What a fantastic start to the 2023-2024 school year at WOHE! I have been amazed at how excited our students and families have been to return to school and begin the surfing journey of Making Waves at WOHE. Thank you so much for partnering with us to support your child’s learning by getting your child to school on time and each day. We are currently at 96% student attendance. Our goal this school year is to be at 98% plus student attendance throughout the school year. We support our students best in their learning by having them present each day. We need families to help us accomplish this so that we can offer the highest levels of learning for each student when they are with us at school.

I have noticed that most students are in the building by 8:30 am which is fantastic and helps them to start their day smoothly and participate in all the morning leadership activities we offer during the school year. Our teachers have been very intentional in teaching learning and behavior expectations, not only in the classrooms, but also throughout the entire building as well. We appreciate your patience and willingness to follow the drop off and pick up routines we have in place to safely and efficiently welcome students into the building and reunite them with you each afternoon. It takes a village to raise up our children and WOHE’s village is DYNAMIC!

There are several important and fun activities coming up this fall that are great opportunities for parents and students to get more connected to our school community. This monthly family newsletter will serve as a vital piece of communication from school to home as well as your child’s classroom teacher communicating weekly as well. If you have any questions after reading the family newsletter please never hesitate to reach out to your child’s classroom teacher or our office.

• Student Drop Off: When using the drop off lane please be sure to pull all the way forward to stop one. We need to do our best to keep traffic off the street.

• Student Meal Accounts: We wanted to communicate that if your child’s meal balance goes into the negative you will automatically receive an email from our Nutritional Service Department. You will also receive a hard copy letter in your child’s backpack if there is a negative balance on a Thursday. The district policy is that if a student’s lunch balance goes to -$10 or more that student will receive a TIGER MEAL until the balance is paid. A Tiger Meal consists of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, fruit and milk. This Tiger Meal will not be charged to your student’s account. Please set up an account on LINQ so that you can easily and quickly add money to your child’s meal account. If you have not filled out a free and reduced lunch application please do so as well. We will begin the Tiger Meals starting on TUESDAY, September 5th.

• ONLINE WOHE TIGER APPAREL STORE!!! Our new school Making Waves at WOHE t-shirts are awesome this year! Our amazing WOHE PTO is going to provide a t-shirt for every student and we will give them to students on the day of Homecoming Parade September 29th. HOWEVER if parents would like to order a Making Waves at WOHE shirt for yourself or buy you student a long sleeve or hoodie take a look at our ONLINE WOHE TIGER APPAREL STORE We also have other fun apparel designs for students and adults to choose from! The proceeds go to our WOHE PTO which help support our building in a variety of ways.

• Positive Student Behavior System: TIGER TICKETS - We want to affirm students when they are modeling expected behavior throughout the building during specials, lunch room, hallways, dismissal (car rider line) etc. We know that each classroom already has a positive behavior support system in place. This TIGER TICKET system is meant to affirm student choices outside the classroom. The tickets will be regular raffle tickets in a specific color for the month. The month will also have a character trait word attached from Mrs. Babb, our school counselor, to be looking for. September will be red and the word is: RESPONSIBILITY. Special area teachers, paraprofessionals, and support staff will be looking for students making great choices in these specific areas. There will be plastic envelopes throughout the building with tickets inside. The staff member will write the name and grade of the student on the back of the ticket and allow the student to place the ticket in their grade level box in the office. We will draw 5 names from each grade level each week. Student names will be announced during Community Time on Fridays. These students will receive a small gift and be able to sit at a special table during lunch on Fridays. We will also keep a spreadsheet of whose name has been drawn so that we can spread the love throughout the year. Also, we will be recognizing students each month who have received the most TIGER TICKETS that month. They will receive a World Changer t-shirt to celebrate their consistent modeling of leadership. I will introduce this new system at Community Time tomorrow morning!

