March 25, 2020

Dear Teaneck Parents/Guardians, Students & Staff,

We are now on Day 8 of our “Learning from Home” sessions; and my leadership team is actively discussing how we can best move forward with our daily lessons and assignments, especially as it seems our school buildings will be closed for a while. In fact, I have now changed our district status to “Closed until Further Notice”. I want to assure our parents and guardians that I have heard your feedback about wanting us to offer more direct instruction, and we are currently exploring options that are suitable and befitting our community’s diversity. I will share more regarding our plans on Friday, March 27.

Meantime, while we are practicing “social/physical distancing”, I have enjoyed receiving photos of our students learning from home. Additionally, I have heard some inspirational, but not surprising stories about the Teaneck community spirit. Some of the recent actions taken by our staff members, vendors, partners, parents and students are something we should celebrate together.

This is why I am pleased to announce that – as we move forward – we want to recognize those who are going “above and beyond”, while also getting a glimpse at our amazing students learning from home:

1.) The Teaneck Apple Awards
As we navigate through this challenging health crisis, we want to celebrate those who are going “above and beyond” to keep our district moving forward and/or helping our children to learn and develop in creative and fun ways.

Does a certain someone or a group come to mind? Then we want to hear from you by nominating them for a Teaneck Apple Award!

Nomination Criteria: 

a. Must be a person/s whose efforts are positively affecting our district and/or our children since the first day of our school building closings (March 13). The person/s can be a parent/guardian, staff member, student, community member, partner or vendor.
b. While so many are doing great work, these particular efforts must be beyond normal job expectations.
c. Extra points awarded for creativity and positive results!

Please send your nominations to Ms. Terry Corallo, Chief of Staff/Director of Community Relations: tcorallo@teaneckschools.org

Nominees may be featured on our district Facebook page (@TeaneckPublicSchoolDistrict) and on our district website. When we return to school, we will also look to recognize the “best of the best” at a future Board meeting.

2.) Send Us Your Student/s Photo

We have added a new webpage to our “COVID-19 Update” section on the district website: https://www.teaneckschools.org/HomeLearningPhotos.aspx

Parents/Guardians: If you send us a photo of your child/children learning from home, we will add this photo (must be appropriate, of course) to this section to share with our community.

When sending your photo to tcorallo@teaneckschools.org , please include the child's school and grade. We may also share on our District Facebook page (@TeaneckPublicSchoolDistrict) so if you do not want it posted there, then please specify.

We are a strong, resilient community and we will get this through this together! I hope these two opportunities designed to keep us focused on the positive, will help to strengthen our sense of community during this challenging time.

I continue to thank you for all that you are doing, and I ask you to keep those families managing through this disease or going through financial hardships in your thoughts and prayers.

Best regards,

Dr. Christopher Irving, Superintendent of Schools