Dear Crestwood Community,

We the Crestwood School Parents Association (The CSPA) would like to welcome everyone back to school and hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable summer vacation – or what we like to call it, extended March Break. We would like to extend an extra warm welcome to new families for what will be an unusual 2020/21 school year, one like no one has experienced before. Despite this we are thrilled at all the school and it’s administration has done to tackle this challenge head on while taking every precaution to provide protection for our children and staff alike.

The CSPA would like the introduce ourselves on the current Executive Committee: 

– Pam Sulpizi (President) pamsulpizi@hotmail.com

– Sara Sinclair (Treasurer) slasinclair@gmail.com

– Melissa Arbesman (Secretary) arbesman.m@gmail.com

Feel free to contact us with any questions at our general inquiry email cspa@ohp.crestwood.on.ca

Our mandate is to both engage the parents in our Crestwood School community and raise funds for the school to support extra programing, events, community enhancements and added technologies and equipment. To accomplish this mission, we usually hold events and fundraisers throughout the school year. 

As COVID has changed everyone’s “normal”, we obviously are not able to safely hold meetings or events. We therefore have no choice but to CANCEL both the Welcome Back Coffee (scheduled for the first day of school) and the September CSPA General Meeting (September 8). 

Once the school year is safely underway, we will aim to re-start our monthly general CSPA meetings (possibly in a ZOOM format).  

This year we did not send out Class Parents or Volunteer Forms because we are unclear of what role Parents will be allowed to play in the school while remaining socially distant. When it is safe, we are eager to have new faces join us as we have open leadership roles in the executive and sub-committees.

We are saddened that our return to school will not be celebrated with the usual fanfare – but we are happy to see that the children are going back to school, which was still uncertain last June. 

We look forward to seeing parents (from beneath a face mask,) in their cars at pick up and drop off. Please feel free to email anyone on the executive if there is anything we can do to help your family this school year.  

We would like to impart one very important message – we realize that everyone will be adjusting to all of the new school rules; however, all of these changes have dramatically affected the Crestwood teachers. Your child’s teacher previously had prep periods when your child was at a specialty, or a lunch break when your child was outside/eating. None of this will be possible for them and the homeroom teachers will be in class from 8am-4pm every day without any real break. Please show your support to Crestwood’s great teachers who are faced with new challenges this year. They are facing this precipice alongside us parents, but they are leading the charge while holding our children’s hand – they require our understanding, support and respect. 

From your socially distant CSPA, 

–Pam, Sara and Melissa

Click here for our Crestwood School Calendar FAQ