Weekend Wire
February 7, 2021
WESTWOOD ROADRUNNERS
Roadrunners, We Are Proud of YOU!
DATES TO NOTE:
2/11--Kids Heart Challenge Event
2/11--Allen/Chopak/Matsushita/Shumake Materials Distribution
2/12--Spirit Day--Combined Crazy Day
2/15--Washington's Birthday(observed)--No School
2/16--XPloration
2/17--100th Day of School
2/18--Wise & S. Clark Materials Distribution
2/19--Lincoln's Birthday(observed)--No School
2/24--Varga, Wilkinson & Williams Materials Distribution
3/9--XPloration
3/11--1st & 2nd Grade(Virtual) Materials Distribution
3/12--Spirit Day--Dress like an Animal
Be On the Look Out!
Social Justice Conversations Coming Your Way!
Like so many of you, we at WWES have struggled to process recent events in this country that have challenged even the most optimistic and resilient of us. The emotional toll of injustice necessitates creating classroom opportunities for students to ask questions, research, and challenge bias. These opportunities are critical in a classroom where students will develop resiliency and self-efficacy.
The tragic events of the past months show us that we must do more to amplify student voices. During our recent Professional Growth Day we learned how to access additional resources through our district adopted language arts curriculum. This includes the following: the Social Justice Standards from Teaching Tolerance, based on the four domains of Identity, Diversity, Justice, and Action; Racial Equity Tools; and the National Council for the Social Studies.
Social Justice Learning Experiences Integrated experiences provide opportunities for valuing human dignity, fostering cultural diversity, and building critical thinking. Utilizing a critical questioning lens, lessons focus on:
Building and drawing on intergroup awareness, understanding, and skills. Creating classroom environments that reflect diversity, equity, and justice. Engaging families and communities in ways that are meaningful and culturally competent.
Encouraging students to speak out against bias and injustice.
Writing responses that reflect a responsibility for self and others, and community action.
Supporting students’ identities and making it safe for them to fully be themselves.
Using instructional strategies that support diverse learning styles and allow for deep exploration of focused themes.
We are looking forward to bringing these conversations into the classroom and facilitating safe and productive conversations. Please feel free to reach out to your child’s teacher with any questions and / or great ideas. We welcome them!
Counseling Corner
When storm clouds brew, even the most well-intentioned parent can get triggered and escalate the upset rather than calm it. But when your child wrestles with the more difficult human emotions, he needs your help to learn how to manage them. This is the most important time to teach emotional intelligence. Here are three helpful ways to do that.
1. Regulate Your Own Emotions.
Children won't always do what you say, but they will always, eventually, do what you do. Kids learn emotional regulation from us. When we stay calm, it teaches our child that there's no emergency, even if she feels like there is at the moment. The child's brain is actually learning to calm and soothe itself in response to the parent role-modeling self-regulation.
Most of us keep it together fairly well until our child gets upset. Remind yourself that you don't have to fix your child's upset, or stop your child's emotions. Instead, just accept what they're feeling and maintain your own equilibrium.
Why this encourages emotional intelligence:
The child's brain is actually learning to calm and soothe itself in response to the parent role-modeling self-regulation.
2. Accept all emotions, limit behavior.
Of course you need to limit your child's actions. He can't run in the street, hit his sister, or play on the computer all night. In every case where your child's behavior is clearly unacceptable, set a limit.
But even while you limit behavior, your child should know that she is allowed to have all her emotions, and that includes feelings of disappointment or anger in response to your limits. Children need to "show" us how they feel and have us "hear" them, so meltdowns are nature's release valve for children's emotions. Instead of banishing your child to her room to get herself under control (which gives her the message that she's all alone with those big, scary feelings), hold her, or stay near and connected with your soothing voice: "You are so mad and sad right now. I am right here, you are safe."
Ignore any rage or rudeness during a meltdown; your child is showing you the depth of her upset. AFTER the storm is the time to teach, not during.
Why this encourages emotional intelligence:
When we allow ourselves to feel an emotion, it begins to dissipate. But when we try to push the emotion out of our awareness, it doesn't go away. We just lose the ability to control it. So the first step in learning to regulate emotions is to become aware of them.
When we give children the message that all emotions are okay, they befriend their emotions instead of stuffing them. This allows them to begin to self-regulate.
Once kids can regulate their emotions, they can regulate their behavior.
3. Don't take it personally and resist the urge to escalate the situation.
Your child has big feelings. They aren't about you. It's about your child: their tangled up feelings, their difficulty controlling themselves, their immature ability to understand and express their emotions. When your daughter says, "You never understand!" try to hear that as information about her - at this moment she feels like she's never understood. Model emotional self-management by simply taking a deep breath and trying to see it from her perspective. Remind yourself that it's hard to be a kid. She doesn't yet have the internal resources to manage her emotions but you do.
Why this encourages emotional intelligence:
Our job as adults is always to calm the emotional storm, rather than escalating it.
When you're emotionally generous to your child, you're demonstrating that she isn't perfect, but you love her anyway - even when she's at her worst. That's the unconditional love that every child needs to thrive.
This is difficult because most of us find it challenging to manage our own feelings so that we can tolerate our children’s unruly emotions. But there is a silver lining. We get a chance to grow in emotional intelligence ourselves and most importantly, we help our children develop skills that will help them in all of their relationships throughout the rest of their lives.
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT RESOURCES FOR CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND PARENTS
In partnership with Gov. Newsom, Parents Anonymous® Inc. recently launched the California Parent & Youth Helpline and Online Parents Anonymous® Support Groups in response to COVID-19 to provide free trauma-informed, evidenced-based emotional support to parents, children, and youth in any language via calls, text, live chat, and email. Please share with your school community these flyers about the parent and youth helpline, and the parent support groups in English and Spanish.
