
Warrior Word
WSD Department Updates: September 2021
Message from Superintendent Mr. Harlow
Thank you to everyone that helped kick-off our 2021-22 school year! For this first time in over 1.5 years, we welcomed 2,500 students and 350 staff back to full-day, in-person learning.
This week is the start of many programs, activities & home sporting events at WSD — first day of Preschool, intramural Track & Field, and home WHS football, volleyball & girls soccer games. For all the most up-to-date WSD Athletic Info -> HERE.
Our entire Admin team is excited to work over the next year with all of our stakeholders on a much needed district-wide Strategic Plan:
- Community, Family and Staff Outreach & Partnerships
- Strong Professional Learning Communities
- Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Academics
- Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Behavior
- Facilities & Operations
As part of our Strategic Plan, I wanted to highlight two upcoming opportunities you may choose to participate in later this month:
- Emerging Leaders Summit | Led by Andy Harlow
- We are reaching out to current WSD staff and community members that are looking for leadership opportunities within the district.
- We will be working with ESD 105 and AWSP to provide leadership training. Plus, partnering with regional universities to help get interested people into the appropriate program.
- PreK-12 Intramurals & Athletics Summit | Led by DJ Garza & Jackson Haak
- Last year the WSD made a 2-year commitment to begin a PreK-6 intramural program. This will no doubt lead to some exciting experience for our PreK-6 students, but we’d like to get input from all of our stakeholders on our entire intramural & athletic program.
- Goals, missions, expectations, needs, successes, opportunities for improvement.
- It will also look at athletic facilities, equipment, and uniforms.
Thank you again for choosing to be part of the Wahluke School District! Here’s to an outstanding year and our mission: “Every student, every day!” And as always, #GoWarriors
Department Updates
Human Resource Updates
Wahluke Human Resources Department is excited to welcome our staff members to the 2021-2022 school year. The District, including the HR department, has spent all of our energy and resources towards opening schools for our community's students. We have been working towards bringing new qualified instructional and support staff on board and making the necessary beginning-of-the-year updates in our employee systems. Wahluke HR will now include the Substitute Coordinator/HR Assistant position. Jill Jenkin, HR Specialist, and I look forward to serving our staff this year.
Liz Leitz
WSD HR Department Director
Special Education Department
We are excited to announce we have a few new hires as well as welcome our new teachers. Jaimey Jones WHS ELA Resource Room, Dylan Wirtzberger Junior High ELA Resource Room, our paraprofessionals Keith Davis, who will work in the WHS Resource Room, Elaine Acosta and Evelia Piñawho will work at Mattawa Elementary. We are also excited to add Kate Campbell School Psychologist, Amber Coyne Occupational Therapist, and Debbie Holmes Speech and Language Pathologist to our department. We still have a couple of openings, so if you have a desire to serve students in a rewarding capacity, please reach out to our Special Education Department and inquire how you could be part of this amazing team.
LaDonna Fogle
Special Education Department Director
Multilingual & Multicultural Services
Welcome. Bienvenidos! It is so exciting to see students and staff back on campus and starting another school year! Over the summer, the Migrant and Bilingual department went through a rebranding process. We are now called the Department of Multilingual & Multicultural Services. This name better reflects all that we do in our offices but, if the name is a bit long to say, you can refer to us as M2. The community voted, and we have a new logo as well.
We have been busy over the summer serving our families. Victor Gomez, our McKinney Vento Liason, worked with a group of students over the summer and this past week passed out school supplies to his students in grades K-12. The migrant program spent the summer connecting families with 21st Century and Jumpstart services. We also attended the Washington Migrant Education Program State Conference August 18-20. Two Wahluke staff members and parents, Norma Ramirez and Rosario Martinez presented to parents from across the state on how to be more involved in their child's education and the school system. Director Bethany Martinez co-presented with OSPI's Lupe Ledesma to directors across the state on how to move from informing parents to consulting with parents as decisions are made.
