WBMSHS Principal Update to Families

Dear WB Community,

Welcome to 2023. I hope you had a restful break and had the opportunity to spend some quality time with your family and friends. It is hard to believe we are heading to the halfway point of the school year. We have a lot of events coming soon. Midterms for our high school students begin next week and course selections for the 2023-2024 school year will be during the February break so please stay tuned.

Our seniors continue to receive acceptances from amazing colleges and universities. Many will have some tough decisions ahead of them.

Finally, the auditions for the spring musical are underway. We always enjoy watching the great talent of our students here in WB. We look forward to seeing Legally Blonde in April.

Have a great weekend.

Mrs. Page

Guidance is gearing up for the AP Exams. Each exam costs $97 and must be paid by January 31st. Checks should be made payable to West Bridgewater High School, or payments can be made on-line through MySchoolBucks.

Administration and counselors will be meeting with all students the week before February break to review the course selection process. Between now and then teachers will be speaking with students to discuss their recommendations for College Prep, Honors or AP level.

All students in grades 8-11 will be making their course selections over the break. Students in grade 7 will have a Google form sent to them sometime in March to select the preference for a world language and if they want to take band or chorus.

Be on the lookout for a career day this Spring.

Inclusion Matters is a group of West Bridgewater families whose children have IEPs and 504s. We offer webinars and events to support families with special needs. If you'd like to learn more, please email us at InclusionMattersMA@gmail.com to join our private email list.

See our upcoming events on our Facebook page at @InclusionMattersMA and our website at www.InclusionMattersMA.com

High school exams will be held on 1/12, 1/13, 1/17 & 1/18 with dismissal at 11:00am for all high school students. There will be NO buses at 11:00 so students need to make arrangements for pick up. High school students will have the opportunity to grab a lunch at 11:00 if they choose.

If any student is unable to acquire transportation please let the main office know. We can make arrangements for them to sit in the main office or a classroom with a teacher until 2:00pm. Students will NOT be allowed to remain in; nor roam around the building unattended.

Middle school students will have their regularly scheduled days on all of the high school exam days.

Congratulations to the following Middle School students who are winners in the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars Patriot Pen Essay contest. The theme this year is, "My Pledge To Our Veterans". McKenzie Craig took 2nd place earning a $200.00 scholarship and Jennifer Lamlein took 3rd place earning $100.00 scholarship. A huge thank you to their social studies teachers for encouraging them through the process and Paul Laporte for the book donation to the Social Studies Department.

It is so great when our former students come back to speak with our current students! Today in Mrs. Pankowski's Life 101 class, alumni came back to share their experiences at college. They discussed transferring, internships, study abroad, college life and extracurriculars. Once a Wildcat....Always a Wildcat!

Mr. Stanfa's middle school class was working on "Relief Carving".

Students in Mr. Finley's Art III class got the chance to experience the potters wheel after recycling old used clay. The process of recycling clay involves smashing up the hardened clay and then working it into some water to make it usable. Looks like they had a blast!

Mr. Ennis’ American Legal class had their final guest speaker of the course, Hillary Thompson, the crime analyst for the Brockton Police Department. Ms. Thompson is a graduate of Stonehill College and got her Masters in Criminal Justice from Suffolk University. She has been working in her current position at BPD for the past 6 years. She spoke to students about her role and gave many examples of the types of information she analyzes, bulletins she puts out for the officers and tools she uses, while sharing some recent examples of crimes her work has helped to solve.

The West Bridgewater Debate Team hosted 8 schools from the Southeastern Massachusetts Debate League on Wednesday, January 4th for the third and fourth rounds of the debate season. The Varsity Debate team won both rounds, remaining undefeated and the novice team won one of their rounds. This is the first year the debate league is back to in person debates and the students greatly enjoyed a night of rigorous debate.

In both November and December students in Ms. O’Loughlin’s and Ms. Reid’s ESL classes wrote letters to seniors around the country in need of a little holiday cheer. Their efforts were in conjunction with the charity Love for Our Elders. This organization invites individuals to nominate elders (grandparents, friends, neighbors) for the program who are perhaps homebound or without regular visits from family. Every month the organization chooses approximately ten senior citizens to be the recipients of some love via letters from volunteer writers. If you’re interested in sharing the love – or nominating an elder – check out the charity’s website at https://loveforourelders.org/letters. It’s an easy way to bring joy to deserving seniors, especially with Valentine’s Day just around the corner!

