Weekly News Letter from The Principal’s Corner
August 30, 2013
Open House will be from 6:00 to 7:00 pm on Tuesday, September 24, 2013
YEAH! We are off to a good start! We have 17 students in K-8 attending WS as of today! That brings our total of K-8 students to 227!
Construction on Route 131
Remember, there is construction on Route 131, so please count on bus delays to and from school!
Labor Day
There will be no school on Labor Day, September 2, 2013.
Veggies Welcome at WS
We
have been enjoying the veggie donations from the Windsor Prison. We
recently accepted 25 pounds of kale. We blanched and froze lots of it
for soups this winter and then Sandy Morgan made kale chips. The
children LOVED the chips and asked for more! Also, thank you, Mrs.
Hughes for donating zucchini and squash for our school's Farm to Plate
Program. Sandy Morgan plans to make zucchini/squash chips with parm.
cheese as another fun Farm to Plate treat. The school will gladly
accept any donations of produce. Thank you for thinking of us!
Clean School
The
school is spit-polish clean, thanks to Gary Graham and his hard working
custodial team, including the summer workers. Thank you for making our
school so fresh and clean for all in our school community!
Math Magic Afterschool Program to Begin
I
am happy to announce that Mrs. Carol Foley has been hired as our new
part time WSSU Math Specialist, working in WS and Windsor. Mrs. Foley
will be hosting the WS afterschool Program called Math Magic, Monday through Thursday, (there is no afterschool program on Fridays). The program will start on Tuesday, September 3, 2013. Mrs.
Foley will offer a heart healthy snack and a recess each day, prior to
starting her afterschool program. Math Magic will be a FUN afterschool
program offered to all students in K-8, featuring mathematical games,
mathematical based projects, math brain teasers and so on. This will
not be a Homework Help session, as in previous years. For more
information, please call the school at 674-5400.
Over the Counter Medicines
All parents/guardians need to complete the permission slip in the back of the Student/Parent Handbook for Over the Counter Medicines and return it to school as soon as possible.
Doubling Up on Buses
We
have only 4 bus drivers and thus will be doubling up until a new driver
is hired. This will impact our sports program and especially all away
games, as well as other co-curricular activities. My apologies for the
situation. An ad is currently running for a new bus driver. Anyone out
there willing to consider a new occupation as a bus driver? Could be
lots of fun!
SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS AND IMPORTANT CHANGES AT WEATHERSFIELD SCHOOL
I
plan to send out a survey in mid-September asking for input on the new
safety changes here at school. Hope you will send us feedback on
how you think the changes are working and what things we need to tweak.
Here is an overview of what we are doing this year:
The Emergency Preparedness Committee,
the WS School Board, WS staff, faculty, and administration, Select Board
members, local fire and rescue responders, and interested parents and
community members met for a working supper on June 20, 2013, at the AVFD
to discuss ways to make our school safe, but still welcoming. That
meeting and subsequent discussions produced the plan outlined below,
which was presented to the school board and will be in effect for the
coming school year.Many safety changes have been made to the school to make it safer in the event of an emergency, including safety glass installed during the summer and a planned restructuring of the main office, scheduled for December.
We will continue to welcome volunteers and community use of the building. The procedure for the many volunteers who support our school is unchanged. Volunteers must have all necessary paperwork on file and will continue to check into the office for their visitor’s pass before going anywhere else in the school.
However, unless prior arrangements have been made for the use of the school, the school will remain locked. Office personnel will be on duty until 4:00 pm. After that time, the school will be closed.
In accordance with new state laws, fire drills and lock down drills will be practiced during all 10 months of the school year, from September to June, with a minimum of 5 drills of each in the course of the school year. Our teachers will continue in a calm and nurturing way to train our students to remain safe. The intent is not to frighten children, but to empower them to react appropriately and to think on their feet when confronted with the unexpected. The first fire drill and lock down drill, each in September, will be announced in advance, so teachers can have thoughtful conversations with children before and after those two drills, to promote good thinking and to practice in a safe and calm way.
The exterior doors of the school will be locked during school hours. Visitors will be buzzed in from the outside of the building by the office staff.
Parents are asked to drop their children off at the main door between 7:00 and 7:50 am in the morning, rather than walking them to their class or locker, or visiting in the all purpose room. On the first day of school this year on August 26, 2013, parents of students in grades K-4 will be able to walk their children to class.
Morning bus duty personnel will greet children coming to school by bus at the main door, opening the door for them to enter. Children will go directly to the all purpose room, as in previous years.
Parents who wish to speak with teachers or other school personnel before, during, or after school need to go to the main office to see if that staff member might be available. If the staff member is unavailable at that time, parents are asked to make an appointment, which can be done via email, telephone, or through the secretaries in the office. Teachers will respond to email by the end of the following school day.
