Amanda Reynolds

Join us for the end of year Spring Carnival! Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased through Thursday, May 18 using the QR code in the image above or clicking here, or at the door on Friday, May 19. Tickets will also be on sale in front of the school before and after school May 15-18.

We hope you can join us this Thursday for a discussion on school safety. The agenda for the evening will include key updates from Principal Goetz, our MNPS school board representative, Erin O’Hara Block, and our school counselor, Meredith Middlebrooks.

This meeting is intended for adults only. For free babysitting provided by PTO, please sign up here. 

Some Sylvan Park Elementary Families will be participating in the “Linking Arms for a Change” event that is taking place this evening.  To learn more about this event and/or to register and be placed with the Sylvan Park Elementary group please click here.  When registering, please state Sylvan Park Elementary as the group/organization you would like to be placed with.

The 2023 MNPS Kindergarten Readiness Fair is on Saturday, April 22 from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. at Lentz Public Health Center. The Fair provides an opportunity for families to register onsite for kindergarten, receive information from MNPS, MPHD and Community Partner information tables, and provide resources to help families get ready for kindergarten. This year will also feature fun activities for families including the Nashville Zoo Animal Encounter and the Nashville Public Library’s School Bus Read Aloud on an MNPS school bus.  For more information on the Fair visit the MNPS Early Learning Website.

Our beloved and talented music teacher, Mr. Currie, recently received a Teacher of the Year award at the MNPS banquet! Congratulations and thank you for the many ways you give to our students and our school!

Join us for restaurant day at Hattie B’s at 5209 Charlotte Ave. on Thursday, April 20. Meet co-workers or friends for lunch, spend time with other SPE families over dinner or place a to-go order anytime. Hattie B’s is generously donating 10 percent of sales from the entire day to our school!

Please help us with a Spring Stock the Lounge!  We hope you will consider supporting our teachers in this way. You can drop off items in front of the school from 7:45-8:00 on Thursday, April 13th, or you can drop in the designated bin at 4406 Park Ave. prior to the 13th. Our teachers love this show of appreciation! Sign up here.

Our school greatly appreciates the support for Sylvan Park staff over the last week. Any small acts of gratitude and kindness are a great way to show our school and other schools in our community lots of love.

The horrific event at The Covenant School last Monday is heavy on all of our hearts. Many of you have reached out to ask questions, share your gratitude, offer help, and to simply connect.

We appreciate all of your thoughts, questions, and ideas. In order to centralize our efforts, please email pto.spark@gmail.com. Ms. Goetz will work closely with the PTO board to share information and determine actionable next steps to continue to keep Sylvan Park students and staff as safe as possible.

That said, the PTO event on May 4th at 6 p.m. will be focused on safety. Again, please email pto.spark@gmail.com with any comments, ideas and/or questions so that we can design an event that is beneficial and productive.

There are no sufficient words to describe the devastation of yesterday’s shooting at The Covenant School. Our hearts are with The Covenant School’s parents, students, and staff, and particularly with the families of Evelyn, Hallie, William, Ms. Peak, Dr. Koonce, and Mr. Hill. We offer our support, our love, and our deepest condolences for this unimaginable loss.

It can be difficult to walk our children through this heartache. Dr. Battle shared the following suggestions:

Helping Students After a School Shooting, American School Counseling Association (ASCA), 2022

• Try and keep routines as normal as possible. Kids gain security from the predictability of routine, including attending school.
• Limit exposure to television and the news.
• Be honest with kids and share with them as much information as they are developmentally able to handle.
• Listen to kids’ fears and concerns.
• Reassure kids that the world is a good place to be, but that there are people who do bad things.
• Parents and adults need to first deal with and assess their own responses to crisis and stress.
• Rebuild and reaffirm attachments and relationships.

Helping Children Cope After a Traumatic Event

Parenting a Child who has Experienced Trauma

Sunday morning, our neighborhood, Sylvan Park, experienced antisemitism, racism and discrimination acts of hate. Five homes and bridge underpasses were vandalized with swastikas and racial slurs.

We will not tolerate this hate and our children deserve a better world and neighborhood. We know we can’t always provide a safe place, but we can provide a brave place for our children to learn and support every community.

We stand and guide with love and not hate while recognizing and teaching that the hate exists and needs to be talked about with action. Join us in talking to your kids about being brave in these spaces!

Thank you to Whitney Hutchens and the Sylvan Park families who cleaned up the garden and got it ready for spring planting!