In the world of bilingual programs, a lot of changes are happening. Washington state has moved from being an ELPA21 state to using WIDA for our language proficiency standards and assessments. This is a learning process, so we are taking it one day at a time. There is still some free training for educators happening in mid-September. You can find more information on all things WIDA here. Dual language in Wahluke is growing, and we just moved our first cohort of students up to second grade. That means we now have six classes of students between K-2. Our new to the US student population is growing, with many new students arriving over the summer. We now have a Newcomer Academy teacher, Dinora Gomez, serving WJH students in the morning and WHS students in the afternoon. This is in addition to Juan Martinez, who serves 3-5th grade students.
I could go on and on, but I'll leave you with this update for now and share more with you next month. Remember, our office is here to serve you, your students, and their families. Please reach out with questions and needs.
Bethany Martínez
Multilingual & Multicultural Services Director
Child Nutrition Department
Over the Summer, we served over 20,00 meals to local children during our 21st Century and Jump Start programs and through our Summer Meals Distributions. I'd like to extend a very heartfelt "Thank You" to our Summer Associates, Substitutes, and Volunteers for helping our department feed kids during the Summer.
To get ready for the new school year, several Kitchen Leads attended the Farm to School and Scratch Cooking Institute on August 23rd and 24th. Our Food Service Department associates completed some of their annual training on August 25,26 and 27. We covered such topics as the required meal components for breakfast and lunch for all grade levels, food allergy protocols, kitchen procedures, and Breakfast After the Bell.
Every Tuesday and Thursday during the school year, we will offer scratch-cooked lunch entrées, and our menu will include student favorites such as Chicken Alfredo, Taco Soup, and Chili.
We will be piloting Breakfast in the Classrooms at Mattawa Elementary School this month. We will assess the feasibility of rolling this program out to the other elementary schools later this school year. Second Chance Breakfast will be offered to our Jr. High, and High School students using Grab & Go Hubert Carts, upon which we can offer a variety of breakfast bars, cold cereal, hot entrées, milk cartons, and fresh fruit.
Our breakfast and lunch menus are posted to our district website here and will be sent via ParentSquare. We will have a procedure in place for WSD Associates who want to purchase hot meals by the end of the week. More information will be sent by ParentSquare.
Jennie Norton
Child Nutrition Department Director
INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES DEPARTMENT
Our Tech Team is working incredibly hard to ensure all staff and students have technology devices for this school year. We are thankful for your patience and want to share a couple of updates from our department with you. Recently the IT technicians did a major network infrastructure upgrade which included a firewall. We also have completed 388 helpdesk tickets and replaced 4 Smartboards in school buildings. We also worked with the Maintenance Department to install new Access Controllers in all schools. We are making momentum with tech distribution and help desk tickets to ensure our staff and students have the tools needed for their education.
Our Tech TOSA Angelica Spreen also has great news to share with us. Sora by Overdrive is now available to all students and staff with a wahluke email. We are the first District in the county to open access to the NCW Libraries collection. Students and Staff can now check out ebooks, audiobooks, and read-aloud from the public library without needing a library card. This has expanded our collection from 680 books to over 25,600 books. This will ensure that our students will have access to books no matter what.
Joe Sherman
Information and Technology Services Department Director
Student Support Services Department
Welcome to the 2021-22 school year! I hope you have had an enjoyable summer making special memories with your loved ones. The Student Support Services Department has taken time this summer to prepare for the quickly approaching school year. We are committed to providing our students with a positive experience and a quality education. We will continue to provide Behavioral support and Social-Emotional support for all of our students through our Multi-tiered system of support and the implementation of strategies to focus attention, improve self-regulation, build resilience to stress, and develop a positive mindset for both school and life. We are very excited for you to see how we can improve and make this school year our best year yet!
We believe in servant leadership, and we will work hard to serve our students, staff, parents, and community partners by building strong relationships and representing the Wahluke School District in a positive light. This year we will continue to focus on Positive Behavior initiatives, student academic skills, the use of data to drive decisions and provide consistent implementation of programs to continue to increase student achievement.
DJ Garza
Student Support Services Department Director
Maintenance and Grounds Department
The maintenance department has installed one new portable at the WHS campus. We are waiting for two more portable for the WHS campus and the Multilingual and Multicultural Services portable. Our goal is to have the WHS portables up and ready for students to use a month after their arrival. Due to nationwide material shortages, we are still waiting on a large shipment of desks to come in for the district. We have a lot of work orders coming in with the new school year starting and are working hard to prioritize and get them done. Your patience is appreciated!
