Tuesday
Mary 15
No Spring Fling!
Wednesday
May 16
3rd Grade to Gold Rush National Park
Board Meeting 6:30pm
Thursday
May 17
2nd grade parents meet with new 3rd grade teacher 5pm
Friday
May 18
Spirit/Pizza Day
3rd to Fort Nisqually
Monday-Thursday
May 21-24
4/5 to Islandwood
Tuesday
May 22
Kindergarten Lemonade
(Class of 07-08)
5pm
Monday
May 28
NO SCHOOL
Memorial Day
May 10, 2007
Town Meeting Recap
From Jo Ann - Professional Growth
News from Chinese
Thank You Parents! Notes from the Staff
Golden Threads
Town Meeting Recap
By Denise Tabbutt, Board Chair
- Westside kids singing the school song
- Reading Buddies
- Spirit Awards
- All of the kids know and respect each other
- We love our teachers
- Our teachers connect with students
- Open door parent/teacher communication
- Compassionate approach to problem-solving
- Kindergarten Cocktail party
These are just a few of the things that we love about Westside School. If you missed the Town Meeting last week, the Board did an excercise to try to get at the heart what it is about Westside that we don’t ever want to lose. What makes our school great is as much about respect and embracing differences as it is about academics. We don’t ever want to lose our incredibly caring community or our multi-age teaching opportunities. The list we came up with is tremendous but we are by no means finished. It is just one step in the process and there will be more opportunities for our community to contribute to this important issue.
We hope that those who attended the Town Meeting found it worthwhile. The Board wanted to let the community know about the work we have been doing this year. We heard an update from our Facilities Committee, Academic Task Force and Diversity Task Force. If you are interested in finding out more about what the Board has been up to, please contact Denise Tabbutt. More Town Meetings are planned for next year. We hope to see you there.
From Jo Ann
Professional Growth
Professional development is valued in a learning community like ours. As the Head of School, I look forward to being able to take advantage of professional opportunities, especially those provided by PNAIS, our accrediting organization. Twice a year, the Heads attend PNAIS business meetings and also have an opportunity to be together to network with each other and to participate in both formal and informal discussion groups. Last week, we met for our Spring Meeting. Bob Evans, organizational psychologist and author of many books, including “Family Matters: How School Can Cope with the Crisis in Childrearing” and “The Human Side of School Change,” presented the keynote address. The heads share a lot of statistics and resources, which is wonderful information as we plan each of our school’s future. I attended a workshop on developing leadership in a small school and another on financial aid.
Every year, PNAIS offers professional development for our teachers, Trustees, Business Manager (Heidi), Director of Development (Jana), and leadership (David, Director of Studies). Kathy, our wonderful office manager, will be participating in a day dedicated to the Head’s Administrative Assistants. Topics Kathy will explore range from school record retention to nursing and medication issues in independent schools.
Participation in these workshops and conversations fosters collegial and ethical relations among our schools and promotes the quality Westside School values.
News from Chinese
Da Jia Hao!
By Steven Whiting, Chinese Teacher
It’s hard to believe that the school year is rapidly coming to an end. It has been a very rewarding year for me and I hope for the kids, too. All classes have now learned the San Lun Che (pedicab) song. You will also hear the first graders sing “Everybody Loves Saturday Night” in Japanese and the third graders sing it in Chinese. The kindergartners and first graders have been playing “poison” trying to choose vocabulary cards without getting “poisoned” (zhong du). They get very “animated.” They have also been interviewing each other. The second graders have received their Chinese names and are now practicing writing them. Soon they will write and decorate a large label of their Chinese names to put on their Chinese folders. I’ll give all the second through fifth graders a worksheet of their Chinese names to take home and practice during summer vacation. You can make copies and let them practice as much as they want. The third, fourth and fifth graders have written self introductions in pinyin which I have displayed in the hall. They are now talking about their ancestors in Chinese and have learned the names of more than twenty countries. They really seem to enjoy sharing their pride in their national backgrounds. They are also using Chinese to ask permission to get a drink, get a tissue, and go to the toilet as well as ask how to say things in Chinese.
In the waning weeks of this school year we still have a lot to do. We are learning a fruit rhyme about the benefits of eating fruit. We will learn about chopsticks and how to use them, so the kids can ask for them in Chinese when you visit a Chinese restaurant. The K through second graders will expand their “interviews.” The third through fifth graders will continue talking about nationalities and learn a famous Tang Dynasty poem by Li Bai, the Chinese poet whose statue graces the courtyard at South Seattle Community College.
