Free food. Free books. Free fun. Even free help setting up an Infinite Campus Parent Portal account. 
Each Poughkeepsie Central School District elementary school this week held an orientation event to begin the school year.
While the events varied by location, each provided parents important introductory information regarding their school, their students and how they can be connected with updates throughout the school year. Each event also provided entertainment and fun, as well as free food and takeaways for the children. There were school buses at some of them, giving parents and students the ability to see what it will be like now that the district offers the service to many elementary students.
Dr. David Scott, the principal at Clinton who each year takes on the role of grill master, said the annual orientations are “critically important,” noting also the elementary school principals engaged in a series of “coffee and conversation” events last week.
“It gives us a chance to come together as a community,” he said. “We can have some fun. But then I’ll also stop periodically and I’ll have conversations with parents about what we need to have done, how the year is going to lay out, things of that nature.”
The events took on added importance this year amid the districtwide elementary reconfiguration movement in which two schools, Truth and Krieger, will have all the pre-K through second grade students, and three, Warring, Clinton and Smith, will serve grades 3-5. 
During a 40-minute information session at Warring’s orientation, Principal Nicole Penn noted to parents 40% of the school’s students are new to the building this year. She and the staff answered questions as to how that change and the new transportation options will work at the building and encouraged everyone to – and assisted many to – update their contact information on file with the district through either the Parent Portal or the Central Registration Office to stay informed.
Penn said, as a student’s first introduction to a school, it’s important for the family to take part and for the staff to make them feel at home.
She said it “eases some of our parents’ angst. They don’t know what to expect. They don’t know the hours of the school day, they might not know when lunch is, or breakfast, or schedules. … We can make our parents and our students feel more comfortable and know that they’re welcome in here the building and that this building, this staff and this community, is here for them.”