Spring, 2016
Follow our Facebook
page for news, info
& celebrations
Thank you for collecting Box
Tops for our school!
WESTWOOD NEWS
April
Calendar
March 31 –
Kindergarten
Round-up, 1:30 or
6 PM
April 4 –
Returning to
Westwood Survey
April 11-14 Brain
Olympics – 3rd
Grade Reading
April 18 – 22
Spring Break
Dear Parents and Community,
At Westwood we have a job to do! Most likely, if you ask your child what their
job is, they will tell you that it is to learn and to get a little bit closer to their goals
each day. We work hard to become amazing readers, mathematicians, scientists,
writers and more. We work to develop our behavior and character as well. It is
amazing what our students and teachers are able to accomplish over the course of
the year.
However, our challenge becomes the limited time that we have
with your child. When you quantify the year, your student is at
school for about 18% of the time. If you subtract recess, lunch,
transitions and more, we actually have about 9% of a year to
create strong learners. Bottom line, our time with kids is
precious.
With that being said it becomes obvious that attendance matters. Did you know
that missing just 2 days a month has a negative impact on learning and will put
your student a half of year behind as a reader by the fourth grade? It will also
decrease your child’s chances of graduating from high school. On the other hand,
students with strong attendance generally are better readers, score higher on
assessments and have a stronger chance of graduating.
At Westwood, we strive to provide the best education possible for our children.
We thank you for making school a priority and for ensuring your child is here
whenever possible and on time.
We have a job to do!
Scott Meyer,
Principal, (360) 802-7624
1
Counselor’s Corner
Dear Westwood Families,
As you know, we are using the Second Step program in all of our classrooms. The Second Step
program teaches children important skills for getting along with others and doing well in school.
It also helps our school be a safe, respectful place where everyone can learn.
To further help our school be a safe and respectful place, we are also going to use the Second Step
Bullying Prevention Unit. In these lessons, your child will learn specific skills to help stop
bullying. Students will learn how to:
Recognize when bullying is happening
Report bullying to a caring adult
Refuse to let bullying to happen to themselves or others
Be a bystander who stands up and is part of the solution to bullying




You can get involved in making our school a safe and respectful place by letting us know if you
hear about bullying at our school. Also, you can make sure your child knows to tell you or
someone at school if he or she is being bullied and give your child the clear message that it is
never okay to bully others.
If you would like to learn more information about the Bullying Prevention Unit, you can go
online to SecondStep.org and log-in with the grade level family activation keys listed below:
·
Kindergarten: BPUK FAMI LY0K
·
1 Grade: BPU1 FAMI LY01
·
2 Grade: BPU2 FAMILY02
·
3 Grade: BPU3 FAMILY03
·
4 Grade: BPU4 FAMILY04
·
5 Grade: BPU5 FAMILY05
st
nd
rd
th
th
If you have any questions about the Bullying Prevention Unit or the Second Step program, please
contact me! Thank you for helping us make our school a safe, respectful place where everyone
can learn.
Sincerely,
Jessica Kelly
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
From the Library – Ms. Janie Ingroum
The Washington State Library and the Institute of Museum and Library Services
recognize that school libraries can always use help in keeping their collections up
to date.
Since materials in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields
change rapidly, collections need to be renewed more frequently. To help school
libraries update their STEM collections, the Washington State Library put together
2
230 STEM book collections from lists of award-winning books aimed at
elementary, middle and high school students. All public and nonprofit schools
were welcome to apply for a grant that would provide 53 books to add to add
to their library collections. The grants were awarded to 120 elementary schools,
55 middle schools, and 55 high schools throughout the state of Washington. In
the Enumclaw School District grants were awarded to Black Diamond
Elementary, Byron Kibler Elementary, Southwood Elementary, Westwood
Elementary, and Enumclaw High School. We are most appreciative of the
partnership between the Washington State Library and Institute of Museum and
Library Services for these new books for our library collections that have already
attracted a lot of interest from students and staff. The books help to support our
Science curriculums and to develop student interest in Technology, Engineering,
and Math as well.
3