Mr. Cray's TV I class is working on their game show project which will air when completed. Students were working on many aspects of the show for its airing. They worked on commercial breaks, production, advertising, sound and lighting. We look forward to the final product!

Members of Mr. McMurray's Robotics class challenged each other in friendly competition in class this week.

Greetings from the MSHS Wildcat Café!

Just a reminder that both breakfast and lunch are free this school year! The WB Food Services link has more info and menus.

Each student is offered 1 free breakfast and 1 free lunch per day. Extra entrées are $2.00 and additional a la carte items such as bottled water, cookies, crackers and ice cream can also be purchased but a student must have money on their lunch account for these extras. All items served meet strict state and federal nutrition standards. Money can be added to a student’s account two ways:

· Cash or a check can be brought to the cashier at arrival or towards the end of a meal. To keep the line moving as quickly as possible, we no longer accept money in the line.

· Electronic payments using MySchoolBucks. You will need your student’s 10-digit student ID (SASID#) to set up an account. Even if you don’t add money using MySchoolBucks, it allows you to monitor cafeteria transactions until they graduate!

We are looking to hire additional cafeteria substitutes. Interested individuals can contact me at agrinder@wbridgewater.com or at (508)894-1220.

Thank you,

Ann Marie Grinder, Food Service Director

Our Wildcats are back!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break! Here are some updates about our winter sports teams!

The WB Boys and Girls Winter Track battled against Bishop Feehan High school, both teams putting up valiant efforts but coming up short with scores of WB 24, BF 70 for boys and WB 25, BF 75 for girls. The WEB Boys Ice Hockey team lost a tough one to Bourne this week 3-1 and the WEB Girls fought to the very end of a 6-3 loss against a strong Whitman Hanson team. Our Varsity Boys Basketball team put on a shooting clinic as they beat Norton with a score of 63 to 47 and the JV Boys lost a tough one to Norton 52-59. The FR boys basketball team also battled hard against Norton in an exciting and close game but came up short with a final of 43-49. The Girls Varsity Basketball team lost to a tough Seekonk team 45-38 and the JV Girls basketball team lost to Seekonk but look forward to competing against Abington this week! Our Middle School Girls lost to a strong Pembroke team and will wrap up the week vs Holbrook. The Boys Middle School team lost in a close game to Pembroke 49-46. Our BR/WB Gymnastics won their first meet against Notre Dame 141.9 to 134.5! Congrats to all our Wildcats! Also a Shout Out to our student section“The Bench” for supporting our teams! Great job to everyone!

Find schedules on the Arbiter Live Website: https://arbiterlive.com/Teams?entityId=25160

Power Rankings for basketball and ice hockey will be coming out soon! Check the link below:

https://miaa.net/power-rankings/

Basketball tickets to HOME regular season games are being sold online: https://gofan.co/app/school/MA14770

Check out the online apparel store for Unified Basketball:

https://wbunifiedbb2023.itemorder.com/

Team photos will be taken on January 13th beginning at 11:00am. All winter team photos will be taken on that day so be sure all student athletes have their uniforms with them. High students will report to the gym at the end of their second exam and middle school students will be called down by sport. High students who are on a winter team will be dismissed after their team photo.

A friendly reminder that all medications need to be kept in the nurse’s office. The only exception is for students in grades 9-12 who carry life saving medications such as inhalers and/or EpiPen's. All medications, even if carried with the student, need to have a medication order on file with the nurse. If you would like to authorize your student to take over the counter medications at the nurse's office you can access the STANDING ORDER MEDICATION & ANNUAL HEALTH UPDATE FORM on our Health Services page on the district website: https://www.wbridgewaterschools.org/page/health-services

Email: cpge@wbridgewater.com
Website: https://www.wbridgewaterschools.org/o/ms-middle-senior-hs
Location: 155 West Center Street, West Bridgewater, MA, USA
Phone: 508-894-1220
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wbmshs
Twitter: @WBMSHS