The Bulldog Buzz
WEE Staff Newsletter - March 31, 2023
I got this email from a parent this week after the terrible shootings in Tennessee:
Dear Mrs. Christian,
Oh how I wish that school shootings did not exist in our world, yet alas, here we are dealing with another one. I just wanted to reach out and thank you for all you do to make WEE a safe place for the “baby” of our family! Ultimately, my trust is in God to protect ----- and my other children but I know you and your staff work your tails off to provide a safe environment for our children to learn in.
With sincere appreciation,
Oh how I wish that school shootings did not exist in our world, yet alas, here we are dealing with another one. I just wanted to reach out and thank you for all you do to make WEE a safe place for the “baby” of our family! Ultimately, my trust is in God to protect ----- and my other children but I know you and your staff work your tails off to provide a safe environment for our children to learn in.
With sincere appreciation,
----------
THANK YOU FOR KEEPING OUR STUDENTS SAFE!
54 Things I am Thankful for on this, my 54th Birthday!
- Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior
- My Earthly father who gave me (and still gives me) love, security, and encouragement
- My mother who showed me what a strong woman looks like
- My sister who is my forever best friend
- My husband who is the most loyal person I have ever known
- My oldest daughter, Kinsey, who has shown me how to better love my husband since they are so alike and makes me proud every day
- My son, Kyler, who is so kind, hardworking, and such a “mash up” of my husband and me and makes me proud every day
- My youngest daughter, Karis, who has shown me how to better love myself because she is so much like me and makes me proud every day
- Extended family who is always there for me
- My Book Club friends – it’s so much more than a book club.
- My forever friends – some have moved away, but the people you raise your babies with stay deep in your soul
- Co-workers that I have been “in the trenches” with leading to deep friendships
- My fulfilling career where I get to serve kids and my co-workers
- The opportunity to serve as the leader of a great campus at WEE
- My amazing church home where I get to draw nearer to God and be challenged in my faith
- My life group
- Good books! One on Kindle or hard copy and one audio going all the time!
- March Madness and the awesome game of basketball
- Large Sonic drinks with half coke, half diet coke and easy ice.
- Wisdom that comes from walking through the really hard things
- 85 degree sunshiny days with a slight breeze
- A really good, smooth writing pen
- Sticky notes
- Crossing things off a to-do list
- Belly laughing
- The ability to read lips
- Fresh, clean smells – especially in a great hand soap
- ID Swipe Doors and not having to use metal keys
- People who have more creative ideas than me and are willing to share
- The prospect of future grandchildren
- Being raised to have a good work ethic which has served me well
- ADHD medication for both my husband (I call it the anti-divorce drug!) and the some of the students I serve
- Cars that work well and have AC in the summer
- The basic necessities of life: food, clean water, and shelter
- My professional mentors who have become a good friends (and from one of whom I stole this thankful things birthday list idea!)
- Google Calendar
- Watching my grown kids achieving their dreams
- Playing games with family and friends
- Baking chocolate desserts (It's hard to beat a warm chocolate chip cookie!)
- When the Holy Spirit shuts my mouth
- When I get to have my grown children home at the same time
- The courage to try new things and take risks
- Crispy bacon
- Finding a pair of pants off the rack that are long enough
- Watching little babies at church
- My Baylor education and experience
- Potted flowers that stay alive despite my black thumb
- The AMAZING teachers and staff at Wylie East Elementary
- Making wedding plans with my oldest and looking forward to her marriage to a wonderful man
- Amazon Prime
- Good health
- The opportunity to be an educator who has seen all grade levels from a front row seat
- Being tall
- Facebook Time Hops
Having a grateful heart makes life better! I hope you'll take time to think about what you are thankful for!
Music in Our Schools Dress Up Week!
Upcoming Dates!
- TODAY: ALL appraisals and most official walkthroughs should be completed and entered into DMAC. Be sure you have signed all of yours! As you complete post-testing, you may begin scheduling your end of year conferences with your appraiser as early as March 31st.
- TODAY: You may begin entering goals for the 23-24 school year into DMAC to be discussed at your EOY Conference.
- TODAY: You should have made it by to talk to the First Financial Rep on our campus to go over benefits. If you didn't, you will need to go on your conference time to another campus to get that done (see the other locations on the email from Vicki McDonald or Katie).
- March 31st-April 6th: 3rd Graders are participating in a charity event called "Loose Change for Change" to raise money for the Child Advocacy Board for child abuse prevention.
- April 3rd: Austism Awareness Day Celebrated (Wear Blue!)
- April 6th: End of FIFTH six weeks! (Please go ahead and enter your Outstanding Citizen if you have not already.)
- April 6th: Kindergarten to Festival Gardens for Egg Hunt (note location change)
- April 7th: NO SCHOOL
- April 10th: NO SCHOOL
- April 11th: Faculty Meeting 3:30 (We plan to introduce our new Assistant Principal!)
- April 11th: Verify Grades by noon / Class Performances for Kindergarten Music Program (8:05 Block)
- April 12th: Parent Performances for Kindergarten Music Program (8:05 Block)--PLEASE PARK IN THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING!
- April 13th: Class Performances for Kindergarten Music Program (9:00 Block)
- April 14th: School Librarian Day! We love Mrs. Martinez!!!
- April 14th: Military Child Purple Up Day! Wear purple in support of children of military families.
