WIS Express
--------------January 2021------------
Waubesa Intermediate School Information
School Principal:
Corey Shefchik
Associate Principal:
Al Northouse
Building Administrative Assistant:
Arlene Bast (608) 838-7667
Email: shefchc@mcfsd.org
Website: http://www.mcfarland.k12.wi.us/schools/intermediate/
Phone: 608-838-7667
A Note From Our Principals
Dear Waubesa Intermediate School Community,
We hope this message finds you and your family safe and healthy. As we continue through this challenging time, we are truly grateful for the support that the community has shown our students, staff, and school. We appreciate your ongoing communication with us by asking questions, sending positive messages, and advocating for your child. Each day we do our best to support the children of our community and while there may be differing opinions and thoughts on the best way to do that, we hope you know we have only wanted to do our best for them. The success of all children is at the core of our school mission and drives us to do better each and every day.
Transition from Step 2 Virtual Learning to Step 3 Hybrid Learning
At the school board meeting on Monday, December 14, the Board voted to move to Step 3 (Hybrid) in our Reopening Schools plan starting on January 26. In addition to voting to move to Step 3, the school board asked administration to explore the feasibility for students who do not want to return to hybrid in-person instruction and also do not want to enroll in WIVA and to report back to the Board about potential options. At the December 21 school board meeting, school administration shared their decision to not offer an additional virtual option. We recognize that many families are understandably disappointed that the district does not offer an alternative virtual option taught by Waubesa teachers. While this would be ideal, as was explained during the board meeting there are a variety of reasons why this is not the best option for our school community. You can view the recorded meeting with this LINK and presentation to the board using this LINK.
Our school staff is excited to see our students and we wanted to take this opportunity to provide some more details about how we will welcome students to Waubesa starting January 26 in a way that is as safe as possible for everyone.
Here’s what you can expect to see in this message and the newsletter:
Preparation for Step 3 Hybrid
Waubesa transition days (January 26, 28, 29)
School Community Commitment to Health/Safety Protocols
Alternative Learning Options
Hybrid schedule overview
Health and safety protocols
McFarland School District App
Supply Swap reminders (last day of Supply Swap is January 21)
Student meals
Message from the PTO
Current MVP Virtual Learning schedule
Important Dates
Community Events
Preparation for Step 3 Hybrid
Throughout the fall and early winter, our school has been preparing for this transition while providing virtual learning opportunities for our students. Along with the input of our school staff, school custodians and with guidance from Conrad Elvehjem staff and administration, we have built a plan that we feel will support a safe student learning opportunity for students and staff. There is a lot of information regarding the details of how this will look and we will do our best to communicate clearly and often how these will work. After winter break, we will begin this communication using our WIS Express Newsletter that includes information specific to our transition to Step 3 Hybrid.
Transition Days to Step 3 Hybrid on the Week of January 25
The week of January 25 will be our transition week to hybrid. Since students have been out of our school building for some time, we’d like to welcome them back in small groups where they would be able to practice the new procedures of our school and get more comfortable in the building. This will also provide families with practice of our new drop off procedures. Prior to January 25, we will have them learn the new procedures via their virtual sessions. There will be no school on Monday, January 25 as previously scheduled, and the rest of the week will be focused on transition days. Students will have only one live synchronous session each day with their homeroom (January 26, 28 and 29), and the other days students will have the opportunity to attend one small in-person group session with their homeroom teacher. More information will be coming on these transition days from your child(ren)’s classroom teacher. Wednesday, January 27 will be a regular related arts day for all students.
School Community Commitment to Health/Safety Protocols
To make hybrid learning work, we will need a commitment from our community to make sure that everyone is following the District’s health and safety protocols that were approved by the school board. Please take some time to review these plans in this newsletter as we want to ensure that we maintain Step 3 (Hybrid) and not have to jump back and forth between Step 3 (Hybrid) and Step 2 (Virtual). While we do have plans for individual students who would need to be out of school for short term quarantine, we hope to leave our school open for the remainder of the school year. Thank you for your support of a healthy school.
Alternative Learning Options
Finally, we understand that some families may not feel safe with their students returning to school in January. We encourage you to wait and see our full plans as we’ve developed safety protocols and procedures that are modeled after CEPS and have thus far been extremely successful. For those families who do not wish to return to our hybrid option in January, you have a few options including:
Enrolling your child in our virtual school (WIVA): More information, including information on a request for WIVA enrollment, is available on our district website. Contacts about WIVA enrollment, programming, etc.:
McFarland School District contact: Angela Straub - Administrative Assistant to the District Administrator 608-838-4500 ext. 4550 or StraubA@mcfsd.org
For enrollment questions, please contact WIVA’s enrollment coordinator at kschefft@k12.com.
