PJ’s for PJ Foundation to help raise awareness and find a cure for DMD.

 Please continue to bring your color-coded flyers with you tour special events and your photo ID with you each day. We also ask that you kindly use the front door ONLY when entering and exiting our building. All other doors are alarmed for the safety of all members of our school community.

 With the weather and temperature changing, we remind all students to come dressed appropriately with coats, hats and gloves, weather permitting, our goal is to take our kids out for recess! Effective Wednesday, January 2nd, we will begin indoor line-up. All students should enter through the schoolyard gates where they will proceed into the building to report to their indoor line-up locations.

 Please continue to enforce good habits that include wearing school uniforms, completing homework and coming to school on time prepared with the right tools to succeed! On behalf of the entire P.S. 186 school family, we would like to wish you all a wonderful holiday season and a happy healthy new year!

September 5, 2018

Dear Families,

I hope you had a terrific summer, and that you are as excited about the year ahead as I am. It is a delight to welcome you to the 2018–19 school year. 

I was up before my alarm this morning, my mind racing with thoughts about all the incredible things we are going to do together this school year. This is my first full year as your Chancellor, and my focus this year is on the 1.1 million students here in New York City—and my promise to make our public school system the fairest and strongest in the nation. 

I know that we can’t achieve that promise on our own—we need one another. My own parents entrusted me to the public school system. They relied on our schools to teach me English, and together with their support I became fully bilingual, and was the first in my family (alongside my twin brother) to attend college. Our families and educators are in this together, and we succeed together. We promise to meet you where you are and get information to you where and when you need it. You play a key role in your children’s education, and we are here to help you make critical decisions about their future.

We understand that you are entrusting your children to us, and we do not take that responsibility lightly. We promise to teach your children in safe, welcoming schools, and hold high expectations for their success. We will challenge your children academically and support them socially and emotionally. We will deliver excellence through equity, so that every student graduates from high school with the ability to write well, think like a scientist, understand history, and learn computer science. We will teach all of our students to think critically, speak passionately about important issues, and work in teams to achieve big things. These are the skills needed to succeed in the 21st century.

Together, we will make 2018–19 a year of high expectations, a year of equity and excellence, a year in which we lift all our students to greater heights.

Thank you for your support. I wish you and your children a wonderful start to the school year.

In unity,

Richard A. Carranza
Chancellor

This year our school will continue to participate in an innovative program called Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC). BIC is a free breakfast program that aims to alleviate hunger and ensure all students are ready to learn each day. 

 Our school selected the "Grab and Go" delivery option.  Children arriving before the school day begins between 7:20 and 7:50 AM may have breakfast in the cafeteria before morning line-up.  Children arriving after that time make take their "grab and go" breakfasts up to their classrooms from a station at one of the entrances.  Once in the classroom, these students eat at their desk while the teacher takes morning attendance, teaches a short lesson, and/or reads announcements. 

We live in a world surrounded by technology, and we know that whatever field our students choose to go into as adults, their ability to succeed will increasingly depend on understanding how technology works. However, only a tiny fraction of us are learning how technology works. Fewer than half of all schools teach computer science.

That’s why our entire school is joining in on the largest learning event in history: The Hour of Code, during Computer Science Education Week (December 4-10). More than 100 million students worldwide have already tried an Hour of Code.

Our Hour of Code is making a statement that PS 186 is ready to teach these 21st century skills. To help us in this initiative, we encourage you to work with your son or daughter at home on the activities on code.org (http://hourofcode.com/us) so that they can continue their learning of Computer Science.  

We are excited to be a part of this important initiative and look forward to sparking students’ interest in Computer Science.  See http://hourofcode.com/us for details, and help spread the word.