NEWS FROM WES

• Tuesday, September 8th: First day of school, grades K-2 and Group B PreK, 3-6
• Wednesday, September 9th: Essential Worker Wednesday Group only
• Thursday, September 10th: First day of school Group A PreK, 3-6 (2nd day for K-2 non-essential worker)
• Friday, September 11th: In-person school for grades K-2 and Group B PreK, 3-6
• Monday, September 14th: grades K-2 and Group A PreK, 3-6
• Tuesday September 15th: grades K-2 and Group B PreK, 3-6
• Wednesday, September 16th: Essential Worker Wednesday Group only
• Thursday, September 17th: grades K-2 and Group A PreK, 3-6
• Friday September 18th: grades K-2 and Group B PreK, 3-6

For the complete WES events calendar, click here. (to be updated shortly)

For individual classroom news and events, click here. (to be updated shortly)

For all WCSU school board and committee meetings, click here.

Dear WES Families,

The WES staff has been back in the building this week participating in trainings, preparing lessons, and organizing their classrooms in eager anticipation of the students' arrival next week. They were so pleased to connect with your students this week as they readied for the start of school. Throughout the week, we had many staff question and answer sessions and faculty discussions about how to reopen school under these unfamiliar circumstances. Their thoughtfulness about this undertaking demonstrated so much care and concern for your children's positive experience coming to WES; I am proud to belong to this team. We are as ready as we can be, and we will keep adjusting to make things as smooth as possible. I appreciate your patience with us and with one another in what will be a steep learning curve!

What will the first few days or weeks look like?

Students who attend school in the building on Tuesdays will have their first day of school on 9/8. Students who are not in the building on Tuesday will not have any home learning assignments that day or Wednesday. They will receive their home learning plans when they arrive for their first in-person day on Thursday. This week is quite atypical due to starting on a Tuesday. Once we launch into a full week of school on 9/14, students in grades 3-6 will have a weekly learning plan that details their assignments for each day of the week. Students in grades K-2 will have a learning plan for the Wednesday home learning days.

Broadly, it is important to acknowledge that our priorities are first and foremost :

• get students back into the habits and routines of school
• teach students all the new in-person and at-home learning structures
• attend to their physical and emotional health and well-being

As these are the priorities, please do not expect your students to have heavy doses of academic content right out of the gates. We are going to build their stamina slowly and aim for early success by easing in. We can all anticipate there will be lots of fatigue in just retuning to full days of school and learning new routines, so please be patient and understanding that the workload will start light and gradually build up this month.

How can you help your child and our school community?

Families can help by establishing healthy routines regarding eating and sleeping. Help your child set up a distraction-free zone dedicated to home learning. Follow the state and local guidance regarding staying safe and healthy during the ongoing pandemic. Practice good hand hygiene at home. Teach your child about and support us in the 6+ ft physical distancing we will be using at school. Take your child's temperature before leaving the house even though we will screen them at school. Do not send your child to school if they have any kind of illness. Having healthy children in school will help keep us all healthy and keep our community thriving together at WES.

What does your child need?

• Two clean, well-fitting cloth or disposable masks per day
• A full water bottle (The water fountains are closed and not all classrooms have drinking water)
• outdoor appropriate clothing and footwear daily

Please reach out at anytime if I can help.

Get excited! We cannot wait to see you all this coming week!

Yours,
Maggie Mills

Principal

There will be many challenges to reopening school during the Covid-19 pandemic and one opportunity despite these challenges is to plan for the social and emotional wellness of our students. We know that students under stress need safe, predictable routines. One way we can provide this is by having quiet, private spots students can go when they are feeling stressed or overwhelmed by big emotions during school. We need private, socially spaced spots students can go in our school library, and our goal is to purchase several private nooks to tuck in quiet corners amongst our book shelves. Please share our Personal Learning Nook GoFundMe with anyone you think could help!

Email: mmills@wcsu.net
Website: https://www.wesvermont.com/
Location: Woodstock Elementary School, 15 South Street, Woodstock, VT, USA
Phone: 802-457-2522
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wesvt/?ref=bookmarks