Dear Worthington Park Families,
Happy Friday Park Sharks. This morning our students were able to take part in our first ever "Fin Family Group" meeting. Each group was comprised on students grades Kindergarten-5th grade and was lead by one of our amazing staff members. The students were able to enjoy a quick read aloud, play fun games and crafts, and learn more about what it means to be a Park Shark! We look forward to coming together again with our groups later this Fall/Winter. Below are a few pictures from our fun morning!
Below are a few quick messages and reminders for the coming week. If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out to our main office or me directly. Have a great weekend and Go Sharks!
-Principal Garrity
(614) 450-5500
We thank you and your family for being our valued partners as we work together to educate the children in our district. As you may already be aware, building our well-being and social-emotional learning skills is an important goal for our school this year and every year. Over the next few weeks, students will participate in several exercises to better understand these concepts and to reflect on how they perceive these skills in themselves.
As we have done for the last several years, we will be asking for your child to reflect on his/her own mindsets and approaches to learning via an online survey. The survey shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes to complete and will be administered during a two-week window from November 7 - November 18, 2022.
We are partnering with Panorama Education, a third-party vendor, to support us in administering these surveys. The survey content will ask students in grades 3-12 to self-reflect on School Safety, Teacher-Student Relationships, Sense of Belonging, Rigorous Expectations, and Self-Efficacy. Additionally, our students in grades 6-12 will also be asked to self-reflect on two additional topics; Diversity and Inclusion and Cultural Awareness.
Student voice matters to us and their responses will provide invaluable insights into their experiences and how we can improve and adapt our instruction to meet their needs. If a student doesn’t feel like they have enough information to answer a question, they will be able to skip the item altogether.
If you have any questions about the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) survey, please don’t hesitate to contact us in the office at 614-450-5500.
Worthington Park will be participating in a school-wide safety drill on 11/17th at 1:30pm. Students and staff will practice the Lock-out and Lock-down safety drills - two drills intended to keep students in classrooms during a suspected emergency and prevent all outside entrance into the school.
We realize that safety drills have the potential to create anxiety for students. Our goal will be to provide clear information in a caring manner and to conduct drills in a way that does not cause fear or anxiety for students. Prior to the drill, teachers will work with students in an age appropriate way to understand the difference between the two types of drills and to review expectations during each drill.
In addition, this safety drill will allow our school to practice communication in the event of a true emergency. As a parent/guardian, you can expect to receive notification on the day of the safety drill via email and text message at the onset of the drill and after it has concluded. Since this is occurring across all of our buildings, families with children in multiple schools will receive drill messages from each school. We apologize in advance for sending multiple messages, but we want to make sure all of our systems are working.
If you would like to confirm or correct a phone number or email address so you can receive notifications, please update your information in the Emergency Data Review section of the parent portal. Instructions can be found here: Emergency Data Review Instructions. Please update any information in advance of the scheduled drill.
On Friday, November 11th, our students and school will be recognizing and celebrating Veteran's Day. Our staff is excited to celebrate those who previously have served or currently serve in one of the six branches of our United States Military on Veteran's Day on Friday, November 11th. Our classroom teachers and related arts staff are planning fun activities in the coming days that will honor our servicemen and woman.
Veteran's Slide Show Presentation
We want to acknowledge those in our school community who are veterans and the great sacrifice they made for our country. If you or a member of your immediate family has served in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, or Space Force we want to celebrate YOU!
Please send a photo via email to lmurphy@wscloud.org along with their name, branch of the military, years of service, and the name of the student with who you are connected. We will be compiling these photos into a presentation that will be shown throughout the school building and posted on our school website!
Please submit these photos by Tuesday, November 9th so we can include them!
Worthington Park Elementary is partnering with the Worthington Resource Pantry to help provide support to over 1,000 families in the area this holiday season. We are collecting canned food items, granola bars, and other toiletries here at Worthington Park outside of the main office starting Tuesday, November 1st and continuing until Thursday, November 17th.
Just a reminder that Worthington Park and all Worthington School buildings are NUT FREE.
Please remember to check your child's lunch and snacks to ensure they do not accidently have any peanut or nut based products (especially prepackaged Lunchables and Halloween Candy). Thank you for helping us keep our Park Shark Students Safe
Mr. Patrick Garrity
Email: pgarrity@wscloud.org
Website: https://www.worthington.k12.oh.us/domain/25
Location: 500 Park Road, Westerville, OH, USA
Phone: (614) 450-5500
Twitter: @WoParkSharks