IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR THE COMMUNITIES OF NEWINGTON AND NEW CASTLE

Please be advised that beginning in September, all Newington School Board meetings will be held on the third Thursday of every month at 5pm at Newington Public School. 

Additionally, all New Castle School Board meetings will be held on the third Tuesday of every month at 5pm at MHT

Should you have any questions please contact our Central Office. Thank you for your cooperation and attention to this notice. 

For K-12 parents and caregivers, we understand the importance of a stress-free school commute. First View, our easy-to-use GPS-based vehicle tracking app, allows you to plan your day and stay connected with your student’s trips, regardless of the type of vehicle your student travels in.

**With First View, you can: **

• See near real-time vehicle location through GPS and track its progress.
• Easily monitor multiple students, including yellow school bus and alternative transportation journeys.
• Quickly access updates and vehicle details for each trip.
• Receive instant notifications and service alerts from your district.
• Set up family members and caregivers to receive customizable trip update alerts and emails.
• First View is available as a user-friendly mobile app for both Apple and Android devices.

Step 1. Please search for First View 1.0 in the App Store or Google Play. This app icon has a red background.

Step 2. Create a new account

Step 3. Add a Student

The NEW District Code will be sent via school messenger! You can also contact your school's front office for the District Code.

FIRST VIEW Parent & Caregiver App SUPPORT:

• Toll-Free: (888) 889-8920
• Email support@myfirstview.com

Welcome to the latest edition of the SAU 50 Sensation. In this edition, we wanted to share some important updates with our families and community members. If you have any questions regarding these updates, please do not hesitate to contact our Central Office.

Portsmouth High School Updates

Please see this link for the most recent updates from Portsmouth High School.

Parent Corner

Recently, Greenland Central School hosted a showing of the Screenagers: The Next Chapter - Building Resilience in Kids (Elementary Edition) movie. This special screening brought together students, families, and educators to engage in a vital conversation about technology and its impact on young learners.

Substitutes Needed

Are you interested in spending some time with children and our amazing staff? Consider applying to be a daily substitute. You get to set your schedule and will earn $125 per day. SAU 50 is currently accepting applications for daily substitutes in all of our schools. Please click this link for more information.

PORTRAIT OF A LEARNER SPOTLIGHT

Math Night at Newington Public School took parents on a journey through Place Value Through the Ages, showcasing how we help our students think about numbers and build a strong mathematical foundation.

Math night focused on understanding numbers—beginning with something as fundamental as counting— understanding counting is a complex and dynamic process than it may seem. Research over the last 20 years suggests that the early stages of counting in young children are often complex and, at times, a bit messy. But that’s part of the beauty of learning! To truly understand numbers, students must grasp the abstract nature of what a number represents—a property of a group of objects, not just a symbol on a page.

Our goal at NPS is to cultivate a deep understanding of these concepts in our students, preparing them for future problem-solving and critical thinking. As John Hattie once said, “A close association between a previously learned task and a new situation is necessary for promoting transfer of learning.” This insight guides our work as we strive to build on students’ existing knowledge and help them make connections that deepen their understanding.

Math night left families with a greater appreciation for how place value and number sense are taught at NPS, and with a sense of how important these early steps are in the mathematical journey.

STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Famous children's author, Chris Van Dusen, visited SAU 50 and WOW, what a treat! Most notably, Chris has written The Circus Ship and the Mercy Watson series. He amazed us with the stories of how he writes his books. He shared that he drew the lobster on the Maine license plate and uses the L.L. Bean catalog for inspiration. He was so fascinating! Rye Elementary School had all students from New Castle and Newington come for the event before Chris ventured over to Greenland Central School. He signed children's books and was a pleasure to host in our district. We can't wait for his next book!

Click here for the full Edition

Welcome to the latest edition of the SAU 50 Sensation. We are thrilled that our students are off to such an excellent start to the new year and are fully engaged in their education. In this edition, we wanted to share some important updates with our families and community members. If you have any questions regarding these updates, please do not hesitate to contact our Central Office.

Portsmouth High School Updates This year we will be featuring some news and the latest updates from Portsmouth High School. Please see this linkfor the most recent update.

First Student School Bus Update We are pleased to officially announce that the potential bus drivers strike has been successfully averted. Negotiations have been successful. There is no further need to explore community vans, daily Uber rides, hitchhiking routes, or any other alternate methods to get to and from school 😀.

SAU 50 Strategic Plan We are pleased to announce that the SAU 50 Joint Board has adopted the SAU 50 2024-2029 Strategic Plan. This document represents the framework for our actions to embed the Portrait of a Learner into our daily practices. Each school will use this framework to develop building based plans to detail actions and strategies over the next 3-5 years. This work has already been very affirming to the great work being done by our staff across all districts.

Parent Corner On October 16th at 6:30 p.m. in the Multipurpose Room, Greenland Central School will be hosting a special showing of the upcoming documentary, “Screenagers Elementary Age Edition”. Created by Dr. Delaney Rolston, the film is one of four movies that address the issues that our students are facing, i.e. cell phones, smart watches, video games, and social media. Additionally, Dr. Delaney and her team have created the “Away For The Day” (AFTD) initiative to help transform schools into cell phone-free spaces. To learn more please visit the website:

https://www.screenagersmovie.com/To RSVP for the showing, please click this link.

It is a pleasure to announce that David Hobbs will be the next Assistant Superintendent of Schools for SAU 50.

David is the current Assistant Superintendent in SAU 21 and brings a wealth of experience in curriculum, assessment and instruction.

We were incredibly fortunate to have a strong pool of candidates and three very strong finalists. Thank you to the search committee and everyone who took the time to meet the finalists and offer feedback. We look forward to David joining our amazing SAU!

Check out the May edition of the SAU 50 Sensation!

The Newington School Board invites interested citizens to apply for an open School Board seat. The appointment is for the term until the election in March 2025. The Board is particularly interested in candidates who would intend to run for the seat in the next election. If you are interested, please send a letter of interest expressing why you should be considered to Superintendent Steve Zadravec at szadravec@sau50.org  by Monday, April 29, 2024.

Welcome to the eighteenth edition of the SAU 50 Sensation.

This edition features some exciting accomplishments in our schools, an announcement of an Assistant Superintendent search, as well as the release of our 2024-2025 Academic Calendars, which can be accessed here.