District eNews

• Jan. 13 | Finals & Early Release, grades 9-12 only
• Jan. 14 | Early Release, K-12
• Jan. 17 | No School - MLK Holiday, PK-12
• Jan. 18 | No School - Professional Development day, PK-12

Our schools and District offices will be closed Friday, Feb. 18, 2022, for a Mental Health Day to allow our staff some well-deserved time off to recharge. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to support our staff during this challenging time!

Click here to view the 2021-2022 Academic Calendar.

Please take this brief survey to help us rename our monthly District newsletter. We appreciate your input!

The Mercy and WSD health care clinic allows our students, staff, and their family members to make an appointment.

Mercy Clinic Family Medicine in Wentzville, at 1502 W. Meyer Road, will serve the school district offering priority access for appointments and walk-in options with Trisha Waters, the nurse practitioner.

Flexible scheduling is available between 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday. Call 636-445-3820 for availability. Click here to read more. Kudos to Ariana Charitonenko, a Timberland student who designed the attached flyer!

Part of keeping students and staff safe is knowing who is in our building at all times, so we are rolling out a system to allow us to do just that. Starting Jan. 24, 2022, WSD visitors will check in to our buildings using Raptor, a new visitor management system designed to assist with building security.

What does that mean for you?

• When you arrive in a WSD building as a visitor, you will be asked to scan your ID, take a photo and complete the management system’s check-in process.

• Raptor will screen the information against sex offender databases and locally customized lists of banned or potentially threatening individuals, instantly alert school officials to a threatening presence, and maintain a searchable log of all visitors.

• Once approved, you will get a customized visitor badge to wear while in the building.

Thank you for your support as we roll this out and enhance school safety protocols!

Parents or guardians who are only picking up a child for the day will not need to use the visitor management system.

THANK YOU WSD COMMUNITY! Each year in December, the WSD Holiday Assistance Program helps to provide gifts for students whose families are in need. This year, over 330 families and over 900 WSD students received gifts in the coordinated effort. Some schools participated in the District’s traditional "Adopt-a-Family" program while others partnered with area churches to hold “Christmas Shops” for WSD families. In addition, the District’s Communications and Community Relations Department and school counselors work with Saints Joachim & Ann Care Services and Love in the Name of Christ (LINC) to coordinate efforts and ensure there is no overlap of services in order to extend resources and reach the most possible families who need assistance.

The Wentzville School District would like to extend special thanks to the following for their contributions in the holiday effort to assist District families:

• Morning Star Church
• Wentzville United Methodist Church
• Calvary Church
• The Way Church
• Bridge Church
• Wentzville Christian Church
• LINC St. Charles County
• Sts. Joachim and Ann Care Service
• Lake St. Louis Ambassadors
• All of our countless student groups who adopted families too!

Additionally, we would like to thank our school counselors for the many hours they invest in this program each year, as well as all the WSD employees, families, and individuals whose kindness and generosity make this all possible! #WSDholidayjoy

Our school librarians want to partner with families just like our teachers! The library is an important part of a student's educational experience, and like our teachers, librarians are there to ensure that student needs are met.

One way our librarians can partner with families is in guiding the book selection for their students. Using our online book catalog (Destiny), a librarian can create internal notations (i.e. Student is not to check out books about witchcraft or wizardry) which will help the librarian to effectively support the students in the selection of alternative books or resources. These notations in Destiny are created by the librarian after receiving a request from a parent or guardian. This option is available to any parent at any time for any WSD library resource.

Dates have been set for the WSD Kindergarten screening process! This event is for all children who will turn five before Aug. 1, 2022. Complete the Quick Registration and Screening form and learn more on next steps on the District website.

This week, we sent out information on how the WSD will implement the CDC's latest guidelines. Here is a link to the communication we sent out to families.