West Side Newsletter

West Side Families,

If you read my March newsletter, you know I'm not a big fan of that particular month. It's just too unpredictable. I was a track and field guy from junior high school all the way through college, so I have a lot of experience with being outside in spring weather. In my experiences, March was always loathsome while April was much more magical. Speaking of track and field, we are rounding the final corner and hitting the home stretch. Spring Break has concluded, and we have hit that final sprint to the finish line.

What does the final sprint look like? Well, one of the big-ticket items for us as teachers is measuring our students' growth from the beginning of the school year to the end. The only way to measure this growth is through assessments. We have several of those coming up in April. Of course, the state of Wyoming has their own assessment (WY-TOPP), and we'll be devoting substantial time to that assessment this month because we want to show the state what we can do. To that end, we are treating the WY-TOPP as an event, something to be excited about rather than anxious.

We will be hosting a special breakfast for each grade during their first day of WY-TOPP summative testing. Of course, we'll have music playing and perhaps even some dancing to help the kids get into a positive state of mind. The point is this: we've worked hard all year to learn at high levels, and we want to show off that learning. If you could help encourage our kids to put forth their very best efforts into this assessment season when they are home, it would only benefit them. Encouraging them to get good sleep and eat well would also be very appreciated, and it will help all of our kids to cross the finish line with great positive energy!

If you have any questions or ideas about how we can help our kids strongly finish the school year, please give me a call. Thanks, as always, for working with us to better prepare our kids for an incredible future!

Brian Gunderson

Principal

West Side Elementary

307-347-4298 (office)

As I type this out and try to find the right words, I can't help but think back to my days at Pinedale Elementary School in Rapid City, SD. My friends and I would usually get together on weekends, eat way too much frozen pizza, and watch whatever movies our parents would let us watch. It was usually a sleepover, which meant it was usually at my best friend Matt's house because his room was the entire basement of his parents' house. His parents were smart enough to avoid coming downstairs too much; I mean, we were all pre-teen boys eating foods and drinking sodas known to cause flatulence. So, we felt pretty safe talking about anything and practicing our tough-guy-movie talk on each other. We cursed. We told bad jokes. We were kids. But we were also sheltered by the times much more than our kids are now. Our parents had to drive us to the video rental store and then pay for the movies we were renting. In other words, they knew what we were watching.

Let's contrast that with our kids today, shall we? Do kids still get together to eat frozen pizza and consume way too many sodas on a Friday night? Absolutely. Do they watch movies? Of Course. Netflix, Max, Hulu, and Prime are just a handful of streaming services that our kids have access to at any one of our houses. And, as parents, we CAN restrict what our kids have access to on these streaming services. We CAN ... but do we? What about on our kids' phones? I've walked downstairs to check in on my high school daughters when they have friends over, and even if there is a movie on the TV, nobody is watching it because everybody is on her own phone watching something on Tik Tok or YouTube. Do we restrict what our kids have access to on their devices?

I ask this question because I've been witnessing some horrible language coming from our kids lately. Some of this language is sexist; some of it is vulgar; some of it is racial. I believe our kids are watching their favorite social media celebrities (who get paid to say shocking things, by the way) and are bringing that language to school to share with their friends. I also believe most of our kids who are doing this have no idea how offensive the language is, and I'm not even sure they know what half of it means. If you are reading this newsletter, I hope you can help me out. Please, talk to your student. Engage your student in this tough conversation. The school playground should be a safe place to play. That's it. At West Side, we talk about our core values and try to provide a safe environment for our kids to practice these core values. There is no room in our core values for negative talk.

Washakie #1 Families,

Hopefully, you have all caught glimpses of the incredibly helpful work that our parent organization, PTO, has provided for our elementary schools this past year. If you haven't, I'd like to list just a few of them:

• Provided all funding and activities for the annual Monster Mash held every year during Halloween.

• Purchased 1st-grade take-home books for every 1st grader at East Side.

• Provided kindergarten-screening take-home bags (loaded with kindergarten-prep activities).

• Provided rewards for positive-behavior-intervention parties at all three elementary schools.

• Purchased weekly morning snacks for all three elementary schools.

• Purchased ALL equipment/supplies for East Side's SEL room.

• Purchased student shirts at South Side.

• Provided STEM activities at all elementary schools.

• Provides root-beer-float parties for all grade levels during the school year.

