Public School #33's Support Services

Art

In Art class, Mr. Wang teaches the students about many different artists and their particular style of creating art.  The child is inspired by viewing many visuals of famous artworks and then gets to explore and create by using many different art materials from a young age.  We will continue to create and come up with new and exciting art lessons that will be a pleasing time for all students at our school.

Computer Lab

The computer lab features 29 computers, an LCD projector, and many other features to assist our students in their instruction.  The students make use of our lab in an effort to further prepare them for the NJ Technology Assessment.  Both teachers and students are assisted by technology and curriculum staff members throughout the course of the academic day.  With the use of our lab, technology skills will be further infused into your child’s learning experience at the Dr. Paul Rafalides School.

Custodial Staff

Shaharazod Simington, Senior CustodianThe custodial staff works tirelessly to keep our 100-year-old building clean. 

Community Aides

Mrs. Licet Victorino is our parent liaison community aide, and Ms. Tycsala Hill is our community aide attendance officer.  Mrs. Victorino is the vice-president of the Dr. Paul Rafalides PS 33 PTA.  She is responsible for communicating to the parents all important events in an effort to build a strong parental partnership.  Fundraising and organizing awards assemblies are two important components of her job description.  She also offers assistance to everyone in our school family.  Mrs. Victorino is the school representative and spokesperson for our school’s Title 1 parent organization.  She coordinates activities, workshops and educational field trips for parents. Her primary objective is to provide the tools and knowledge for parents to utilize at home so that they may help their child achieve the best possible results. She also provides assistance on a daily basis to the students, administrative staff and faculty in many areas of school functions.  She remains diligent in her efforts to continue to be an advocate for student, public and parental relationships. Ms. Hill communicates with parents through telephone calls and house visits when a child is absent for more than three days.  Her efforts focus on the district initiative and the importance of good attendance and the role it plays in the success of a child.

Data Committee

Pat Rabbitt, chairperson, of the Data Committee, facilitates the responsibilities of the Data Committee which are to identify issues, collect data, analyze data, develop goals, design action plans, implement action plans, and monitor, assess, and revise data.  The committee looks for strengths (highs) and weaknesses (lows), standout performances, and relationships between groups of data.  This data can uncover problems, get to the root cause of problems, help the school evaluate program effectiveness and provide the feedback teachers need to meet the needs of all students.

ESL Program

At the Dr. Paul Rafalides School, Public School #33, all the students who have been identified as needing support in order to increase their English language proficiency are being serviced in the areas of listening, speaking, reading and writing.  Our ESL population’s home languages are: Arabic, Cantonese, Chavacano, French, Haitian Creole, Krio, Kiswahili, Korean, Spanish, Thai, Tagalog, Urdu, and Vietnamese.  The ESL curriculum supports the content areas of Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science.   ESL students are assessed by the following tests: the TerraNova (Grades K-2), NJASK (Grades 3-4), and the WIDA ACCESS (Grades K-5).  Parental support is always welcome.  Two parents of ESL students are members of the Jersey City Public Schools Bilingual Parents Advisory Association.

Guidance 

The Guidance Office provides support to students, parents and teachers, to ensure the academic success of every child.  It also implements programs that focus on the uniqueness of all students in three areas of development: academic, emotional and social.  The program components include the guidance curriculum, individual planning, responsive services, and program management.

Health Office

The school health office offers a variety of services to the students and staff. The goal of the school health office is to provide health education services to the students and parents in an effort to promote healthy lifestyle choices. The school health office offers health counseling, first-aid and emergency care, health screenings, referrals and follow-up services, parent conferences and health education resource services. 

Library Media

The library media center is open to all students who attend PS 33.  It is a place where students can borrow books on a variety of topics, as well as fictional stories.  There are roughly 9,000-10,000 library items within the PS 33 library media center.  This includes books, videos, DVDs, reference materials, and more.  The main goal of the library media department is to help children develop skills that will ensure that they become lifelong learners.  Furthermore, it is hoped that children will discover the joy of reading, the importance of information and the ways to access it, and the role the library plays in each of those cases. 

