Fall is Here π
September was this school year's first entire month of school, and WSD is very grateful to continue to have all of our staff and students on campus. We were able to have our virtual open house and preparing for our Parent-Teacher conferences that will be taking place on October 20th through the 22nd. Below you will find a small list of dates to keep in mind as we fall right into October.
Human Resource Updates
The Human Resources Department would like to introduce Jessica Ledezma to our team. Jessica will be managing all things related to substitutes in addition to other responsibilities within the HR department. Jessica is a Wahluke graduate, and we are happy to have her join us. Speaking of substitutes, we are actively recruiting substitutes for all types of positions: bus drivers, teachers, para pros, food service, etc. Substitutes can accept available jobs to match their own personal schedule. Spread the word and send interested candidates to our website, just Google WSD73. We also have coaching, bus driver, food service, and para paraprofessionals available for permanent hired as well.
Welcome aboard 65 new employees to WSD this year. We hired new staff in every department. If new staff have any questions your coworkers, supervisors, and HR are here for you!. Just ask.
Fall is beautiful in Central Washington. Be sure to take some time for yourself and feed your mind, body, and soul in our great outdoors.
Liz Leitz
WSD HR Department Director
Special Education Department
We are excited to announce we have a few new hires and want to welcome new paraprofessionals Tara Corrales and Maria Zamorano JH Resource Room, Veronica Castillo Saddle Mountain Elementary Resource Room and Brenda Madrigal Saddle Mountain Elementary Life Skills. We are also excited to add Speech and Language Pathologists Debra Irby and Gabrielle Tibbitts.
October 21 & 22 will be the dates for Child Find - Developmental Screening: This process is available at WSD for any child 3-5 years old who is not yet enrolled in Kindergarten. The purpose is to ensure that all of our children in our community are receiving the services necessary in order to be successful.
If you have a child who may need help, please call Fatima Barajas or Claudia Tapia at (509)932-4565 to make your appointment.
LaDonna Fogle
Special Education Department Director
Multilingual & Multicultural Services
This month we have been busy in the M2 department. We had over 150 TK/ Kinder students to screen for English Language Development services with the new WIDA screener. The tech team has been amazing, and now we are all set to start the online screener for students who arrived after last yearβs ELA21 annual assessment in grades 1-12. If you have a student who has no ELPA21 data for the past two years, and you would like us to re-screen that student for more up-to-date language data, please email me at bmartinez@wahluke.net, and I will get that student added to the list.
This Wednesday, October 6th is the first general PAC meeting for our Migrant parents. We are looking forward to sharing information with families and seeing them in person finally!
Weβve also had a change to our department staffing. Victor Gomez is no longer our McKinney Vento Liaison. We will miss him, but we wish him the best in this next chapter of his life. Lluviana Mendoza has accepted this position and will be transitioning from the JH to the McKinney Vento Liaison over the next couple of weeks.
In our hopes to communicate better with all buildings we will start sending out a weekly email to each building with updates and resources for teachers and staff. Stay tuned!
Bethany MartΓnez
Multilingual & Multicultural Services Director
Child Nutrition Department
Hola Warriors! Our Food Service Department is changing! We are adding two new Associates and one of our Awesome Associates retired this month: Victor Longmire. Victor has been with the district for almost 30 years and has worked for both the Transportation and Food Service Departments. Our superintendent presented him with a Golden Apple on September 30, his last day with WSD. We wish him well in his retirement!
Weβve introduced new menu items to our students throughout September and will be gathering feedback from students during National School Lunch Week (October 11-15). If youβd like to provide comments on any of our meals, please email Jennie at jnorton@wahluke.net.
Our Awesome Associates work hard to prepare healthy meals for our students and keep our Salad Bars stocked with a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Weβll be offering Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snacks to our Elementary School students starting in October, so our younger students will have many opportunities to try new healthy snacks at school. We promise that onions and potatoes are NOT on the FFVP menu this year! π€
Jennie Norton
Child Nutrition Department Director
Maintenance and Grounds Department
In maintenance, we are still working on the three high school portables. They are set and hooked to water and sewer and have gutters. Soon power will be hooked up to them and ramps installed. Then we will get the fire alarm systems installed, and all the little detail work. We are still waiting on furniture for them as there is a material shortage. As well also still waiting on the arrival of the Migrant portable.
