The Wildcat Chat
What's Happening at Willard? | August 27, 2021
Make Waves This School Year
We were thrilled to welcome back nearly 1600 students to the halls of Willard. There was intentional work being done to engage our Wildcat Scholars in the work ahead. They were taking tours, collaborating, and already starting to tackle advanced engineering. They were beginning to ultimately MAKE WAVES with their creativity, excitement, and desire to take on challenging work. We cannot wait to see what they do next!
Sra. Stone & Sr. Slobodnjak get ready to welcome our Wildcat Scholars
Our Make Waves rock crafted by our phenomenal art teacher gurus
Scholars Corina and Teddy Swigart enjoying Mr. McMurrer's interactive science class
Bus Issues
Upcoming PTA Meeting
Our first official Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meeting will be held in person on Thursday, September 2, at our Willard Library, starting at 6:30 p.m. At this exciting first meeting, we will be voting for our slate of new executive officers. The following community members are running for these roles:
- President: Janelle Brevard
- Vice President of Communications: Open
- VP Family and Community Partnership: Patricia Mars
- Secretary: Wendy Hlebinsky
- Treasurer: Shelly Walsh
As a reminder, we ask that participants wear a mask during this meeting. We look forward to seeing everyone soon!
Lightridge's Back to School Bash
Lightridge would love to see all their future Bolts out on Friday night as we all celebrate the opening of our new elementary school, Hovatter, and welcome the LHS Football Team to a full, rockin' stadium for the first time this year!
Upcoming Student Assessments
The new school year brings a welcome return to in-person learning, creating opportunities to see what academic skills our students retained from last year and what supports they need for success this year. It is important that teachers spend time collecting data to inform their instruction so they can consistently remediate and enrich student learning. Some of the data is collected through day-to-day informal assessments and other data is obtained through formal methods, such as state and federal testing. This fall, our students will be participating in the following assessments:
- Thursday, September 9 and Friday, September 10: Reading MAP
- Monday, September 13 and Tuesday, September 14: Math MAP
- Early October: Virginia Department of Education Fall Growth Assessments in Reading (for all grade levels) and students taking Grade 6, 7, & 8 Mathematics (More details to come).
Special Note: Originally, our Reading and Math MAP assessments were scheduled for earlier in the year. However, we have adjusted those dates to better support our scholars. The dates listed above our the latest dates.
The Wonder Launches Next Week
In our next Wildcat CHAT, delivered to families on Thursday, September 2, we will share our first Wonder newsletter. This online resource will be included as part of our CHAT, so students and parents have a glimpse into what the week ahead will look like in terms of the topics covered and the assessments given. The first Wonder will include detailed information for the time period of Tuesday, September 7 to Friday, September 10. We are excited to support families with this resource.
Back to School Night Website
Recognize Our Fabulous Teachers
Meal Service Updates
Students may receive breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner meals—free of charge. Due to program restrictions one free breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner is available each day per student. Snack meals will be served with lunch. Second meals will cost $4.10.
Effective Monday, August 30, 2021, distance learning students may pick up all of their meals for the week on Mondays at any nearby high school loading dock from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. If Monday is a holiday, meals will be served on Tuesday.
Preparing for Health & P.E. Class
School Calendar
The 2021-2022 school calendar is available for our families here. In September, there will be student holidays on September 3, 6, and 16. In addition, at the start of the school year, our students will participate in both the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments and the new fall Standards of Learning (SOLs) in reading and math. Please be on the lookout for more information in our next chat regarding our upcoming testing efforts.