• Cultural Calendar
Celebrating Latinx Literary Brilliance for Latino Book Month!

May is Latino Book Month! It's a valuable opportunity to explore and celebrate Latino literature and to also explore bilingual titles. It also encourages booksellers, librarians, and teachers to promote books by and for Latino people while also inspiring readers to explore the beauty of Latinx literature.

Latinx authors have had a profound impact on literature as a whole, thanks to such gifted authors as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, Elizabeth Acevedo, Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, and many more.

Beyond the beauties of traditional fiction, Latinx authors are also making an impact in sci-fi, fantasy fiction, graphic novels, and comic books, which celebrate the richness and variety of Latinx culture while also exploring such timely issues as racism, social justice, family heritage, and much more.

Learn more about Latino Book Month here.

Archive

Recognizing our Education Support Professionals

When it comes to education support, teachers are often the first people who come to mind, but education support professionals are just as vital in their dedication support, and their work too often goes unacknowledged. To salute these professionals, Education Support Professionals Day takes place on November 15 and gives us all at PSESD the chance to honor all of the incredible education support professionals who help and inspire our children each day.

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Celebrating October as National LGBTQ+ History Month—and National Coming Out Day on October 11!

October is LGBTQ+ History Month! Created in 1994, by a Missouri high school history teacher named Rodney Wilson who believed that a month should explore and celebrate LGBTQ+ history, LGBTQ+ History Month honors the history and courageous achievements across the years of LGBTQ+ people, including a spotlight on National Coming Out Day on October 11. Join us in celebrating our LGBTQ+ staff, students, and community members on this important day, and all month long!

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National School Lunch Week (October 9-13)

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) serves nearly 30 million children every school day, providing the essential basic nutrition that contributes to student success and teacher support, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and fat-free or lowfat milk with every school lunch. President John F. Kennedy created National School Lunch Week (NSLW) in 1962 to promote the importance of a healthy school lunch in a child’s life, as well as the impact a simple school lunch can have both inside and outside the classroom, and this year, National School Lunch Week takes place from October 9-13, 2023.

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Honoring and Commemorating Orange Shirt Day on September 30

September 30 is Orange Shirt Day—a day of remembrance honoring the hundreds of thousands of children who attended Canadian residence schools and United States Indigenous Boarding Schools, enduring abuse, neglect, disease, and worse. These schools were deliberately created to strip First Nations children of their culture,  language, and way of life, and their effects are still being felt today by those who survived, as well as their families.

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September is Suicide Awareness Month

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, offering an ideal opportunity to speak out and raise awareness—an awareness that is urgently required, with suicide the tenth leading cause of death among adults in the U.S.—and the second leading cause of death among children and young people aged 10-24. Unfortunately, these rates are increasing, and those who are young, LGBTQ, or BIPOC are especially vulnerable. LGBTQ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide, while transgender adults, meanwhile, are almost 12 times more likely than the general population to attempt suicide.

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