• Purchased prizes for March Madness and Battle of the Books at West Side.

• Purchased math wraps for South Side.

• Purchased many items for West Side's student-run garden.

This past month, the PTO, with the help of our elementary students, held our annual fund raiser raffle. This one fund raiser provides ALL of our PTO funding for the next school year, which is absolutely awesome; however, without parental involvement, we have no PTO. For this reason, we are hoping for more volunteers to join up for the rest of this year and at the start of next year. We meet for about an hour on the first Tuesday of each month, and snacks are provided! Do you want to be more involved in your child's education but don't know exactly what that looks like? Please consider joining the PTO. The more volunteers we get, the more we can do for our schools and, especially, our kids!

April 2: WE-PTO at South Side

April 8: No School for Students - Teacher In-service

April 9: Battle of the Books Competition

April 10: Field Trip to Hamilton Ranch/Medicine Lodge

April 11: Class Pictures

April 17: 4th Grade WY-TOPP - Science

April 22: School Board Meeting

April 24: 4th Grade WY-TOPP - ELA

May 1: 4th Grade WY-TOPP - Math

Brantley Merritt, Aurelia Cochran, James Cochrane, Drew Mertz

Ayden Bain, Kynley O'Neal, Uriel Cisneros, Tyce Bradshaw, Roxy DeWitt

Rylee Decker, Zayli Beason, Lialynn Moreno, Ridley Feather, Burgess Hamilton

Jazmine Rios, Hadley Rimmer, Aiden Clayborne, Avani Salinas, Marcella Flannery

Connor Fairbanks, Tate Barrett, Wyatt Moore, Scotlyn Armajo, Lelund Scott

Harlowe Newton, Adalina Rodriguez, Reese Alcaraz, Beaux Butler, Gordon Cauffman

5th Grade - Beaux Butler, Kynley Williams

4th Grade - Harper Keller, Drew Mertz

Kynley Williams, Brylee Miller, Harper Keller, Beaux Butler, Ulises Cisneros-Vega, Gordon Cauffman

Ridley Feather, Derek Mertz, Ryker Page

Ryker Morado - 2 Million Words

Maddux Johnston - 2 Million Words

Harmony Johnston - 3 Million Words

Lettie George - 4 and 5 Million Words

Kindness Squad does games to promote school spirit and unity, encouraging/cheering for others, and as a reward for hard work each quarter? It gives my squad a chance to reach out and include others in activities, and not just think of ourselves. Promoting leadership and relationships in students, which is two of our core values.

We just want to have some fun!🤪

Battle of the Books competition is right around the corner! In order to qualify, students who are participating in the competition must have their three summaries completed April 4th. The actual battle will commence April 9th. A detailed schedule will be determined after the final summaries are turned in. We can't wait to see which team comes out on top!

Thanks to our PTO for sponsoring shirts, prizes, and snacks for this and our upcoming March Madness reading!

Guidance for April:

5th Grade: DARE with our SRO, Officer McClain

4th Grade: Responsibility and Conflict Resolution

Parents,

As we begin to wind down the school year, but life still remains crazy busy, please make time daily to talk with your kiddos, play games with them, let them know you care and have time for them. Leave them special notes in their room or in their lunch boxes, eat dinner together, or make a fort and watch a movie. Spending time with your kids is a great stress reliever for them.

Other fun ideas:

Backwards meal (eat things upside down/backwards, wear clothes backwards, eat under the table)

Rude night (have a fun meal with "no manners")

Mr. Freeze Game (while eating a meal, one person is Mr. Freeze and whenever they freeze, everyone else has to as well. Last person to freeze pays a fun forfeit and then it's their turn to be Mr. Freeze)

Do a Dance party, have a nerf war, play video games together, paint nails, play the ABC game or travel bingo when traveling in the car.

Heather Rollema

K-12 School Counselor

Homework club is Monday to Thursday after school until 4:15. Students can ride the bus home, but it only goes to the school nearest to them or the Learning Center.

Here is our schedule:

Walk

Read for 20 minutes

Work on spelling

Misc. Work

Clean up

This month students will be preparing for the long-awaited 5th grade track meet that will be held May 10th. It has been a long-standing tradition in Worland and will continue this year. If you are at all interested in helping out, please contact Ms. Penny in the office or me directly via email or text. Thank you all in advance for helping this run smoothly.

zlempka@washakie1.com

(307)431-0103

Mr. Lempka