White Pine Charter School  Newsletter
Cougars are Willing, Positive, Connected, and Significant
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Success for Every Student 

 

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March 2018                                                                              Vol. 04
 
Administrative Update
School Safety
One of the top priorities for White Pine Charter School is the safety and security of our students, staff and school community. Emergency drills will be scheduled and conducted each month during the school year. We practice safety procedures to quickly respond to a fire drill and evacuation. The purpose of a drill is to train students, under staff direction, to move safely, quickly, and quietly from any location within the building to an assigned evacuation area outside. We also practice lockdown drills and correct protocol in case someone enters the school who poses a direct threat to the students and staff.   We have practiced and reviewed our lockdown and fire evacuation procedures.

We have met with deputies from the Bonneville County Sheriff's department, and we are preparing to add additional security checkpoints including the possibility of a locked front door with video communication to whomever wants to enter our school. We have received bids from two different security vendors.  We are also constantly looking at ways to increase the safety of our students. We have looked at other less common potential emergencies and have updated or are updating them to make sure that we have the current best practices.
We know that some of this may requires additional construction. This would be a great way to fulfill the yearly commitment of volunteer hours. We would like to ask parents who may have expertise in construction and security to please contact Mr. Clarke at 208-522-4432 or clarkeje@wpcscougars.org. Some of the upgrades are expensive and we could use some help. I would like to thank those who have already offered. If you would like to donate time or money to help with our upgrades, it would be greatly appreciated. If you would like to donate money, please contact our business manager, Steve Bailey, at 208-522-4432.  Thank you for everyone's help as we work to make sure our students are safe, secure, and happy.

Parent Connection


We want to ask parents and stakeholders, w hat programs or activities would you like to see at White Pine  Charter 
School?  Email clarkeje@wpcscougars.org and grahamke@wpcscougars.org if you have any suggestions.

Exciting News from our Board of Directors

Hello to all of our White Pine Charter School families and friends.  As discussed in last months newsletter, the Board, with the support of parents and the Administration is progressing on the high school expansion project.  The outside consultant retained by the Board continues to work on development of the business plan and required charter documents. The Administration and members of the Board continue to foster relationships with potential partners and donors.  In order to manage the large scope of work that constitutes the project, the Board has established a number of high school expansion committees. Namely, a Facilities Committee, Governance and Management Committee, and Curriculum Committee have been established to work on the details in those functional areas.  The Board is also holding additional weekly public meetings to discuss the progress of the committees and the project overall. If anyone has any input for the Board on the high school expansion or is willing to assist on any of the committees, please feel free to attend any of the public Board meetings or contact the Administration.  Agendas for future pubic Board meetings can be found on the WPCS website.

Over the past several weeks the Board and the Administration have both received questions, feedback, and suggestions regarding security for our students at WPCS.  You should have received communication from the Administration outlining some of the efforts evaluating physical security and security procedures. Additionally, the school conducted a number of security lock-down drills and increased the frequency that those drills are normally completed in order to ensure school preparedness.  The Board would like to echo the Administrations commitment to ensuring a safe environment for our students while at WPCS. Pursuant to that commitment the Board has established a task group to evaluate the long term security strategy and necessary upgrades for the campus. If anyone has any feedback or suggestions for the task group please contact Chris Beaman (beamanch@wpcscougars.org), Amber Beck (beckam@wpcscougars.org), or Joanna Stark (starkjo@wpcscougars.org).


Message from our PFA



Thank you to everyone who supported our Family Night at Culver's.  We were able to raise $315. A special thank you goes to Mrs. Devan Tyler and her family for helping us out that night.

Also, thank you to everyone who braved the weather and attended our Family Reading Night on March 2nd.  We had a great a time and are grateful to Storybook Parties and Costume Design and Mrs. Buddenbohm for participating as our wonderful character readers.

Read-a-Thon Results
The collection period for our Read-a-Thon has now ended and we are excited to announce we raised a total of $5105.99.  This was an amazing accomplishment for only holding this event for two weeks! The top reading class was Mrs. Black's class with 49,242 minutes read and the top earning class was Mrs. Day's with a little over $1000 raised.  

Box Tops
The winners for our recent Box Top Collection period are:  
1 st grade 762 Box Tops
3 rd grade: 306 Box Tops
4 th Grade:  228 Box Tops
Audie G. won Principal for the Day from Middle School with 143 Box Tops submitted.

