Happy Friday to all our WB students, staff, and families. Here is our latest WB Wildcat Weekly Newsletter. We hope that it will provide you with information as well as insight into what is going on in the West Bridgewater Public Schools. There are so many great things going on and it is our pleasure to share information with you.

For 2022, Surround Care is pleased to offer a summer program for students enrolled in the West Bridgewater Public Schools entering grades 1-6. The Surround Care Summer Program is located at the Middle-Senior High School at 155 West Center St, West Bridgewater. The program hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

As a professional staff, we care very much about your children and are here to provide a safe and happy environment for self-directed, adult-supervised activities, while having lots of summer fun.

Activities will include Arts & Crafts, Makerspace and STEM enrichment, Indoor and Outdoor Freeplay, Music, Games, Waterplay & Sports.

We offer a full week or daily enrollment. Drop-in attendance is not accepted. Payment in full must be included with your registration. All students must have prior financial obligations paid in full before they are allowed to register for our program. All registrations must be completed online no later than Friday, May 27, 2022. Program cost is $250/week or $70/day

Refunds are not given for missed or canceled days. Surround Care is self-supportive, funded entirely by parents’ tuition. Registration is online at wbridgewaterschools.org/page/surround-care For questions, please contact the program director. Kathie Quinn at kquinn@wbridgewater.com or 508-894-1230 ext 2107

We are happy to announce that we will be holding an April School Vacation Week Surround Care Program!! Many of our regular Surround Care staff members will be there to oversee the fun! Arts and crafts, gym games, outdoor play, and lots of fun springtime activities will be offered. The program will be held at the Rose L. MacDonald School from Tuesday, April 19th through Friday, April 22nd. The hours are from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. For more information, visit April Vacation Surround Care or call Kathie Quinn, Program Director at 508-894-1230 ext 2107

Below is a link to view the NEW BUDGET PRESENTATION. This presentation was updated for the meeting with the Finance Committee. We hope families will review this google slides presentation. If you would like to review the past presentation you can find that on our website (under School Committee) or it is linked in the March 11th newsletter.

The School Committee Budget was fully supported and approved at their March SC meeting. Thank you for your continued support of the students and staff in West Bridgewater. We appreciate the WB families' support of our budget. It is always our goal to be as transparent and open as possible with all budget-related questions. There is a lot of information provided in our presentation so please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions.

In each of our schools, we are talking about Wildcat PRIDE. The PRIDE acronym stands for

• Passion
• Respect
• Ingenuity
• Determination
• Empathy

This started at the MSHS as part of the NEASC Decennial Visit as we talked about integrating our core values throughout our school programs. We have also integrated our Academic Expectations into our Wildcat PRIDE. It is great to see Wildcat PRIDE being talked about and part of the culture in each of our schools. Next video to be shared will be INGENUITY.

West Bridgewater turned 200 on February 16th! We will continue to post old pictures with each newsletter. If you have any good old photos that you would like to share please send them in! Pictured to the right is River Street showing the original Canoe Club on the southwest corner of South Street and River Street, building was Howard Shoe Shop previously.

• High School students & staff competed in a pickleball tournament during powerblocks. The competition was fierce but all had a ton of fun. Students in 7-12 were able to come and watch if they wanted to.
• Below are some pictures of a middle school ELA class reviewing for a test, with big sticky notes and putting them in chronological order.

Check out the MSHS Guidance Newsletter. It has lots of great information. If you have any specific guidance questions please call the MSHS at 508-894-1220 or you can email the guidance secretary Mrs. Myers at tmyers@wbridgewater.com

The West Bridgewater Drama Club is proud to present this season's spring musical: "Into the Woods", April 1st and 2nd, 2022. This modern twist on the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tales musically follows the classic tales of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Baker and his wife, Rapunzel and a Witch-all tied together in the dark woods. Showtimes are 7pm April 1st, and 2pm and 7pm April 2nd. All tickets are $15 general admission and can be purchased pre-show at the box office, or 3/24-4/1 at the MSHS main office. Please email Erin Brogna with any questions at ebrogna@wbridgewater.com. See you at the show!

• The Little Leos Club is going to help the Clean Up Kids in helping keep our school grounds clean. They will participate in weekly cleanups, as well as securing a new trash barrel to put by the basketball courts.
• The student council will be running a sunglass fundraiser that will go directly to the student's activity account. The sunglasses are $5 each.
• The school council will be meeting this Thursday and beginning to plan a Howard School Field Day.
• Ms. Sullivan and the students will be beginning their robotic lego unit next week. The Legos were donated from the Howard Trustees. Thank you Howard Trustees!