At bus dismissal time, 2:20 pm, bus students will line up at the front door, which will remain closed and locked until bus duty personnel walk students out to the buses. We will be boarding all five buses in rapid succession, which represents a change. The buses will be lined up from the front right of the school as you face it, all the way back to where the kindergarten classrooms begin. The school will maintain the sidewalks, even in winter months, to ensure that this process is fluid and safe. We are anticipating bus dismissal will take approximately 10 minutes. We encourage parents to call the school prior to 2:00 pm with any transportation changes, so the office staff has adequate time to alert teachers and children regarding the change in plans. Please do not take your child out of the bus line. In case of any emergency changes, go to the front office, and a secretary will assist you.
Parent pick-up and dismissal of walkers will look different this year. Parent pick-up students and walkers will remain in their classrooms until the buses have left the school. The parent pick-up entrance will be the same door, next to the kitchen, but will not be opened by school personnel until 2:20 pm. Please go directly to the all purpose room and wait for your child. The sign-out procedure will not change. No child may be taken from the all purpose room without being signed out by the parent or otherwise authorized adult. In the event the staff member on duty does not know or recognize the adult accompanying the child, the school reserves the right to ask for identification. It is important that the office is clear of distractions during bus dismissal time. Once buses have departed, which we anticipate will occur at 2:30 pm, parents who wish to speak to school personnel will be able to go to the office to make arrangements.
FY 14 Report Card and Progress Reporting System
Larry
Dougher will be working with K-4 teachers this fall to train them on
how to use the new electronic report card. Students in grades K-4 will
have an electronic, standards-based report card starting this fall. We
will still have four quarters as marking periods, and the reporting
dates can be found on the FY 14 calendar. Teachers need to become
familiar with PowerSchool Grading and all of the Common Core Standards
for all subject areas in K-4, and owing to the complexity of this new
system, there will be no progress reports from teachers in grades K-4
until the third midterm closes on February 28th, and then
only for at-risk or failing students. Parents will still be able to
contact teachers to see how their children are doing, and parent-teacher
conferences will be held as usual in November. The changes will be in the look of the report card and in how often we report out midterm grades for K-4. We
are in the emergent stages of these many changes, so we will do our
best to make it a smooth transition. Though we will be using PowerSchool
to document grading for K-4 in FY 14, the PowerSchool parent portal
will NOT be open this year for K-4 while we implement the new system.
Teachers in grades 5-8 used PowerSchool Grading last year, so they are familiar with the process. The parent portal WILL be open on PowerSchool beginning this fall for grades 5-8, so there will be no need to send progress reports home four times a year, as has been the practice. Teachers will keep student grades up to date, so parents can access their child's progress electronically at any point in the year. Report cards will still go home four times a year on the dates provided on the FY 14 calendar. Any parents who do not have access to their child's grades electronically should let their child's teacher know, and a hard copy of a progress report can be made available. Numerical numbers for effort will no longer appear on the report cards, so they will not be used to determine eligibility for sports and extracurricular activities.
This whole system is new and complicated, and like anything new it may have nuances that are different and maybe even confusing. We ask for your patience and support as we move forward to implement this new reporting system. If you have any questions, please feel to call Principal Oakman at the school at 674-5400.
Kindergarten to Grade 4 Grades 5 - 8
Academic Indicator Academic Indicator
4 = Outstanding – Consistently exhibits skills A – Excellent (100-90%)
3 = Very Good – Exhibits skills most of the time B – Very Good (89-80%)
2 = Making Progress – Experiencing some difficulty C – Average (79-70%)
1 = Needs Improvement – Experiencing difficulty D – Poor (69-60%)
F – Failing (Below 60%)
Art and Library/Media are Pass/Fail classes for Grades K-8.
Report Cards
Report cards will be issued four times per year at the conclusion of each marking period on the dates specified below. Midterm reports will be available as outlined above.
Midterm Report Dates Quarter Ending Dates Report Card Dates
November 1, 2013 November 6, 2013
January 17, 2013 January 24, 2013
Quarter 3 – March 7, 2013 March 28, 2013 April 4, 2013
Quarter 4 – May 16, 2013 To be determined Last day of school
HONOR ROLL
The following procedure is used to determine merit, honors, and high honors status in grades 5-8.
1. All subjects are considered for honor roll eligibility.
2. Students must make up Incompletes within five school days upon return to school in order to be considered for honor roll.
High Honors All A’s
Honors All A’s and B’s
Merit All A’s and B’s with maximum one C*
*offset by an A in an equiv. (core academic or special) course
Walk to School Day
Walk to school day will be on Wednesday, October 9th
Happy Fall and Welcome Back,
JeanMarie
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