White Pine Charter School and White Pine STEM Academy
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Success for Every Student
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A Message From Mr. Clarke
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Happy Holidays!
We are having one of our best years ever. Our staff is busily engaging students to make sure that the education they receive is relevant and challenging. Student test scores indicate that students have experienced tremendous growth over the first four months of school.
As we enter to coldest part of the year, please make sure that your students are properly dressed for the elements. Our students will be outside for recesses and passing periods whenever the temperature is above 0 degrees (accounting for wind chill). We will also be outdoors when it is snowing. Please remind your students to wear a jacket, gloves, a hat, snow boots and snow pants in outside breaks so that s/he will be warm and dry.
It would be a good idea to review the dress code policy with your student. The policies for our charter school and STEM academy are found online at our website: whitepinecharterschool.org.
Every student who currently attends WPCS or WPSA needs to be following the dress code. One dress code rule that applies to both schools is that students do not wear sweatpants to school.
As you purchase gifts for your student, please feel free to help them out by buying clothing that is appropriate for school.
I hope that your holidays are bright and warm.
Jeremy Clarke
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LEGO Robotics Team Shows Their Skills in Difficult Event
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On Saturday, December 14th, sixth graders of the White Pine LEGO Robotics Team competed in the qualifier for the For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology (FIRST) LEGO League. The team’s worked tirelessly to produce their system of robots to fulfill a series of challenges.
Competition was fierce between the Cougars and a range of experienced teams. Although other teams ended up qualifying instead of White Pine, the team showed an impressive mastery of the medium and received praise for their diligent work.
The team is expecting to return even more prepared and ready for action next year!
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New Clubs Starting for K-6 Students
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In the new year, students in kindergarten through sixth grade will have a variety of new club opportunities! For more information, please contact Ms. Trust.
Science Discovery:
Tuesdays, starting date TBD. Open to K-6.
Game Club:
Thursdays starting 1/16. Open to 4th-6th graders.
Math Club:
Wednesdays, starting date TBD. Open to K-6.
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Lady Cougars Basketball Teams End Season with Phenomenal Win Records
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What a season by you White Pine Lady Cougars!
The A team made it to the semifinals, where they made an incredible come-back over the course of the game before a narrow loss. They finished the season 7-3.
The B team made it to their championship and finished the season 7-2! We greatly admire their assertive play against their opponents.
Good job to all players on a great season!
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STEM Academy Prepares New On-Campus Science Lab
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Last month, we were ecstatic to grow our STEM Academy campus by adding 2660 First Street (the former daycare building) to our lease. In keeping with the spirit of STEM Academy learning, we are converting the building into a laboratory space to be used by the 7th-9th graders starting in 2020.
The 48 feet x 48 feet building will host lab spaces that will serve STEM Academy students. Science labs had been done in the Maker Space, but science teachers are excited to have a dedicated space for their materials and experiments.
Extra space in the building will be available for private staff and parent meetings, a welcome addition to the campus.
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Student Zookeepers Continue Tradition of Hosting Endangered Species Zoo
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Pies and Awards at STEM Academy
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STEM Academy started December with an awards’ ceremony celebrating student accomplishments in the first trimester. Students received awards for classroom effort, attendance, personal growth, and other special achievements.
All students got to experience another kind of reward; since all mentorship classes had collected at least ten items for the food drive, students got the chance to pie their teachers in the face! After each teacher faced their pie, students chanted which teacher should take a turn next. It was an exciting start to the trimester!
Big thanks to everyone who brought food for our food drive and congratulations to all the award-winners! These are exciting moments to celebrate service and individual achievements!
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Sixth Graders Present Wax Museum
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In December, the sixths graders finished their unit on Greek history and mythology by putting on an interactive wax museum.
Students took on the roles of dozens of legendary Greek heroes, divinities, and miscreants from Achilles to Zeus. Each student stood frozen, with visitors pressing a special button to make them come alive and discuss their figure’s history, relatives, and significance.
Costuming was superb and the students did a great job memorizing long presentations with Greek names and complex family relationships.
Fifth graders should get ready; this is the first year we’ve had this activity, but since it went so well, Mr. Scott is hoping to make it a tradition (and who can blame him when he gets to wear his toga while on the job?).
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Students Step It Up in Dance-Off Assembly
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Another new tradition affected all of the K-6 graders: our new Dance-Off Assembly! All homeroom classes presented a dance of their own choice and creation, with our WPCS Superheroes (Willing Woman, Princess Positive, Captain Connected, and the Significant Surfer) judging.
Students showed-off their unique skills such as gymnastics, jump-roping, rhythm, and of course boundless enthusiasm.
Teams were scored on a variety of factors. Here are the winners in each of the three grade categories:
Lower grades: Ms. Trust’s class
Middle grades: Mrs. Ford’s class
Upper grades: Three-way tie! Mr. Walton’s, Mrs. Black’s, and Mr. Scott’s classes
We enjoyed all of the presentations! Here is looking forward to the next great idea! Also, please forgive the photo fuzziness; the current iPhone camera may be powerful enough to shoot a theatrically-released film, but it is powerless in the face of enthusiastic elementary students.
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And cheers to this student who knew who the real king and queen of the castle are
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Thank you, White Pine, and have a great month!
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Please contact Matt Wiltbank at wiltbankma@wpcscougars.org to submit items to be considered for the newsletter.
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