Literacy Committee

Susan Colby, chairperson, facilitates a team of teachers from every grade level, as well as the ESL department and Reading Recovery.   The Literacy Committee meet to discuss any needs and concerns regarding the literacy learning of our students and works to address those issues.

Music 

Music is an integral component to the overall success of each student. Music, besides its aesthetic qualities, is a form of expression whether it is in the form of vocal or instrumental music.  Our music program at the Dr. Paul Rafalides Elementary School gives children these opportunities but moreover, integrates music with other subject areas, reinforcing skills or concepts currently being taught in classrooms. It also offers and gives students the opportunity to explore their creativity by providing them with a choice of choir or the music club. Furthermore, it gives those students with potential talents and skills to continue to develop those skills for future endeavors. Our music program in general, helps in developing general music skills such as rhythm, note identification along with their values and even the name of the lines and spaces on the grand staff as students enter upper grades. Our music program focuses on helping students to become appreciators of not just everyday music, but music of other cultures and genres such as classical and jazz. Students at the Dr. Paul Rafalides School enjoy and find the music program fun and exciting and look forward to it. It is our responsibility to continue to foster their love and interest for music and learn to appreciate music in general.

 PTA – Parent/Teacher Association

The Dr. Paul Rafalides School, PS 33 Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is a group of volunteers that work together for the benefit of PS 33, its parents, students and teachers. We are made up of a board of officers that work together to provide information for parents, special programs for students, help for the needy in our school and many other school activities.  We currently have a membership of 40 parents and teachers.  Without parental involvement we cannot have a PTA. We ask parents to volunteer for different programs and sales throughout the year. It is essential to the PTA and the children that parents take the time to volunteer. If there are any questions, please feel free to call PTA Vice-President Licet Victorino @ 201-946-5198. lease remember we are here for your children.  Thank you for your support.

Physical Education 

Our gym classes is the part of the educational process through which purposeful physical activity tends to develop into the individual abilities to meet present, as well as future needs in physical, mental, moral and social life. At PS # 33, grades K - 3 have physical education once a week for 45 minutes and grade 4 has physical education twice a week for a total of 90 minutes. 

Project Raise – A Literacy Program 

The Project Raise Program provides students with direct, sequential, and systematic instruction to assist them with specific literacy needs. Students in Grades 1-4 are learning skills and strategies they need to become independent readers while strengthening their phonemic awareness skills of emergent readers. The Project Raise teacher, Mrs. Mehnert, utilizes various kinesthetic, tactile, visual, and auditory instruments to enhance instruction. All of the skills the participants learn are cumulative. They work from sounds to syllables, syllables to words, words to sentences, sentences to reading passages, and responding to comprehension questions. Each skill builds upon the other. Their Spelling/Dictation, along with other work is proudly displayed in the Project Raise room.

Reading Recovery

Reading Recovery is a short term intervention that supports classroom instruction for the lowest achieving students in first grade.  Children meet with a specially trained teacher for 30 minutes daily for 12 to 20 weeks.  The National Data Evaluation Center supports early literacy achievement using science-based methods in research and evaluation.  Technology is used to provide educators with the data they need to evaluate their Reading Recovery implementations and make timely, well informed decisions. Reading Recovery celebrates its 15^th year in the Jersey City Public Schools.

Reading Specialist

The Reading Specialist supports the literacy program for grades 3 and 4 at Dr. Rafalides Public School 33 and acts as a liaison between the Language Arts curriculum department and the teachers, communicating the most current district-implemented literacy teaching practices with our teachers.  

