Wildcats Newsletter

Volume No. 10

February 16, 2023

A bi-weekly newsletter from Principal Bowen, Principal Arnold and Principal Thomas.

Holiday Spirit!



To fully embrace Valentine's Day, Ms. Cole brought her wonderful face paint set and spoiled a lot of people with her art skills. Each kid, elementary and high school, (even the staff!) got to choose their own style/colored heart which was drawn on their face! 

. You should have seen the line of people eager to get their cheeks decorated for the day!

Principal Thomas also got into the spirit of things, and placed a personalized Valentines note on the locker of every HS student.The day was filled with love, sweets and joy. It was a lovely day seeing everyone get into the spirit of the holiday!

Elementary School News

SRES students had a great time on the ice last week!



The afternoon was filled with laughs, fun and friendship as they learned to skate together!

Mrs. Thody's K/1 class

Mrs. Thody's class had fun the last couple of Winter Activities weeks learning about ice. We tried to build the tallest ice tower and discovered hidden treasures in ice chunks.  

We were so excited to celebrate the 100th day of school and Valentine's Day on the same day! 

Our Teacher and the students even aged a bit on that day!

First Grade with Mrs. Russ

The first graders in Bethel have been having a lot of fun with our Snowcat Thursday activities! We recently put our creativity to use by making Kindness Cards to send to children in the hospital last week. Students wrote messages like, "You're Awesome! Keep shining bright like the sun!" in order to make someone feel special while they are recovering away from home. Pictures like rainbows, flowers, smiley faces, and more, decorated the cards with bright, beautiful colors! We were happy to be able to do our part to make someone else smile!

Mrs. Russ

News from Mrs. Gardner’s first grade classroom 

What are some ways you can collect, show, and understand data? 

To culminate our unit on how to represent and interpret data, the first graders worked in small groups to create a survey to ask classmates. After working together to collect data, they created bar graphs, analyzed the data, and presented the graphs to classmates.

The graphs they created were: Favorite Ice Cream, Number of Pets, Favorite Toys, Favorite Dessert, and Number of Siblings. Check out the pictures to see the process they went through to create the graphs.

SRES GYM SHORTS!!

In PE classes we have been demonstrating our character words of Respect, Courage, and enthusiasm by participating in many forms of dance. Have your child show you how to do the Vermont Reel, the Patti cake Polka, Chicken dance, and the Cotton Eyed Joe.

We will be performing some of our dances at Friday's assembly, so if you have time stop in and watch the school dance.

SnowCats

Early October 2022, the volunteers who had helped out in the past with the Woodstock Ski Runners Friday ski and ride program at Saskadena 6 (S6), which offered ski and snowboard lessons to our elementary school kids grades 1-5, were notified that the program was going to be offered only to the Woodstock schools. We felt the importance of winter snow sports being offered to these students and wanted to start our own program. With the full support of the school and S6, we decided to try and start our first ever Snow Cat Program on Thursdays. Registration forms went out to students and volunteers were solicited to see if we could pull it together in time. 27 kids and 14 volunteers later, the program is a big hit!

It runs for 6 Thursdays; busses taking kids from Bethel and South Royalton schools to S6 by 1:30 where they are greeted by volunteer teachers and parents to ski in groups by ability until last chair at 4 pm. It has been such an amazing thing to see kids, ranging from kindergarten to 5^th grade, who were early in their skiing ability, rise up and do what it takes to keep up with their friends.

       There are only 2 more Thursday sessions left for our Snow Cats and it will be sad to see it end. But we’ll be back next year, maybe even bigger!

Thank-you to all the volunteers for rearranging work schedules, to the subs who freed up teachers to come help, to the administration who saw the potential of a fabulous program and gave the go-ahead, and to S6 staff and management who helped us in any way we needed to have the program be successful!

Kat Mojzesz

Program Director

Middle School News

Middle School News!

Who has school spirit? We do!!

