Students at John Pearl Elementary School are patriotic and proud. In fact, each Friday of the school year, the entire John Pearl community dresses in red, white and blue attire, and salutes the American flag. Second grade teachers Alicia Feinberg and Stephanie Bergen even took it upon themselves to apply for a grant from the Connetquot Foundation for the Advancement of Children, which supplied the large American flags that now fly in front of the school, surrounding the school sign.

This Memorial Day, students of all grade levels participated in a variety of activities to honor the nation’s heroes. Among these was a vibrant hallway displayed created by Diane Boccio’s third grade class, depicting American flags when viewed from one angle and saluting soldiers from another.

Valerie Calvo, a talented and civic-minded fifth grader from Idle Hour Elementary School, was recently chosen by Assemblyman Jarret Gandolfo as the winner of his Earth Day poster contest.

The contest was open to all fourth to eighth graders residing in New York’s State District 7 and its theme was “A Greener Long Island,” with the option to choose between the topics “saving water,” “preventing litter,” “saving animals,” and “energy champions.” Calvo’s winning poster is now being displayed in Gandolfo’s Albany office until Earth Day 2022. Posters by Idle Hour’s Kylah Getty and Olivia Buckley, as well as John Pearl’s Charlotte Maffetone and Sophia Stecker will also hang in Gandolfo’s local Bayport office.

Connetquot Central School District congratulates Calvo on this wonderful accomplishment and commends all the students who participated.

At John Pearl Elementary School, students don’t just learn about animal life cycles, they witness them firsthand – sometimes even in the palms of their hands. As part of their science curriculum, first graders in Sarah Vallone’s class and third graders in Diane Boccio’s class recently used an incubator to hatch chicks. In addition to learning about the structure and function of an embryo, the students have played an active role in each stage of the incubation process, observing and tracking the chicks’ growth along the way. They have also learned how to care for the chicks and adore holding them. Both classes are excited to continue watching their new furry friends develop.

An impressive array of multi-media artwork by six Connetquot students in Krystal Zaglool’s art classes was recently showcased in the children’s category of Suffolk County Art Leaders Association’s 2021 virtual art exhibition. The district congratulates Alondra Sorto (grade 5), Brooke Kelly (grade 2), Michael Winter (grade 4) and Valerie Calvo (grade 5), from Idle Hour Elementary School and Pola Szwedt (grade 4) and Caydence Shupack (kindergarten) from John Pearl Elementary School.

To view the exhibition, click here: https://www.scalaart.org/

A group of student-athletes from Connetquot High School recently led a virtual presentation for fifth graders at the district’s John Pearl Elementary School, centered around how the sports experience has changed due to COVID-19 and how to focus on the positives in sports rather than the negatives. This was the first of a series of conversations the high schoolers will have with their younger peers this year, in an effort to mentor them in the area of athletics.