We have added a couple of new members to the Maintenance and grounds teams to replace some people who have left the district. We want to give a shout-out and a farewell to Lupe Magaña, former alumni and maintenance team member who had a lot of experience and knowledge in our district as he had worked at WSD for 16 years. He has left the district, and we wish him good luck in his new endeavors.
On the side of the grounds, we are gearing up and getting ready for fall sports. The grass is looking good going into fall, and we are painting lots of fields. The Custodians are back to their normal schedules as they were pre-covid. They worked extremely hard this summer to clean in the shortest amount of time we've ever had.
A couple of things to look forward to in the next month. We will be nearing the completion of portables on the WHS campus. Weather will be cooling down, and buildings will be switching from cooling to heat. So if you smell that slight burning dust smell on a cold day, don't be alarmed as the elements haven't been on in quite a while. Fall sports will be in full swing, and we hope to see people come and enjoy the sporting events on our grounds.
Matt Hyndman
Maintenance, Grounds and Custodial Department Director
Teaching and Learning Department
The Teaching and Learning Department would like to give a special thank you to Chuck Hubbard and Angelica Spreen. Chuck planned and facilitated our science training last week for our teachers in Transitional Kindergarten through 5th grade. Angelica facilitated training for all our Preschool through High School teachers. Testing for students will begin and continue throughout September. Students will be taking the DIBELS, BAS, WIDA, MAP, iReady tests.
Amy Marlow
Teaching and Learning Department Director
21st Century Program
21st Century had a great 20-21 summer starting off with a Literacy program offered M-Th from 9AM - 2PM and ran for a total of 6 weeks. Seventy-five students were invited to participate from our three elementary schools and averaged a total of 60 students per week in attendance.
Regular school year planning has begun and is currently underway. Elementary schools will look to serve up to 90 students this school year (30 per building), and each building will have its own enrichment program focusing on their building needs. Some building principals have already expressed their interest in specific curriculum areas such as Literacy and STEAM. There are many options as far as schedules to offer students teaching time. Some principals prefer AM, and some prefer PM sessions or a mixture of both. Regardless of schedule, we will serve students 3 hours of enrichment learning time per day.
We are recruiting 6 teachers, 6 youth development specialists, and 2 site coordinators to help have a successful program. The anticipated time to begin the school year program is September 20th and run up through June. Interviews are being scheduled, and we hope to have a full staff by the anticipated start time. We are excited to be offering learning enrichment to students and will have more information to share next month.
David Orozco
21st Century Program Director
Career Technical Education Department
It is great to be back and to be in the buildings! The CTE department would like to share updates from our summer activities as well as some recent events.
The CTE department has 5 new staff, four in the High school, and one in the Junior High school. Savannah Hampton filled the open Agriculture position. In addition to her Ag. Business degree, she also brings extensive agriculture and substitute teaching experiences as well. Lisa Hyndman is our new Culinary Arts instructor. She was the previous Food Services Director for the district, and food service owner / operator, and culinary experience to the High school. Cielo is now going to teach primarily Textiles, Interior Design, and Child Development while Lisa will teach the food production courses.
Nathan Marley is a science teacher in the making and decided that he was interested in the CTE/STEM position at the Junior high. He is in the graduate teaching program at CWU and will be teaching a PLTW course this year.
Mercedez Ramirez and Tyler Mallory are the two new Graphic Design teachers. Both have roots in the region and share their extensive skills, professional experiences, and opportunities with Wahluke students.
During the summer ten students participated in the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center summer school. They did so with remarkable attendance, especially given how long the days were and how hot the bus travel was in late June/early July.
Four FFA students took goats to Grant County Fair and had a successful turn out. Please congratulate these students for their work when you see them; Robert Castro, Denise Prudente, Jorge Castro, and Angel Vargas. These FFA students will be finishing up their goat project and will be attending the Othello Fair next week.
Pam Moreno and Daisy Perez hosted a presentation to share the new Anatomage table's technology brings to the Human Body Systems and Bio-Med classes. This tool can be available for P.E./Health and FFA students and the Fire Department EMT students. Please come by and take a look at this amazing resource!