For overall questions about WIVA, please contact the Interim Head of School Susan Stewart at sstewart1@k12.com.
For K-8 specific questions, please contact the K-8 Principal at drahmlow@k12.com.
For HS specific questions, please contact the HS Principal at cworden@k12.com.
For questions regarding special education services at WIVA, please contact the Special Programs Manager at reberhardt@k12.com.
Providing your own home based private education (a.k.a. homeschooling): More information can be found here - LINK
Enrolling your child in another public or private school.
For questions related to alternative learning options, please contact WIS principal, Corey Shefchik shefchc@mcfsd.org or 608-838-4601
As a District, we continue to respond to questions submitted to our FAQ document here, and if you have a comment that is not in the form of a question you are welcome to submit that information here. We know there are a variety of thoughts, worries, and perspectives regarding this plan. We hear and consider each and every idea and know there my not be a clear answer.
Thank you for taking the time to review this information and being an involved parent/guardian for your child(ren).
All the best,
Corey Shefchik - Principal (shefchc@mcfsd.org 608-8383-4601)
Al Northouse - Associate Principal (northoa@mcfsd.org 608-838-4609)
Step 3 Hybrid Updates (More Information to come in January)
Hybrid Schedule Overview
While the administration from WIS will be communicating more detailed information soon, In-person learning will follow the same school-year calendar (for example, no school during winter and spring breaks), and daily schedule that has been followed during virtual instruction (Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays in EITHER the morning or afternoon, based on your child’s AM/PM assignment from our Step 2 Virtual programming), with addition of drop off and pick up times.
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday schedule overview:
AM: 7:50-10:50 AM
7:50: drop-off begins
8:00: attendance taken
8:05: students marked tardy
8:00-10:45: student instructional day
10:45: daycare and special education buses dismissed
10:50: car riders/walkers dismissed
PM: 12:25-3:25 PM
12:25: drop-off begins
12:35: attendance taken
12:40: students marked tardy
12:35-3:20: student instructional day
3:20: all bus riders/daycare dismissed
3:25: car riders/walkers dismissed
A 15-minute recess is scheduled for each class during the student instructional day; students will remain in their class cohort at recess, will use recess equipment assigned to their class, and will wear their masks.
Students will continue to have asynchronous (“on your own”) lessons on Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday in the AM or PM, alternating their in-person instruction.
Students will continue to have live virtual related arts lessons on Wednesdays and will not be attending in-person classes.
Health Information during Hybrid
Please CLICK HERE to review the important health information, including family responsibilities for screening every morning, when to keep your child home, health office visits, and medication
The district has policies in place for when staff observe COVID-19 symptoms in a student once they arrive at school. Please use this symptoms screening checklist with your child.
Please CLICK HERE to access our district’s Health Services site for additional information and direct links
Wellness Check Responsibilities during Hybrid In-Person
Families are asked to screen their students for COVID-19 symptoms at home using this symptom screening tool prior to sending them to in-person school, every day that they attend in-person. This screening includes:
Fever (100℉ or higher) or chills (uncontrollable and sustained)
New or Worsening:
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
Any student with these COVID-like symptoms cannot attend school in-person. If a medical provider
determines they do not have COVID-19, they must not attend school or school events in person until
they have no symptoms for 24 hours, without taking any medications for their symptoms, as per our
standard illness protocols.
The McFarland School District App
Hopefully you have had a chance to check out the McFarland School District Mobile app which is tied to our website. You can easily access News, Events, staff contact info and more.
You can customize what alerts you receive by selecting the 'My Alerts' option!! This is an additional tool we will use to inform families and students of important developments like school closures so make sure you have your Emergency Alert activated!
The app is available from the Apple App Store, Google Play as well as any device using this URL.
Supply Swap
Thanks to our families and staff, the Waubesa Supply Swap has been a huge success! We will continue this through January, when we move to Step 3 Hybrid.
Thursdays 4:00 - 6:00pm
Grade 3 will pick up at Door B entering the main parking lot using the lane closest to the building. .
Grades 4-5 will pick up at Door A by the front of the building using the side parking lot drop off lane.
Fridays 11:00am - 12:00pm
All grades will use the side parking lot to pick up at Door A by the front of the building.
