I am very proud of our Wasco School community and use this newsletter to showcase the productive work of our students, staff, and parents. A nurturing and empathetic learning community can’t exist without the positive and supportive actions of all of us.

This week we finished creating a bulletin board honoring character traits displayed around the school. There are nomination slips provided for everyone to use and we are encouraging students to spot the traits around the school and then describe what they have seen on the nomination forms! We hope your family conversations can reinforce and highlight the worthy actions we encounter every day.

Kind Regards,

Principal Brennan

March 18 Book Fair at Wasco 5pm-8pm

March 23 Early Release at 2:10pm

March 28 Spring Break

April 4 Students Return from Spring Break

Apples, bananas, carrots and celery...oh my! The Wasco Wellness Team has created a class challenge for all grade levels to promote eating healthy snacks during the school day. The contest will be Monday, March 14 - March 25, 2022. Each class will receive a tally sheet to record the fruits and vegetables eaten during snack time. Students may, of course, bring other healthy snacks; however, the only food that counts for this challenge is fruits, vegetables and applesauce. The contest will last for 2 weeks. The winning class in each grade level will get a free extra recess arranged by their teacher. The overall winning class in the school gets to choose and play their favorite PE activity during PE class.

Thank you for encouraging your students to bring healthy snacks to school.

Details for shopping and the family event are HERE. Families are invited to shop the fair on Friday, March 18th from 5-8pm in the Community Room.

Here is a short video from the fair this week.

As part of the District’s equity audit, parent 1-hour focus groups will be held across the District via Zoom during April to allow families to share their thoughts on our District’s strengths, areas of need, and long-term opportunities for providing the best educational experience for all students. Our partners will construct and lead focus groups in the equity audit process- the Consortium for Educational Change (CEC). There will be morning and evening focus groups available for parents. Every school’s goal is to have 15 families agree to participate in a focus group. During the week of March 21, a member of our school staff will begin calling parents from a document with families’ names listed in random order to invite prospective participants to be part of a focus group and at that time will share specific dates and times. All parents are welcome to email your written responses to the focus group questions to CEC should you not be selected to participate in a focus group but desire to share your opinions (A list of the focus group questions and a place for submitting your answers to them will be posted on the District website beginning April 4). We thank you for your commitment to equity in education, and we are excited about this next step in gathering the voices of our District to create a comprehensive plan for moving forward. If you have any questions regarding the focus group process, please contact our Director of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, Dr. Tracy Taylor, at tracy.taylor@d303.org.

Our PTO has openings for Treasurer and Secretary. You can use the PTO’s Website (link here) to learn more about their work and find contact information. Individuals interested in serving should contact any of our current board members (contact information listed on PTO site). The election will occur at the May 9th PTO meeting.

Website- Please visit our brand-new website at the link below. We are working very hard to get this to be a great resource for all things PTO. This is going to be our main source of communication from here on out. We will be posting the most up to date information here.

https://sites.google.com/d303. org/wascopto/home

Email- We will still continue to send emails as needed

Freshschools- Please send an email to one of the following board members to get added to this communication platform. This is a great way to be able to get in touch with other student's parents.

Shannon or Scott Von Essen: WascoPTOPresident@gmail.com

Alison Sweet: WascoPTOVicepresident@gmail. com

Misti Floyd: WascoPTOSecretery@gmail.com

Heidi Hastert: WascoPTOTreasurer@gmail.com

Shannon Martin: sm3martin@gmail.com (Executive Fundraiser)

Please reach out with any questions you may have to any of the executive members above.

Thank You all for your continued support.

Wasco Elementary PTO