I’d like to thank all the parents for their support and encouragement during my first year at Westside school. I hope everyone has a wonderful summer vacation. I’ll be looking forward to next year and building on the good foundation that the kids have achieved in Chinese. Zai jian!
Thank You Parents!
Westside Teachers and staff wanted to thank you for making this week so incredibly special for the entire team…..
Thank you, parents and students, for making me feel so appreciated. The food, the spirit and the expressions of flowers and words are awesome!
Jo Ann
Thank you for your kindness, generosity, and support. It is a privilege to work in this wonderful community we call Westside.
Mr. B.
Thank you to all of the parents and WPO officers who helped organize and participated in the Teacher Appreciation week. It is wonderful not to have to prepare a lunch in the morning, the flowers are beautiful, the food scrumptious, and the hand prints precious. Thank you for having such curious inquisitive children. This week has been greatly appreciated.
Claudia
I appreciate all of the time and effort the volunteers put into preparing and distributing the bouquets.
Heidi
Dear Parents,
The clear and specific recognition given to us this week, at this time of year, is like a cool drink of water on the home stretch -- thank you!
Renee
It always feels good to get a little spoiled... but to get wonderful things for a whole week is just contagious!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Jeffie Lou
Thanks everyone for such an amazing week. Thanks especially to Tracy for her amazing ideas year after year!
Judith
With a full tummy, the world is a better place! Thank you parents!!
Chris
Dear Westside Families--Thank-you for such a delightful week of lunches, flowers, notes and wonderful kids.
Linda
The week has been fabulous! The lunches are spectacular, the flowers beautiful, the handprint flowers fun to read and to look at, and the “guess a teacher” very entertaining. Thank you for putting in so much effort for us all.
Jana
Many, many “Thanks you’s” to everyone involved in making sure that the Westside faculty and staff feel appreciated and honored! I love this week!
Laura
Thank you all for your generosity and love! I heard about this event from the other staff, but it was even more than I expected. This is why Westside is so fabulous, great staff, great parents, and the best students!
Thank you so much, Margaret
What a wonderful week! The way parents have shown us their appreciation is beyond belief! I have felt so welcome at Westside and it is I who appreciate all of you.
Many thanks, Marsha
Thank you for making us feel extra special and pampered this week. The break from making lunch every day and getting something yummy as apposed to my daily, boring salad is the best!
Kathy
Wow! Thank you so much for an incredible week. The delicious lunches, beautiful flowers and heart warming “hand pictures” have all made me feel so appreciated.
Margie
To all the parents and kids in our great Westside community: Thank you for making us feel so appreciated this week. The lunches have been incredible; the vase of flowers (both real and the hand filled sentiments) came from the heart and truly touched my heart. An additional thank you to
Golden Threads
By Linda Turner, 5th Grade Teacher
At the auction in March, Jo Ann commemorated the 25th anniversary of Westside School, paying special tribute to Claudia’s 24 of those years. Claudia is a golden thread to the Westside beginnings, and our past. As a school community, we gather perspective and strength from the past as we commemorate our present, and march to the vision of our future.
It was in this spirit that we hosted the first gathering of Westside graduates last week. We had about 21 alums, dating from the class of 2006, back to the class of 2000. Those ’00 “kids” are graduating from high school next month, and are already wearing shirts from their receiving universities. And, they had driven themselves to the school!
The graduates were varied in ages and were excited to find others who had been in their class. They traipsed around the refurbished playground and toured the new modular buildings. They noted the many changes that had occurred since they’d left the school. They wrote about favorite memories, they allowed themselves to be photographed, and asked about students who weren’t there. They were happy to be here and spoke fondly of their days.
They too are golden threads and share the spirit of the Westside past. They continue to reflect back to our school community our commitment and stated values of challenging each student to succeed at his/her highest level, both academically and socially. We see in them our mission, connecting their human spirit and imagination to learning, while preparing them for the world.
As teachers, we have the rare opportunity to hold the threads while they are with us, each of us adding our individual threads to their weave. Our current students will become alums, which is what made this first alum gathering so special. They are pivotal in reflecting our past, while we commemorate our present, and join the vision of our future.