Classes during the first week of school went well! 48 juniors and seniors are enrolled in courses at Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center (CBTech). Many of the CBTech courses offer equivalency credits, and most all include an opportunity to earn a First Aid/CPR certification (and 2 credits from BBCC). These courses will help students discover career and college interests and help develop skills for those who know what they want to pursue after high school (and align with those students’ High School & Beyond Plans). Their bus leaves every morning at 6:25 AM. Classes run from 8 - 10:30 AM; students grab lunch at the facility and ride the bus back to the high school.
CTE teachers will clarify which Career & Technical Student Organization (CTSOs) they want to engage with this year. FBLA, FCCLA, FFA, TSA, and SkillsUSA are the current CTSOs at WSD. We will be announcing meeting dates for students who are interested in participating. CTSOs allow students to explore and practice their skills and develop leadership experiences. All CTSOs offer local, regional, and state competitions and the opportunity to continue on to national contests (and scholarships, tools, and equipment).
Glendy Ibarra & John Ellsworth are working on articulation agreements with BBCC. When complete, the students in Engineering and Business classes will have an opportunity to earn college credits simultaneously. Great things are happening with the CTE classes, and we are excited about our students' opportunities and options.
Betty Palmer
Career Technical Education Department Director
FFA students took goats to Grant County Fair
New Anatomage Table
Crime Scene Evidence
SRO Alex Zesati joined Pam’s students to discuss crime scene evidence collections and analysis.
ON-SITE SAFETY MEASURES
Every staff and guest on the WSD campus must wear their mask in school buildings regardless of vaccination status.
- Wash your hands frequently with soap and water (if not readily available use hand sanitizer).
- Maintain a distance of 3-6-feet inside - If less distance is required, it should be for shorts periods (less than 15 minutes), and masks are required.
- Stay home if you are sick to protect yourself and others.
The WSD has created the COVID-19 District Information Portal to help communicate and inform our staff and families as we traverse this pandemic and begin to get students back to campus. Please check back often for the latest information.
MONTH OVERVIEW 🗓
- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH | 5:30 PM | Volleyball Junior Varsity Home .vs. La Salle | Wahluke High School Gymnasium
- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH | 6:30 PM | Volleyball Varsity Home .vs. La Salle | Wahluke High School Gymnasium
- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH | 7:00 PM | Football Varsity Home .vs. Riverview | Wahluke Football Stadium
- SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH | 1:00 PM Girls Soccer Varsity Home .vs. Northwest Christian School | WHS Soccer Field
- TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14th: WSD Board Meeting | 7:00 PM at the WHS Library
- WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15TH: WSD Open House | 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH | 4:00 PM | Girls Soccer Varsity Home .vs. Zillah | WHS Soccer Field
- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH |5:30 PM | Volleyball C-Team Home .vs. Zillah | WHS Gymnasium
- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH | 5:30 PM | Volleyball Junior Varsity Home .vs. Zillah | WHS Gymnasium
- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH |6:30 PM | Volleyball Varsity Home .vs. Zillah | WHS Gymnasium
- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH | 4:00 PM | Girls Soccer 7th Grade Home .vs. McFarland MS WJH Soccer Fields
- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH | 5:00 PM | Girls Soccer 8th Grade Home .vs. McFarland MS | WJH Soccer Fields
- FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17TH: Vaccine Clinic Hosted By the Mattawa Clinic | 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM - for the 2nd dose & All three vaccines will be available.
- SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH |11:00 AM | Girls Soccer Varstiy Home .vs. Warden | WJH Soccer Fields
- FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH: K-12 Grade Early Release - Teacher PD
- FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH: Vaccine Clinic, hosted by CBHA (Pfizer and J&J vaccines available) | 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM at the HS Commons - for the 2nd dose (Pfizer and J&J vaccines will be available)
- THURSDAY, OCTOBER, 14TH: School Board Candidate Forum | 6:00 PM | at the WHS Auditorium
- OCTOBER 20TH - 22ND: Parent-Teacher Conference
WAHLUKE SCHOOL DISTRICT
Email: information@whaluk.net
Website: https://www.wahluke.net/
Phone: (509)932-4562