- April 14th: Parent Performances for Kindergarten Music Program (9:00 Block)--PLEASE PARK IN THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING!
- April 14th: All POST-TESTS must be completed and EOY conferences must be scheduled to be done by May 4th.
- April 14th: STAAR Pep Rally (This will be for 3rd Grade and the 2nd Grade classes who have adopted the 3rd grade classes only).
- April 14th: RTI Meetings (Please be sure to have all of your data filled out!)
- April 18th: 3rd Grade STAAR Reading Test (Everyone wear your STAAR t-shirt and jeans to support and encourage them!)
- April 19th: Kindergarten Cap & Gown Pictures
Duty Next Week:
4/3-4/6: Maronski, Lara, Jensen, Buckner, Henderson, Gulley, Garcia
Look what one of Mrs. Brody's students did! THIS is what it's ALL about!
Friendly Reminders:
- If you receive an email from a parent, please respond within 24 hours!
- If you know you will not be returning next year and have not yet written your letter of resignation, please get that to me by next week! Thanks!
- Please be cautious about "offering" or "suggesting" a resource class setting when you talk to parents. This placement is an ARD committee decision and many factors must be considered. If you have anyone that you think might benefit from this setting, email Mrs. Christian for a list of guidelines to consider. Thanks!
- Next year, I will be assigning morning duties. If you have a preference on doing duty all in a row or spread out, you can let me know-- no promises, but I can try to accommodate. Thanks!
- Teachers-- please enter your Outstanding Citizens for the 5th six weeks on the spreadsheet link sent out this week.
- Check your email for our Summer Staff Development Requirement Forms. Use the PO #s listed at the top to register for workshops at Region 14. The Pitstop Catalog dropped Wednesday!
- Be watching for an email from your appraiser to set up your end of year conferences.
- Be thinking about what goals you want to set for 23-24! You can start entering those TODAY for us to check!
- PLEASE get your duty covered if you will be out. Aides, you will need to ask a teacher to cover you in the mornings. Thanks!
- Be communicating with parents -- especially of those kids who are struggling!
- Be sure and join us for some STRATEGY BINGO!! Email me when you have submitted the BINGO form, so I know to get you your jeans pass! So excited to hear about how you have liked incorporating some possibly new strategies!
- First person to email Mrs. Christian with the word thankful in the subject line will get a prize. Thank you for reading the newsletter each week!
Mrs. Bridge's class showed some PERFECT hallway behavior and was the first to get this treat! Who is next?
Staff Shout Outs!
- Mrs. Wyatt (aka The DONATION QUEEN!) used Donor's Choose to get us some books to offer as prizes to our AOK winners! Love it!
- Thanks to Mrs. McDonald for helping us celebrate Music in our Schools Month with fun dress up days and puzzle pieces!
- Thank you to our amazing SUNSHINE COMMITTEE! They help make our campus so fun, and the pot lucks are delicious!
- Tyree is working tirelessly running our AOK Club! This is such an important part of our culture of kindness, and I am so thankful that she has taken this on with a spirit of excellence!
- Shyrl Martinez has been AMAZING to take on a #nojobisnotmyjob job! The tech department brought over three more Chromebook carts, but they were not set up. The set up is VERY time consuming, so she enlisted Mr. Davis and some awesome 3rd graders to help her.
- Mrs. Schur did an amazing job in a parent meeting that could have been difficult this week! Her professionalism and calm nature were so appreciated!
- Kristal literally was digging in the trash cans at lunch to try to find a student's hearing device. Another great example of #nojobisnotmyjob!
- I appreciate your continued grace as I have to be off campus for interviews. I just want to lay my eyes on anyone who could potentially be on our awesome team!
- Mrs. Clement was coming down the kindergarten hallway on her way to lunch, and I overheard her compliment a kindergartener on his hallway behavior. That's a team player!
- Another example of the mindset that ALL kids are our OUR kids-- Mrs. Brittney Martinez noticed some boys, as she brought her students into lunch, who were misbehaving. She immediately went to them and made them sit a seat apart then came to let me know. I love that everyone is on the same team at WEE!
- CONGRATS (belatedly!) to Mrs. CRENSHAW on her recent wedding!
- Cinnamon worked hard to get all of our TELPAS testing done this week! YEA!
- Mrs. Morrow and Mrs. Rocco helped Katie get a better idea of what teacher supplies are needed in the lounge! Thank you!
- Mrs. Roberts not only dressed up on Opera day but incorporated learning about characteristics of the opera genre into her RLA lesson! #crosscurriculum #realworldexamples
- Mrs. Lara had her students do presentations this week and did not stop at letting them just present the material. She asked probing questions about what they had come across that extended their learning! Love the higher order thinking!
- Mrs. Williams has her room set up for cooling off breaks for our kids who need that, and through Donors Choose she got 146 books for in there! Books are the best distraction!
- Thanks to our awesome custodial crew who had A LOT of popcorn to sweep up today!!!
Fun Fact (And spoiler alert if you record and catch up on shows over the weekend!)
In case you didn't know, and you happen to follow The Bachelor show, my oldest daughter is engaged to Zach's best friend and so Zach and Kaity will be at her wedding because Zach is Ben's best man. How crazy is that?? (Also, I am thankful the finale happened, so I never have to watch that show again! 😂)