We are getting ready for our fall weed spray on some of our sports fields. We hope to follow it up with a spring spray to get our fields in even better shape. We will be doing a slight irrigation filtering upgrade this winter to reduce the time spent unplugging sprinklers and remedy the premature wearing out of sprinklers. This should hopefully free up some time to spend a little more time on our sports fields such as baseball and softball.
The new roof on Mattawa Elementary is nearing completion, and it was nice to go through these recent rainy days and not have a single leak. You should see the smiles on the crew's faces when it rains, and they don't have to put buckets all around their office.
Matt Hyndman
Maintenance, Grounds and Custodial Department Director
21st Century Program
21st Century Program has filled both Site Coordinator positions at SME with Maria Cardoso and MSSE with Stacey Sprinkle!
The after school program has been running at MES since September 27th, supporting 1st and 2nd-grade students in Literacy. The after-school Robotics program for SME will begin on October 4th, supporting 4th and 5th-grade students. We are also in the early planning stage of providing academic support in the 1st and 2nd grade level in Literacy. The plan is to begin sometime in early November.
After school Robotics program for MSSES start date is TBD, but we are anticipating mid-October. We will be supporting 4th and 5th-grade students.
We will continue to have more after-school opportunities as the school year unfolds for WSD Elementary Students.
David Orozco
21st Century Program Director
CAREER TECHNICAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
Fair season is over for Wahluke goats. Last week in Othello, Jorge earned Grand in the Market Goat, Angel earned Reserve Market, and Denise received a blue. In Fitting and Showing, Denise earned Grand and Jorge earned Reserve. In the Round Robin event, Denise got to handle and show a horse, dairy and meat cows, sheep, and pig.
Betty Palmer
CTE Department Director
Intramural Sports
Intramural Sports just finished a track and field youth session for Kinder - 6th grade students. During the month of October we are starting a tennis camp. It is for Kinder - 6th grade students starting October. 4th from 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM at the WSD tennis courts. We will have more intramural sport opportunities for students all year round, which we are very excited about!
Joe Wirtzberger
Intramural Sports Director
Safety and Security Department
The safety and Security department has been busy for the start of the year. To start the year there has been a lot of training. Some examples of those trainings are; start of the year teacher training, back to school safety training for students, crosswalk training for Paraprofessionals, and traffic safety that involved our very own SRO - Student Resource Officer. Also, our Event Staff has event specific training such as zone of control training and radio communications. Our goal is to always think about the safety of our students, staff, and campus.
JJ Calzadillas
Safety & Security Coordinator
It is wonderful to see students laughing and having fun again! Whether itβs talking and playing with friends, shooting hoops, or celebrating a soccer goal, itβs great to see MSSE students smiling!
Karl Edie
Morris Schott STEAM Elementary
Principal
Parent Communication with ParentSquare
The Wahluke School District uses ParentSquare for school communication, primarily with email, text, and app notifications. ParentSquare automatically generates an account for each parent, using their preferred email address and phone number.
We encourage parents to access their accounts to stay involved with their student's learning and activities at school and district from anywhere by downloading the mobile app and updating their preferences on when and how they are notified.
trunk or treat events
Trunk-O-Treat in Mattawa
Coordinators of event: CBHA, Mattawa Community Medical Clinic, City of Mattawa
Location: Hund Memorial Park, Mattawa
Date: October 29, 2021
Time:
- 4-5pm Activities
- 5-7pm Trunk-o-Treating, 6pm judging of trunks (Organizations can decorate trunk too)
Theme: Day of the Dead
Prizes: Best of show, 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place
π π π π π π
Trunk-O-Treat in Desert-Air
Coordinators of event: Mattawa Desert-Air Lions Club
Location: Desert-Air Shopping Center Parking Lot
Date: October 31st, 2021
Time: 4-7 PM
Contact Info: Kevin - kwebster856@outlook.com
WAHLUKE SCHOOL DISTRICT
Email: information@whaluk.net
Website: https://www.wahluke.net/
Phone: (509)932-4562
