Whiskers' Wonderings
Second Quarter Newsletter
Weddington Hill Elementary School
IB World School Offering the Primary Years Programme
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A Note from Admin
Parents and Guardians,
We have had an outstanding first semester of learning and growing at Weddington Hills Elementary. Teachers and students are continuing to focus on maximizing growth in the areas of academics, behavior, and social emotional skills. There have been so many schoolwide activities that have supported in the development of our students: Student Showcases, Math Night, School Choice Week, Club Day, Cat Carnival to name a few. Thank you for all you have done to ensure that your child is at school every day and ready to learn. It is clear that Weddington Hills Elementary and its staff, students, and parents are dedicated to the achievement of all students.
As many of you know, this fall, we began utilizing Istation as a new way of collecting data on our students to help drive instruction in the classroom. We wanted to update you about a change in how Istation will be reporting ISIP data about your child starting in January. Please click the link to view Istation Updates.
#GrowHere
Mrs. Dolan
Wildcat Welcome to Mrs. Casey Campbell!
We want to give a wildcat welcome to Mrs. Casey Campbell who is our new Assistant Principal!!!
Mrs. Campbell graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2004 with a B.A. in English. In 2004, Mrs. Campbell began her graduate studies at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte where she received her teaching certificate and degree in the Masters of Arts in Teaching Secondary English. Mrs. Campbell entered the teaching profession as an English teacher at Jay M. Robinson High School, where she taught from 2006-2009. Mrs. Campbell joined Cox Mill High School in its inaugural year and taught English as well as served as the yearbook advisor until 2014. Mrs. Campbell entered the NC Principal Fellows Program in 2014 and received her Masters in School Administration from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2016. Casey served as Principal Intern at Weddington Hills Elementary School for the 2015-2016 school year and Assistant Principal at East Rowan High School from 2016-2017 and then in 2018 she became the Assistant Principal at Cox Mill High School.
Mrs. Campbell and her husband, Chris, have a precious daughter, Chloe. Mrs. Campbell enjoys spending her free time with her family and friends, watching movies, and traveling.
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What's Whiskers Reading?📚
Nightly reading is a very important for our Wildcats. Whiskers recommends these family read alouds on being Calm, Safe, and having Personal Space to help you #groWHere.
Calm, Safe & Personal Space books:
LLama Llama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdney
Sand Sister by Amanda White
Alpha Breaths by Christopher Willard and Daniel Rechtschaffen
The Quiet Place by Sarah Stewart
My Magic Breath by Nick Ortner and Alison Taylor
Charlotte and the Quiet Place by Deborah Sosin
Wemberly Worries by Kevin Henkes
Nobody Hugs A Cactus by Carter Goodrich
Clark the Shark by Bruce Hale
No Hugs by Diedre Prischmann
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What's Happening @ Weddington??
Holidays Around the World
Club Day Success Part 2!
Our second club day was a HUGE hit thanks to our parent volunteers, Concord High School IB Diploma Programme students and WHES staff. We couldn’t offer over 85 different clubs to 1,050 students without the generosity of our PTO who funds our club supplies or the club leaders who offer their time and endless energy. Our wildcats LOVE club days so thank you to everyone for making clubs the #bestdayever. Next club day is March 26th.
Suessical Success
Congratulations to all those involved in the Suessical Jr play. Everyone did an amazing job. A HUGE shout out to Mrs. Scott and Ms. Darcangelo for your time and dedication. Check out some of the images from the show!
🐾 #BestDayEver #WHESClubDay 🐾
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This year WHES will be celebrating Random Acts of Kindness week in our own Wildcat Way! This will be a week full of FUN in hopes of spreading and promoting KINDNESS throughout our school community. We will have a door decorating contest throughout the whole school and teachers will have all week to design their classroom door in the most creative way using the students amazing work! At the end of the week a grade level winner will be chosen to receive a prize!!