At WRVMS we have started a ticket system based upon our school wide expectations of Safe, Respectful, Responsible, and Kind. When students are observed to be meeting all four expectations, they earn a raffle ticket that is entered into a drawing. Our inaugural drawing was held during our community meeting on Friday February 10 and led by Mrs. Grote, our Student Support Coordinator. With over 500 tickets handed out to students over a two-week period, we had 6 winners spanning all three grades! Prizes this time around included school spirit wear sweatshirts and tshirts, and we solicited ideas for future prizes from students during morning advisory. Each Friday we will hold a raffle to recognize one student from each grade, with the long-term goal of having our weekly or bi-weekly drawings similar to a silent auction.

This system for acknowledging students who are meeting our expectations has been a huge hit with students and staff alike. Based on the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) model, our focus is on seeing students and reinforcing all of the things they are doing and taking a proactive approach to addressing challenging behaviors. When students are acknowledged for doing what is expected, they are more likely to engage in that behavior and less likely to engage in undesirable behavior. 

Ideas for future prizes generated by students include a fancy lunch with an adult, a special lunch brought in from a local business, more Wildcat “swag” and “merch”, privileges such as extended break time, and new games/materials for the school. 

We are very proud of all our students!! Go Wildcats!!

Our WRVMS Community + School Connections Afterschool Clubs

continued in February. 

We are happy that Finnie Trimpi, Teaching Artist from Artistree, taught positive negative exploration painting techniques in our art club. 

We were also able to offer Drama & Games and Cooking Club thanks to our own teachers Siobhan Kelly and Jesse Dewey. 

Our Magic The Gathering Club led by community member Russ Patton will gather before the end of the month, as well.

Ben Dohn, our Student Assistance Counselor and Eric Shepard, a community member and parent, provided the opportunity for middle school students to play in a chess tournament on an early release Friday this month.

We are always looking for club advisors and new ideas.

Let us know if you are interested in joining us for the fun and learning that happens after school here at WRVMS.

Mary Schell - mschell@wrvsu.org

MS GYM

Badminton, a rope climb, ping pong, and the very popular "Line Tag" are all PE activities from the Bethel Campus these last three weeks.

High School News

We continue to celebrate Black History Month every day. 

Big thanks to Abbey Goodrich for this awesome display!

CBL News



Contact Mr. Clayton if you are interested in participating in any of the following:

State’s Attorney Shadow Days

• February 22 @10:30am in Chelsea, at the Courthouse. We have been invited to observe a suppression hearing. A motion to suppress evidence is heard at a  pretrial hearing, before the trial judge, but without the jury present. The Prosecution and Defense will argue whether or not evidence should be suppressed, or excluded from being allowed at trial.

• February 28 or March 1, we are invited to attend the actual jury trial. The trial deals with an allegation of DUI involving a motor vehicle collision with a house in Tunbridge.

Vernal Pool Monitoring will begin soon after the February break.

CodeMonkey Gamified Computer Programming Program - earn elective computer science credits.

Tune in to The Wildcats Radio Hour on WFVR 96.5, Tuesdays at 10am.

YMCA Student Government Conference in Montpelier on May 8th.

White River Partnership Watershed Conservation field trips.

The senior class hosted a Valentine's semi-formal dance in the small gym. 



We had a great turn out!  

FamilyID

Please complete forms on FamilyID if you have not already done so. 

• Many families still have not completed the media release. 
• Don't forget to complete the "additional forms".
• Contact our office if you need assistance or have questions. 

Posters and Events

Our 10-week season begins the week of March 27. Our team will meet twice weekly for 90 minutes each session to connect, move, learn and have FUN!

Not a runner? Haven’t coached before? No problem! Girls on the Run VT (GOTRVT) provides training, easy to follow lesson plans, supplies and support from GOTRVT for a transformational season.



Interested?  -- Let Andra Bowen know and visit gotrvt.org/coach to learn more or sign up to volunteer.

Questions? -- Contact GOTRVT at Info@girlsontherunvermont.org or 802-871-5664.