In both locations pull all the way to the orange cones and wait for a staff member to come to your car. Please have a sign ready with the Teacher’s last name and your child’s name.
See the image marking traffic flow and pick up locations.
Thank you for your continued support of this event as we work to get students the materials they need to make virtual learning a success.
Families will receive notification (email on Wednesday afternoons) only if they have supplies that need to be picked up.
Please return completed books as soon as possible so we can redistribute items to other students.
WIS Family Academic Resources
Enjoy some time over Winter Break reading together with your child! Here are 10 fun, simple ways you might consider:
Talk about favorite books and authors.
List off on your fingers a number of facts learned after reading about a topic together.
Listen to a book online.
Reread favorite books together again and again.
Turn on the Closed Caption option of your television.
Use silly, exaggerated voices when reading.
React and talk about a book together
Read and follow a recipe together.
Retell or act out stories after you've read them.
READ TOGETHER
Student Meals
McFarland School District has been authorized to provide free breakfast and lunch to all McFarland children, ages 18 and under. This program is paid for by the National School Lunch Program and USDA. Every meal distributed helps our School Nutrition Department cover costs and continue our mission to provide healthy, good tasting meals to our community members under the age of 18. We have made a few changes to our program that we need to inform you of:
Daily hot lunch ordering and pickup is available Monday through Friday at Waubesa from 11-12 and McFarland HIgh School from 11:00-12:45.
Friday pickups will include the option to add two additional cold lunches and two additional breakfasts for weekend consumption on the ordering site.
CEPS parents can order cold meals for their students to bring home on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Orders can be placed for Wednesday meals along with their Tuesday orders, or parents can choose to order and pick up hot meals from WIS & MHS.
We are offering meals to some daycares in the area. Please check with your provider to see if they are available through your facility.
Use this link to place orders.
**CHANGE IN MEAL PICK UP LOCATIONAT WIS STARTING 11/30/2020 and CONTINUING UNTIL WE MOVE TO STEP 3 HYBRID IN LATE JANUARY
The new pick up location for meals at Waubesa will be the bus drop off spot in the large parking lot off of Leanne Lane. This change will begin on Monday, November 30.
Please have a sign with the parent last name written in large bold letters in the passenger window when you reach the pick up site.
Be aware that the traffic flow of the parking lot will be reversed in order to accommodate more cars for pick up. Please see picture below.
Message from the PTO
Happy Holidays from the McFarland EC-8 PTO. We held a fundraiser in partnership with Spartan Pizza in November and raised $600.00 in just two nights! Thank you for your support of both a local business and our organization.
This holiday season, the PTO is partnering with the McFarland Food Pantry’s Giving Tree Project and adopting a few families to provide gifts to this holiday season. To help make a donation please visit our website at McFarlandpto.org, go to the bottom of our homepage where you can contribute through our PayPal account, or checks can be made out the McFarland PTO (please put “giving tree” in the notes section) and mailed to 5204 Rustic Way, McFarland, or contribute directly to the McFarland Food Pantry. A friendly reminder that the PTO is a nonprofit 501c3.
You can see all of our updates by following our Facebook Page www.facebook.com/McFarlandPTO or visiting our website www.mcfarlandpto.org
Please mark your calendars for our at large meeting on February 17, 2021(6:30pm) via Zoom. We also meet the second Thursday of the month for PTO advisory council meetings. To join us please email Michaela Voeck (PTO president) at mcfarlandptoprez@gmail.com to be added to the Zoom meeting invite.
Dear McFarland School District Families,
Thank you for your contributions to the 2020 Bowls for Hunger fundraiser for the McFarland Food Pantry. Thanks to your generosity Bowls for Hunger has had another successful year and continues to help our community. It is the generous support of contributors like you that makes it possible for McFarland families in need to have access to healthy food.
With our sincere thanks,
McFarland School District Art Teachers
Waubesa Virtual Learning Schedules and Details
Below you'll find a link to each grade levels schedule that includes the writing update we mentioned in our letter:
For more information regarding scheduling, please visit our Waubesa website.
January Calendar Updates
January 4 - Back to School
January 7 - Supply Swap
January 14 - Supply Swap
January 18 - No school
January 21 - Supply Swap
January 25 - No school
January 26 - Transition Day
January 27 - Related Arts Synchronous Day
January 28 - Transition Day
January 29 - Transition Day
February 1 - First Day of Hybrid In-Person Schedule