SUN PRAIRIE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS NEWSLETTER |
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IN THIS ISSUE
- Before and After School Activities
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Lexi Vanden Heuvel
Supporting Community Schools
608.318.8109
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Trunk or Treat
Our team had a great time being part of the cast of Hotel Transylvania on Saturday, October 29 at Park and Rec’s annual Trunk or Treat event held at the SP Aquatic Center!
Pictured below are VampIress Jo, Count Stacey, Katrina the Mummy, Mrs. Frank N Stein (aka Stacy D), and the adorable Mavis (aka Lexi V)!
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Did you know that there are Community School Playgroups held throughout Sun Prairie for children who are 3 or 4 years old and not yet eligible for 4K? The Little Wildcats, Little BlueJays, and Little Nighthawks programs are led by our SPASD Early Education Team and are super popular!
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Wacky Wednesdays in the Neighborhoods continues to be incredibly popular with over 125 Wildcats (The Element), Coyotes (Rolling Prairie), and BlueJays (Vandenburg Park) hanging out with Mrs. Darga (Westside Site Coordinator) and Mrs. Collins (Creekside Site Coordinator) each Wednesday afternoon. While we are pretty awesome, they don’t just come out to see us as these nights would not happen without our many partners which include The Dream Bus, Sunshine Place, SP Emergency Food Pantry, Neighborhood Navigators, Dane County Public Health, and the City of Sun Prairie.
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Families Inspiring Together
What began as a group to support Westside and CH Bird families experiencing a transition in securing stable housing last year, has now grown to support all SPASD families who have experienced, are experiencing, or may be experiencing housing insecurity in the future. Led virtually by Catherine Reierson, our McKinney Vento social worker for the SPASD, each month our site coordinators join us along with a guest speaker to let families know about resources available to them in our community and county. The group meets twice a month and will continue throughout the school year.
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Adult ESL Classes
This is one of our original SPCS programs which began at Westside in 2013!!! The program, led by our partner, The Literacy Network, has grown to now offer two classes each week for both beginners and advanced adults who want to grow their knowledge of the English language. Sessions are eight weeks in length with a Fall, Winter, and Spring session offered each school year and are being held virtually.
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Meal Packing Event for Haiti
Before the Pandemic, we annually partnered with Door Creek Church and Missions of Hope, to pack 25,000 meals for schools in Haiti. Each meal feeds a child for an entire day while they are attending school. Families, DCC volunteers, and Westside staff work side-by-side to package these meals. Even the little ones get involved by decorating the boxes which hold the meals. We were super excited to bring this event back in October and we packaged 50,000 meals this year! It was a record for us and everyone agreed it felt so good to be back together working alongside each other and being able to give back and help out other children and schools!
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BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES |
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Fly Birds After School Program
CH Bird received a Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Center grant that provides our Blue Jays with academic enrichment opportunities, as well as additional activities designed to complement their regular academic program at CH Bird. Our after-school program is held Monday - Thursday until 5:15 pm. We currently have 15 students enrolled with the goal of inviting at least 30 more students to attend. We are actively looking for staff members and volunteers to join us so we can get those other Blue Jays in our Fly Birds program.
Our Fly Birds have been busy creating their after-school community, learning about Hispanic/Latinx heritage and culture, building their social/emotional skills, and having lots of fun! Shout out to our amazing partners at Prairie Music and Arts and the Dane County YMCA. Prairie Music and Arts are working with our 4th and 5th grade students on all things drama and the YMCA will be offering safety around water classes this winter!
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Family Fun Nights
At Creekside, we host monthly family events to connect our community and create a space to gather. October’s Family Fun Night at Creekside included a Trunk or Treat, a glow-in-the-dark, heart beating, obstacle course, and imagination blocks in our LGI. The event was planned in partnership with our SCO. Each family had access to decodable books to take home and a game to play. Each family night, we are intentionally adding literacy components to support our school-wide literacy goal.
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100 Scholars Comes to Creekside
This month we also kicked off our 100 Scholar Program, hosting students in kindergarten through 3rd grade from Northside and Creekside. The program is focused on building students’ literacy and math skills, supplementing their weekly learning with four hours on the weekend.
Student Clubs
Our student clubs have started. We are offering a free 2b fit(F2BF) club Mondays for Kindergarten through 2nd grade, Free 2b fit Tuesdays for 3rd through 5th grade, Math 24 on Tuesdays, Hmong club on Wednesdays, yoga/mindfulness on Tuesdays, Choir on Mondays, BSU on Tuesdays, Games is on Tuesdays, and Fiber Arts Club on Tuesdays.
