School Improvement Work and Recognition:

We wanted to recognize the work of our WMS Multilingual (ML) program led by one of our amazing teachers, Pam Dietrich. Ms. Dietrich coordinated with Carlotta Prospersi (WHS ML Teacher) to begin work with testing for the "Seal of Biliteracy" at the middle school level with identified 7th and 8th graders (many of whom are in our ML program). Ms. Dietrich did a tremendous amount of work with Ms. Prospersi to research, plan, and implement this assessment with our students. We applaud all of those efforts. Everything Ms. Dietrich did in administering this test to students is not only identifying bilingual students sooner but awarding high school transcript credit for foreign languages earlier for our WMS (future WHS) students! Students being exposed to a test like this sooner could also have positive effects on students who have to take the WIDA Assessment soon (an important step in exiting the ML program) as well!

Ms. Dietrich administered the exam to about 50 of our WMS students as of 1/2/2024. As of that date, we are proud to report that 8 of those students received the full "Seal of Biliteracy" through this exam, and almost all of the remaining test takers earned a high enough score to earn between 2.0 and 4.0 High School Language Credits! Way to go, Trojans, and thank you, Ms. Dietrich, for all your efforts!! Additionally, thanks to Jake Hall (Executive Director of WSD Learning Supports) for supporting WMS in this mission to assist WHS.

Upcoming Events: 

Since we haven't had a Board Report since November, our December was filled with a lot of fun for both students and staff! We had a door decorating contest (thanks to Mr. Jeff Flanagan), a holiday scavenger hunt (thanks to Ms. Ronda Oathes and Ms. Sarah Netland), and a fun staff party (thanks to Ms. Kelly Beasley and Ms. Pam Dietrich) for organizing, and we had plenty of fun dress-up days and a holiday moving night/dance for our Trojans!! Additionally, we had a friendly food drive competition with Columbia Elementary to support our community, and our Trojans collected 1,603 items for our families in need. Way to go, Trojans!

Upcoming events on the horizon for the next few weeks...

We have a new play performance coming soon at WMS! "The Mysterious Case of the Missing Ring!" It was originally scheduled for the weekend January 19th but we are looking at moving it to the week of January 22nd due to our surprise winter weather! We are still hoping to have three shows. Tickets are $3.00 each and can be purchased online or at the door! Shout out to our directors, Ms. Ronda Oathes and Ms. Kelley Foyt!

Our next Spirit Day is January 25th! It will be our "Dynamic Duo" day! Looking forward to a fun dress-up day with our Trojans!