• Support for Student Behavior Mentorship: We are implementing a student behavior support system that is designed to provide our students with the needed mentorship in learning from mistakes and social emotional skills to be self aware. Teachers are working diligently to teach expectations in the classroom and throughout the building so that all students are safe and also have a learning environment free of disruptions in the classroom. If a student is continually struggling with following directions, disruptive behavior in the classroom the teacher will utilize our Student Support Classroom were they will go through a Reset process with our behavior support paraprofessional Mrs. Brandy Helton. This Reset will provide a couple of stations where they are able to do physical movement to help their body regulate, a breathing station and then a reflective conversation with Mrs. Helton to discuss the choice they made, what other choices could they have made instead and a plan for the choices they will make in the future. They will also be expected to apologize to the teacher and/or student they might have hurt or offended before entering back into the classroom. You will always be notified of a Reset by the classroom teacher through a phone call home. If a student has 3 or more resets in a month we will ask you to come in and meet with us to be able to discuss how we can partner and create a plan to support your child’s behavior while at school.

  • If a student physically hurts another person, is disrespectful to a teacher, disruptive to the point that other students cannot learn it may result in an automatic office referral which would involve other consequences listed in the student handbook.

  
  

• Monday, September 4th NO SCHOOL Labor Day

• Tuesday, September 12th Fall Picture Day http://www.wagnerportraitgroup.com/

• Online Pre-Order Password: 5F2S3Z7Y

• Monday, September 18th NO SCHOOL Teacher Professional Development Day

• Monday - Friday, September 25-29 Homecoming District Spirit Week

• Friday, September 29 Homecoming Parade in Willard for all students

• Friday, October 20th Fall Festival and PTO Spooky Fun

• Tuesday, October 24th and Thursday. October 26th 4:30 - 7:30 pm Parent Teacher Conferences

• Tuesday, October 31st Classroom Fall Parties

Please contact our building with any absence as soon as possible. You are welcome to email or call when your student is absent, please include both Kait and Lesley on emails regarding absences. Please do not leave a voicemail.

Orchard Hills Elementary

• Lesley Bardwell
• 417-869-0600
• lesleybardwell@willardschools.net
• Kait Wallace
• 417-869-0600
• kaitlynwallace@willardschools.net

District Office

• 417-742-2584

• I am so excited to begin a new school year. I have been to each class now to introduce myself, and what a counselor can do for your kiddos. I explained that I am here to help them be the very best they can be! As a school counselor, it is my job to make sure that your child feels safe, loved, and supported in our school. I want students to know I am here for them when they need me, on both the good and not so good days. We talked about how they can come see me, and I will be around in the classes to discuss various topics throughout the year.

• In September, we will be discussing self control. This will cover things like our brain states, emotional regulation, and coping skills. We will also be tying this to the Habit #1: Be Proactive. Our Tiger Trait word of the month is RESPONSIBILITY; this means to do what is expected of you and accept the consequences of your actions. As we discuss what self-control means and how we can be responsible both inside and outside the classroom, I hope students will share these characteristics at home too! If you would like more information on brain states and emotions, I will update my website as the semester progresses with resources from our lessons.

• As some of you may know, I will be going on maternity leave starting this month. This means I will be out of the office for a while, but if you have any important questions or concerns feel free to reach out to the school or send an email for me to return at a later date. During this time, I am positive that students will be loved and cared for by the wonderful teachers and staff here; I look forward to coming back soon to see all the progress they are making!

• If you ever have any questions, please feel free to reach out! Have a super September!

I am excited to be starting off my first full year here at WOHE. I started last February and have gotten to know a lot of the kids already. I have enjoyed seeing those students as well as meeting new ones! I am here to help with your student's health needs while at school. Please feel free to contact me via phone or email for any of your student's health concerns. Here are a few reminders of our school guidelines regarding illness:

• Fever- students must stay home until fever free for 24 hours without fever reducing agents such as Tylenol or Ibuprofen
• Vomiting-student must stay home for 24 hours after the last episode of vomiting. Students who vomit at school will be sent home

Please refer to the Willard School District page for all health protocols.

• Monday, September 11- Fluoride Varnish Day

If you signed a permission form at Meet the Teacher your child's teeth will be examined by a dental hygienists and have fluoride varnish applied. They will even come home with a bag of dental goodies!

We have had a great start to the year and I look forward to seeing the waves of learning WOHE students will surf this year!