The literacy curriculum includes these components:  Independent Reading, Guided Reading, Shared Reading, Read Aloud, Shared or Interactive Writing, Independent Writing and Working With Words.  Both Guided Reading and Independent reading are differentiated to the child’s individual reading ability.  A Developmental Reading Assessment is given twice a year to measure a student’s progress in reading.  Running record assessments are performed throughout the year to inform teachers of the child’s strengths and needs in reading. This year our school-wide initiative to improve reading comprehension will include many opportunities for students to respond to their reading both orally and in writing.  Learnia, a reading assessment, will also be used to measure reading comprehension.

In writing workshop, teachers model various writing genres and proper writing mechanics, such as grammar, vocabulary and punctuation.  Students are given many opportunities to practice writing in their Writer’s Notebook.  At least one piece of writing is revised, edited and published each marking period.

Please feel free to contact the reading specialist if you have any concerns or questions regarding your child’s literacy learning.

Security

Dr. Paul Rafalides Elementary, PS # 33’s security is staffed by Mrs. Hansen and Mr. Esposito (a.k.a. Ms. Donna and Mr. Bill). They are dedicated to providing and maintaining the safe and nurturing environment that is imperative in the development and education of children.

 Secretarial Staff

 Site Leadership Committee

The Site Leadership Committee is a team of people that includes the principal, teachers, parents and custodial staff.  Our purpose is to collaborate and develop programs for the school.  We work to improve the overall function of the school in all areas.  We are a voice for parents, teachers and most of all, the children of our school.

Special Education and Support Services

PS # 33 Dr. Paul Rafalides School is proud to announce that we maintain a highly successful inclusion program. All of our special needs children are anonymously included in the regular education setting with supports. We are in compliance with the NCLB Act set forth by our government which promotes the opportunity for children with special needs to learn amongst their peers and neighborhood friends regardless of their disability. Our staff is highly trained in the areas of providing accommodations, modifying lessons, differentiating instruction and implementing tailor-made behavior modification programs in an effort to meet the needs of each child and allow them to function in a classroom with minimal distractions. We offer a Resource Room where our children can be pulled out for support to differentiate grade level materials while focusing on their individual learning styles. We also have a new transition program for students who have diverse academic and behavioral needs.  Our primary goal is to allow all of our children to learn in an age-appropriate least-restrictive environment with as much support as needed. We provide a vast range of supports to assist our children on their road to success. Our Child Study Team is comprised of a School Psychologist, a School Social Worker and a Learning Consultant. We offer counseling to our children and recommend after-school programs and services to parents. Along with our Parent Liaison, we meet with parents regularly and conduct informative workshops regarding our Special Education Department and support services. Our staff also consists of an Inclusion Specialist, a Speech Therapist, an Occupational Therapist and a Physical Therapist. We also have handicap accessible classrooms with ramps and can provide assistive technology devices for students with diverse disabilities such as children who may be blind or deaf. We have the ability to offer our standard curriculum materials in Braille Format. At PS # 33, we encourage our children to immerse themselves into their education and we provide a structured non-biased social environment where all children feel accepted, gain knowledge and reach for the stars. We know that it is more important to focus on their abilities and not their disabilities. We are always available to speak with parents regarding your questions or concerns. Feel free to call us regarding your child or any of the services that we provide. The Resource Room provides additional support for at-risk students. The LL Teach and Everyday Math programs provide the framework for mathematics instruction. The students keep pace with grade level language arts curriculum. Students receive small group instruction. Many children successfully transition to inclusion settings.

Web Page Design Team

The Web Page Design Team consists of teachers and the principal and is responsible for reviewing, adding and updating the information that is posted on our school’s Web page, in order to communicate effectively with parents and the community.

World Language

At the Dr. Paul Rafalides, Public School #33, Spanish and its culture is taught to all the children from Grades K through 4^th.  Students in grades 1 to 4 meet their World Language teacher two or three times a week and students in Kindergarten meet their teacher once a week.  The students are serviced in the areas of listening, speaking, reading and writing in Spanish.  The World Language curriculum supports the content areas of mathematics, social studies, science, and the Spanish culture.  Parental support is always welcome.