The Little Leo’s Club is proud to present the grade level winners of our Penny War. Each grade level winner receives an extra recess with popsicles and they get to display their winning plaque for the rest of the year. As a school, we raised $1,343.46 for Eye research! The Lions Club of West Bridgewater wanted to say thank you for donating to the Eye Research fund.

The first-grade students have been learning about the relationship between the Earth and Sun. Ms. Messina’s class went on a nature walk to see some of the changes happening around the school. They saw some beautiful buds on the trees, yellow daffodils, and what they thought was a chipmunk hole! After learning about animals hibernating in winter, they concluded that some of the animals might be coming out of their burrows creating these little holes. Students then wrote about things they saw using their 5 senses.

Mrs.Mattos’ students enjoyed using the interactive board during their morning meeting. The students are doing such a great job using the technology in the PreSchool class!

Tick-Borne Diseases - While the majority of tick-borne diseases occur during the summer months, tick activity begins to peak in March and April. Here is some helpful information: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/resources/brochure/lymediseasebrochure-P.pdf

• MSHS students were offered two new hot entrees this week: spicy Chicken and Cheese whole grain Taquitos (rolled tacos) with cilantro-lime rice and retro-inspired Sloppy Joes on a whole grain bun. Our newest grab and go option is a Mediterranean CousCous salad made with chicken breast, whole grain couscous with feta, tomato, chickpeas and cucumbers, over a bed of fresh romaine and dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette
  
• For those looking for an update as to whether free school meals will continue for every student after this school year and what's going on legislatively at the National and State level, please check out Project Bread

Several of our students attended the MIAA Workshop for Female Leaders today at the MIAA offices in Franklin. The workshop was with Coach Sherry Winn who was aTwo-Time Olympian, National Championship Basketball Coach, Award-Winning Speaker and Author. After 34 years of leading elite athletic teams from college basketball to the Olympics, Sherry Winn brings three and half decades of championship mentality to student-athletes. Thank you to the following students who attended with Coach Decastro:

• Lily Martel
• Hannah Freeman
• Olivia Crandall
• Olivia Razza
• Lasadia Gurley

Spring Sports have begun in West Bridgewater. It is so great to see so many student-athletes participating in Track and Field, Softball, Baseball, and Tennis. Good luck to all involved and we can't wait to start watching them compete! Any questions please email Athletic Director Ms. Hammel at jhammel@wbridgewater.com

Unified Basketball Team - On Thursday afternoon West Bridgewater finished its Unified Sports basketball season with another thrilling game against Pembroke. There were more than 80 points scored and our Fab five accounted for 27 of the Wildcats points. Brianna Miller led all scorers with 12 points. Zeid Itani had West Bridgewater’s only 3 pointer and Shane Nolen, Moriah Winchell, and Jordan McMahon added 12 more points. The players from both teams were treated to pizza at the Pembroke Middle School to celebrate our first season of Unified Sports. Congratulations to all members of the team and our coaches!

Please see the newest Wildcat Write Up Newsletter below for more information. These newsletters are full of great information for WB Families!

Check out in the newsletter the Parent Literacy Night April 25th- Sponsored by Bridgewater State University and Inclusion Matters

Learning About Autism from Adult Autistics - celebrate ASD Awareness by making space for adult autistics to speak to you about their experiences. Here at Inclusion Matters, we're listening to autistics tell their stories. Instead of talking about autism, we'll be listening to autistics. We hope you'll join us for this not-to-be-missed way to celebrate autism in April. The Zoom link to join is here (or, always, on our FB event page or our website's event page): https://bridgew.zoom.us/j/95905350613 Hope to see you on April 5th!

If you did not get a chance to see the Unified Basketball team play last week they played on Thursday at the Pembroke Community Middle School. Congratulations to all of our student-athletes!!!

The next Coffee Hour with Mr. Bodwell will be on Friday, April 8th starting at 9:15 am. The other building principals also continue to have Coffee Hours. We feel this is a great way to get information out to families and allow for people to ask questions and keep an open line of communication. Superintendent Coffee Hour. Apologies that there seems to have been an issue with the link provided for the March Coffee Hour. We have had these meetings virtually as many parents have said it works best for their schedules. I am open to also meeting in person so if you have any feedback on this please let me know mbodwell@wbridgewater.com

Mark Bodwell, Superintendent of Schools

Email: mbodwell@wbridgewater.com
Website: www.wbridgewaterschools.org
Location: 2 Spring Street, West Bridgewater, MA, USA
Phone: (508) 894-1230
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wbridgewaterschools
Twitter: @WBPSwildcats