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We will be doing "inline skating"! |
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Thursday Afterschool Program (TAP)
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Northside Elementary School’s Harvest Fest 2022 was a huge success!! We had 300 in attendance to enjoy music by DJ Ree Maniac, Puerto Rican cuisine by Mrs. Dee’s Place, and festive games run by our community partners indoors we had our Scholastic book fair! Thank you to Northside Elementary School, and SPASD SCO for helping plan and run this event! Thank you to I9 Sports, Boys and Girls Club McKenzie Center, Sun Prairie Parks, Recreation & Forestry Department, Sun Prairie United Methodist Church, Kicks Karate, and Sun Prairie East Highschool’s National Honor Society for running our fun, fall games!
It was truly a night of community and connection that will be remembered for a long time!
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Northside’s Rainbow Garden has been something students visit before and after school to watch the plants grow and they know at the end of the school day I will be outside with a basket of produce they can take home. Students tried tomatoes for the first time and enjoyed beans that were purple, yellow, and green. The kids all wanted to take home watermelons and cantaloupes too! We look forward to building the many ways we can engage students with our community garden!
Northside began a POETICS poetry club after school. Stacey C. and a staff member run this club and encourage students not only to write but that their words carry power and can lead to fighting for social justice in their own community! Some of the other great before and after school clubs we are running are Nellie’s Network News Crew in which students broadcast the news daily to the school, Student Kindness Council in which students lead the school in ways that demonstrate kindness, Comics Club and Fine Arts Club in which students can share their artistic side, Northside Band Music Club in which students can explore their musical talents, Math Club, Greatness Ambassadors in which students can lead in our school in a variety of way and Black Excellence is a club in which our students lead by celebrating diversity and empowering others.
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Black Student Union
Black Student Union has kicked off this year with Derreon leading the group, as the leading advisor and myself along with Nehemirah Barrett as co-advisors, For our BSU we have been granted $2,000 for our out-of-school enrichment learning. We are planning to take a trip to the black holocaust museum and other enrichment learning opportunities throughout the school year.
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Climate Champions
October 6th, 2022 PMMS panther pride pantry was nominated for the climate champion award. The Climate Champions program recognizes local entities that are leading climate action. Our aim is to celebrate local leadership and inspire action from individuals, government, schools, businesses, and nonprofits across Dane County. Sun Prairie's Patrick Marsh Middle School achieved 2022 Climate Champion (2 Star/Other) status for a student project to reduce food waste at the school. Students developed initiatives to reduce up to 60% of wasted food heading to landfills.
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Upcoming, we have our Panther Day Celebration that will consist of 12 different fun stations for students and staff to do. This will be held from 2:20-3:35 pm, on Nov 4th, 2022. We have 600+ students participating as well as 30 staff members who will be also participating and helping out with this event. |
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New to After School!
Hello! My name is Tehay and I am an alumnus of Prairie Phoenix Academy, class of 2022. I am happy to have this opportunity to return to the school that has given me many opportunities to grow. My goal is to give back all the support that I have received to both students and staff. I am more than happy to be working here. PPA is very pleased to have Tehya on board. To grow from a student of PPA to a staff member shows the connection which is built as a student and the love that continues as a staff member.
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Phoenix PRIDE Pantry
The Phoenix PRIDE Pantry is in full effect and services on average of 10 students a day. Students visit the pantry and obtain anything from water to socks, from snacks to toothbrushes. Phoenix PRIDE Pantry is just that, a place to feel loved, encouraged, and motivated each and every day. We are grateful for community partners who keep our shelves, fridge and freezer stocked. Major thank you to Sunshine Place, Kwik Trip, and Panera for your weekly donations. It’s connections like these that make the most difference in the work we do.
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Dream Leaders After School Program
The Dream Leaders After School program has students excited about learning. Students enjoy their time with Mr. Marcus in the studio. What better way to engage students without students being aware of the fact they are learning? This is the concept behind Dream Leaders. We work to ensure learning is fun and interactive. Students can sign up for mentorship, art and crafts, open gym and so much more.
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Before School programs
Jill Dorfler, our before and after-school program coordinator, has lots of programs to offer our Wildcats this school year!