New Integrating Social Emotional Learning Class
Stephanie Monroe graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1994 with a degree in English and earned a K-6 teaching license from UNC-Charlotte in 1996. From 1996-2000, Stephanie worked for Charlotte- Mecklenburg Schools as a teacher at Westerly Hills Elementary School and John Motley Morehead Elementary School. Stephanie has had many roles at Weddington Hills Elementary School throughout the years. She has been a parent, PTO board member, substitute teacher, interim media specialist, interim third grade teacher, character coach, Title I tutor and now she is excited to be the teacher for the Integrating Social Emotional Learning special, Integrating SEL for short. Stephanie is married and has two boys who were both Weddington Hills Wildcats. Her husband, David, is the Historian and Alumni Affairs Manager for the Carolina Panthers. Stephen is a sophomore at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Noah is a senior at Concord High School. Stephanie is looking forward to working with all of the students at Weddington Hills and being a full-time member of our amazing school.
🎉 Congratulations are in order... 🎉
Young Author Award Winners 19-20
Congratulations to these Young Author Winners!
** Miller Finney
* Makeyli Bernal Prudente
Averie Barbee
* Ann Terraza
* Lila Cardell
** Mary Hooks,WHES IB PYP Coordinator - Forever Young Author
*County Winner
**County + State Winner
WHES 19-20 Teacher of the Year
19-20 Spelling Bee Winners
Grant Winners!
Kate Highsmith: $905- Bright Ideas Grant and $1,000- Cabarrus County Educational Foundation Grant
Mary Hooks- $500 IB Schools of NC Grant
Lenora Barron- $14, 000- Cabarrus County Parks and Recreation Grant and $400- Concord Civic Gardening Grant
Golden Globe Awards
Mrs. Bogart, Tutor
Ms. Endaya, 2nd Grade Teacher
Mrs. Milby, Media Coordinator
Mrs. Hayes, Kindergarten Teacher
ABC Club
IB Learner Profile Awards
National Magnet School of Distinction by Magnet Schools of America
Our school has won a National Magnet School of Merit Award for the 4th year in a row! To receive a national merit award, members of Magnet Schools of America must submit a detailed application that is scored by a panel of educators. These schools are judged and scored on their demonstrated ability to raise student academic achievement, promote racial and socioeconomic diversity, provide integrated curricula and instruction, and create strong family and community partnerships that enhance the school’s magnet theme.
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* After School Spanish Club *
Spanish Club for grades 3-5
Who: First 25 students who responded by December 16th and have been notified. If your child was notified and will not be attending, please let Sra. Pagoota know before February 3rd so we can add students on the waiting list.
When: Each Monday beginning February 3rd through May 18th from 3:00-4:00 p.m. (Please note that club will not meet on appointed holidays or teacher workdays.)
How: Students will meet at 3:00 p.m. in the Spanish classroom and be picked up by parents on the bus lot at 4:00 p.m.
For more information, contact Sra. Cristina Pagoota, Spanish Teacher cristina.pagoota@cabarrus.k12.nc.us
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🗣 VIP Reminders 🗣
Lunch Information🍎
We welcome visitors to eat lunch with our students. Any visitor that may eat lunch with a child at our school must be listed on the student information card that is completed at the beginning of the school year. This student information card will be checked when a visitor arrives for lunch. If the name of the lunch guest is not on the card, they may not eat lunch with your child. If you are joining your child for lunch, you should always meet your child in the cafeteria. Upon signing in at the front office, please proceed to the cafeteria, you should not access your child’s classroom. In addition, if your child forgets their lunch at home and you need to bring it to school, please do that by 10:45. The office staff is unable to deliver lunches to students after 10:45 due to the beginning of school-wide lunch times.
Throughout the year we have schoolwide bag lunch days. These are days that the entire school will be eating in their classroom due to a special event. On these days we are asking that parents refrain from joining their students for lunch on these days. This includes bringing lunches to be dropped off on these days. Thank you for understanding… the following days are schoolwide bag lunch days: April 3rd, May 1st, May 6th, June 2nd, June 4th, June 8th, June 9th, June 10th, June 11th.
Photo ID Required
Please remember a photo ID is needed each time you access our campus. In order to ensure high levels of safety and security at our school, please be prepared to show your photo ID to the office staff when you enter the building.
Changing your child’s transportation and early checkout procedures
Our top priority at the end of the day is to ensure students are prepared to get to the
correct location for dismissal. If you need to change transportation, please come to the office by 2:30 pm or write the teacher a note and have your child bring it to school. We will not accept transportation changes over the phone or by email. In addition, we will not accept student check out requests after 2:30 pm.
NOTE: New CCS Policy -- 5 unexcused tardies or checkouts will equal one unexcused absence for the student.