Student Council Spirit Day!!
AT HOME SELF SCREENING
Fever
Cough
Runny Nose/Congestion
Headache
Fatigue
Body/Muscle Aches
Chills
Sore Throat
Shortness of Breath or Difficult Breathing
Nausea/Vomiting
Diarrhea
Loss of Smell and/or Taste
Students may not be at school with any ONE of the symptoms listed. Please keep your student home and notify the school of the absence (Attendance Hotline: 858-487-2059). Students experiencing any of the symptoms will be sent home immediately.
Cold Weather Procedures
With the colder temperatures outside and toasty warm temperatures in your vehicles, body temperatures run high. This will cause a delay in our check-in process. To help ease this situation, we are requesting that you warm up your car before you leave home. When you approach the school, please turn off your heaters and partially open windows so your student has a chance to acclimate to the outside temperature. We hope that this will help us get accurate readings from our students. Thank you for your help in keeping our students healthy & safe!!
Safety Reminders
The safety of your children is very important to us!! Please pull up to the curb to pick up your children. Children then go from the curb directly into their cars. Parents should remain in their cars. Cars cannot pick up from the passing lane. If walking, please use the sidewalk. Do not walk through the parking lot, as it is not safe due to passing traffic. With this in mind, parking in the lot is also not encouraged.
When dropping off students, students should exit the car from the right hand side. Parents should remain in their cars. Please do not park and let your students out in the parking lot.
Let's work together to keep our students safe!!
SHORTENED FEBRUARY BREAK
Just a reminder to families that the 2021 February break has been shortened from five days off to just two days off due to COVID-related adjustments to the 2020-21 school year calendar. There is no school on Monday, February 15 and Friday, February 19 due to the observance of Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays. However, school will be in session Tuesday through Thursday, February 16 through February 18, so students are expected to attend class on those three days. Spring Break remains the same, Monday, April 12 through Friday, April 16. The last day of school was changed to Friday, June 18, 2021. You can view the official District calendar here.
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH!!
Throughout February we celebrate Black History Month. Students from the 4-5 Combo Class are pleased to share their mini videos about well-known Black Americans with WWES. Students filmed and collated their videos, and teachers have access to the links to share in their classrooms. We enjoyed learning more about the wide variety of remarkable contributions made by Black Americans, both past and present.
Transfer Window Is Open
The Poway Unified transfer window is now open! Transfer requests for students who live in Poway Unified and would like to attend a school other than their school of residence should be submitted online … just go to the Poway Unified website and click on “Transfers” on the home page.
If you have a current child in a Poway school and would like a younger sibling to attend the same school, please submit a transfer request at this time. Transfer submissions are accepted even if your younger child is not yet enrolled. Then please enroll your child at their school of residence in May. The transfer window closes on March 31st.
Hiring Now for Limited-Term Instructional Assistants
Yearbooks
2019-2020 YEARBOOKS
Your student will want to remember this unique year with a 2020-2021 yearbook! Your student gets to customize two pages just for them which will print in their individual yearbook so it will really be unique and special! Also, for every yearbook purchased a tree is planted!
Purchase yearbooks here:
https://tr5.treering.com/validate Use passcode: 1015978769242468
Or scan here:
We want to see your pictures!! Please upload pictures from Dress to Impress Spirit Day, Winter break fun, virtual learning, and lots more here:
https://tr5.treering.com/school/231813/photos/shared-photo-folders
We want to see your pictures!! Please upload pictures from Dress to Impress Spirit Day, Winter break fun, virtual learning, and lots more here:
https://tr5.treering.com/school/231813/photos/shared-photo-folders
Health Office Notes
Please remember to be proactive and prescreen your student at home prior to leaving for school. If your child has any of the following symptoms, please keep them at home. If your child has developed any one of the symptoms below while at school, they must be sent home immediately. Parent(s) will be notified to pick up their student immediately.
- Fever or chills
- Cough
- Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
- Fatigue
- Muscle or body aches
- Headache
- New loss of taste or smell
- Sore throat
- Congestion or runny nose
- Nausea or vomiting
- Diarrhea
Per the CDC Guidelines (use link below of Decision Tree updates as of 1/11/21):
The individual may return based on one of the following:
https://covid-19.sdcoe.net/Portals/covid-19/Documents/Health%20Practices/COVID-19-Decision-Tree.pdf
a) 10 days from the day symptom(s) first appeared, AND improved symptoms and no fever (or fever reducing meds) for the last 24 hours.
b) With proof of negative PCR COVID viral test, may return after 3 days if all symptoms are fully resolved; or after 10 days from the day symptom(s) first appeared, AND improved symptoms and no fever (or fever reducing meds) for the last 24 hours.
c) A signed note from a licensed MD, DO, NP, or PA (who manages that condition) must: confirm the chronic diagnosis (i.e., cites labs, date-of record when diagnosed); include provider’s contact information; explain how symptoms are unrelated to COVID-19; and be accompanied by signed consent for school to interact with MD, DO, NP, or PA.
Please call the Health Office for any questions or concerns.
Amazon Smile
Amazon Smile
Does the Amazon driver know you by name? Got enough boxes to stack to the moon? Did you know that with every delivery you can raise money for Westwood Elementary?
1. Go to smile.amazon.com
2. Sign in to your Amazon account
3. Search for Westwood Elementary PTA San Diego
4. Sign up!
Or scan here:
PTA Membership
The year may look different but Westwood still needs you! Join the PTA so we can all work together to make this year the best possible.
About Us
Principal
Email: kholmes@powayusd.com
Website: https://powayusd.com/en-US/Schools/ES/WWES/Home
Location: 17449 Matinal Road, San Diego, CA, USA
Phone: 858-487-2026
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WWESRoadrunners