Breakfast Buddies - Several Wildcats arrive at Westside in taxis each day. We were finding that the taxi was needing to drop off Wildcats up to 30 minutes before our school day begins, so they can continue dropping off at other schools in Sun Prairie. Wildcats were spending this time unsupervised and sometimes those mornings are pretty chilly to be waiting outside. So we established a Breakfast Buddy club for Wildcats who need to get dropped off before there is playground supervision available. These Wildcats hang out with Mrs. Dorfler or Mrs. Darga in the community school room and play games, catch up on homework or reading and where they know they are safe and warm!
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Walking School Bus - Last year, we established our Walking School Bus with Mr. Barry, one of our Neighborhood Navigators and a Westside parent. He walks, along with Mr. Verard, another Neighborhood Navigator and Westside parent, on average over 30 Wildcats to and from school each day. Special thanks to the Neighborhood Navigator program for providing umbrellas for those rainy days and headlights/reflector lights for those dark mornings and nights back home. In partnership with our SPASD Facilities department, Mr. Barry is also able to use a SPASD van during the winter months.
This program was so successful, that we added another route from the Sunfield Street area which is led by another Neighborhood Navigator, Darreon Steward, and a former Westside parent. Mr. Darreon meets his Wildcats at the VFW parking lot and makes sure they arrive safely each day. Both of our walking school buses have also helped with getting our Wildcats to school on time which is part of our SPCS goal of reducing chronic absenteeism and this program does exactly that!
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Dudes on Duty
This program began in December 2021 in response to data showing an increase in physical aggression at recess on Fridays. So we invited Dudes who are that positive male role models to our Wildcats to hang out with them at recess and we have seen our instances of physical aggression reduce dramatically on Fridays. The program is so successful that we have also started adding Mondays as the data again showed that day could be challenging at recess. Special thanks to all the Dudes from our community who have volunteered and helped to make this program so successful!
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Kids Achieve Together After School Program KAT
Our Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Center Grant (21st CCLC) program creates a community learning center that provides our Wildcats with academic enrichment opportunities, as well as additional activities designed to complement their regular academic program here at Westside. Our after-school program is held Monday - Thursday until 5 pm. We have 71 Wildcats registered for our before and after-school program with an average daily attendance of 63 which meets our grant requirement. That also means that 1 out of 7 Wildcats attends this program! We are making an impact in the lives of our students as over 95% of our KAT scholars are in school and on time!
Special thanks to our partners who have helped to make this program so very successful, Prairie Music and Arts, CEOs of Tomorrow, UW - Extension Nutrition, SP Park and Recreation, and the YMCA. Thanks also to all our KAT teaching team, with over 90% also being a part of our Westside school day teaching team and having been a part of KAT in prior years. This consistency with having the same staff who understand what the program is all about has really led to our program is just a part of our expanded school day here at Westside, as well as a role model to other after school programs in the state!
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Our future CEOs of Tomorrow!
Our 4th and 5th graders are forming their own businesses including designing a product, marketing the product, and finally selling it in December! Stay tuned as these Wildcat entrepreneurs become the CEOs of Tomorrow!
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Celebrating Us Club
Last year, we had some Wildcats ask about celebrating all the cultures that are
represented here at Westside, so this Fall, we created a club to do just that! Led by one of our KAT teaching staff, the club meets twice a month with a focus on each culture. Our Wildcats love this club and are learning a lot about the many cultures of our school!
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Additional Westside After School Clubs starting in November!
We are excited that we will be adding four new after-school clubs in November! Watch for some fun pictures in next month’s newsletter from our Hmong Club, Creative Crafting, Drawing Explorations, and Strategy Games clubs!
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Community Wide Schools Upcoming Event |
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Holiday Programs and Support For Families |
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We have collaborated with our partners at Sunshine Place, the YMCA, United Way, and the Boys and Girls Club to provide holiday meals and additional resources for the upcoming holiday season. Each Site Coordinator has access to the holiday programs and has been working along with their school social worker to get families signed up so that all may have a great holiday season!
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Parenting with Play Class |
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Beginning Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022 |
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This will be a six week class in which parents and their children can learn together and engage in play. We have partnered with the Explore Children's Museum for these events.
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CONTACT US
Jamie Racine
Community Schools Director
608.318.8109
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TBD
C.H. Bird Elementary Site Coordinator
608.834.7320
Stacey Dudley
Northside Elementary Site Coordinator
608.834.7160
Brian McKenzie
Patrick Marsh Middle School Site Coordinator
608.834.7629
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Tenisha Winn
Prairie Phoenix Academy Site Coordinator
608.834.6934
Stacy Darga
Westside Elementary Site Coordinator
608.834.7546
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