We will have one more Box Top collection from April 1 - April 20, so keep collecting them to help us raise more funds for our school.

ValYou Cards
We still have ValYou cards available for sale at the front desk of the school.  They are $20 each. If we sale all that we have, we have the potential of receiving an extra $1000 to use for a portable stage!

April's Family Night
There has been a change in our family event for April. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were forced to cancel our color run we had planned for that month. However, we still wanted to follow through with our promise to hold a monthly family event. Consequently, since Earth Day is April 22, we will be holding a Spring Clean Up event on April 21 to work together to clean up the school grounds and have a yard sale to benefit our teachers' classroom funds.  Please keep us in mind as you clean out unwanted items for us to sell. We will begin accepting donations when we get closer to this date and will send out reminders as well.

Positive Behavior Supports and Interventions



WPCS P.A.W.S. Program
When a school teaches school wide behavioral expectations (Willing, Positive, Connected, and Significant), research suggests 80% of the student population will respond to this measure in a large group setting. It also suggests that about 15% of the population needs the expectations taught to them in a smaller group. 

The WPCS P.A.W.S. program is for a portion of those 15%. P.A.W.S. is in its inaugural year at White Pine. P.A.W.S. stands for Pause And Work Smarter. It is more commonly known as a Check In and Check Out in other circles.

Teachers, students, and coaches work together to track student progress when it comes to behavior. Progress is tracked throughout the day with a card that lists the student's goals (goals are decided by parent, teacher, and the PBIS team). Teachers mentor students throughout the day on how they are doing and what they can do to improve. P.A.W.S. coaches are anyone from administration to the school counselor to office staff. Coaches check in with the students in the morning to review goals and check on well being. Coaches also check out with P.A.W.S. participants at the end of the day to see if they met the daily goal. If the goal is met it is often rewarded with a small treat. If the goal is not met coaches stay positive and focus on where students can improve. Parents are also made aware of student progress so the coaching can continue at home.

Here are what some White Pine staff members are saying about the program:

"Once this student was given a coach and had goals, he started working more during math intervention and is great at getting to work. It has completely changed the dynamic of the group."
- Mrs. Billman

"My view and relationship changed with the student once I started checking in everyday. I find the student enjoyable and love helping him through the rough days."
-Mrs. Tyler

"PAWS has really benefited a certain student in my class.  He is very excited to earn his stars.  He has gotten better at constructive  criticism  and ways to improve if he doesn't earn all of the highest marks.  As a student, his behavior made a 360 change which has also brought up his academics.  I appreciate the PAWS Program.  It has helped this student and made a very positive impact on him.  It has also saved me time as far as less discipline issues and giving that student more positive feedback and attention."
-Mrs. Torgerson

I think it's really helpful to have several "stopping points" each day to talk about behavior with my PAWS students. We are able to talk about the positive things they are doing. We can also correct minor behavior problems and get back "on track" with better choices. 
-Mrs. Day

White Pine Charter School looks forward to backing up these claims with data after year one. 

Capturing Cougars in Action



The Cougars 7th/8th grade team beat undefeated Alturas in an overtime thriller. 

Curling in P.E.
  Fun in the snow

Second graders learning about coins
 
  Multiplication Ninjas in 3rd grade




Third graders learning about the behavior of sound waves through solid, liquid, and gas mediums. 



Family Reading Night visitors


















 














 


  Monthly Events

March 13 - Spring pictures

March 14 - Career Fair

March 15  - Last boys basketball game - Connor Academy @ White Pine 

March 19-23 - Spring Break

March 30 - 4th Grade Medieval Fair







Our funding is 
based on student attendance 

When you make appointments that could take your child away from school, please schedule them for after 1 p.m. We lose funding if students leave before 1 p.m. Also, please plan vacations when school is out of session. We want to secure as much funding as possible to invest in your children!

Office Info 

Please check in at the front office before heading to a classroom. F or the safety of your children, a ll adults must have a visitor badge. When bringing your students in late, please make sure to sign them in before taking them to class. Otherwise, they may be marked absent. 

Dress Code Reminder

Please make sure your child is coming to school in dress code. Our policies and resources are listed on the school website. We are more than happy to answer any questions you may have.