W-W Virtual Academy Newsletter
May 17, 2024
Contact Information:
- WWIA Address: 5400 Fourth Street, Wayne, MI 48184
- Email - swansonc@wwcsd.net,
- Join ClassDojo - https://www.classdojo.com/ul/p/addKid?target=school&schoolID=6391f664d7bbba2d7dd1e8fd
- Call - 734-713-4355.
When corresponding please make sure to include:
- Your name
- Your student's name
- Your question or quandary
Please reach out with any questions you have.
August 10 - 27 - Mandatory Orientation Sessions for families new to the Virtual Program - see below for specific dates and times.
August 18 - Back to School Fair 4:00-7:00pm - more in for in the newsletter below.
August 25 - First Day of School - 1/2 day for in-person students
August 25 - First Day of School - Virtual Program students classes will be loaded and ready to begin. Students may begin checking your email and Graduation Alliance dashboards as of 8/17 for classes. Students may begin classes as soon as they appear on the dashboard.
August 26 - First weekly two-way communication check-in for all students who have one or more Graduation Alliance Classes (in-person and fully virtual students.)
September 4 & 7 - The building will be closed and staff are off for the Labor Day holiday
September 23 - No In-person classes; staff professional development day; virtual program students can work on classes or take the day.
October 6 - Picture Day - for all students, in-person & virtual; come to WWIA to have a picture taken for the yearbook, student ID, and family mementos - More details to come on times.
MANDATORY
Sometime this week, hopefully Monday or Tuesday, there will messaging from the district that the Mi-Star, ParentConnection, Back-To-School Update is ready. It is a requirement of all families to log into your ParentConnection account to update/validate the demographic, medical, transportation, and legal information about each student a family has enrolled in Wayne-Westland.
As soon as that update is available please log in update/validate each information screen. Having up-to-date info on your student is essential so that staff can keep in contact with you and that all ClassDojo and districtwide messages can get delivered to families in a timely manner.
There will be more details in that district announcement.
If you need your ParentConnect login information, send Chris Swanson an email or ClassDojo message anytime and that info will be sent to you.
NEW TO THE VIRTUAL PROGRAM?
Attention all families who will be brand new to the Virtual Learning Program for the 2026-27 school year. A mandatory orientation session is required before classes will be assigned and a Chromebook issued to students. The new virtual program student plus at least one adult from the household must attend.
The orientation session for the 2026-2027 Virtual Academy will take place at Innovative Academy - 5400 Fourth Street, Wayne, MI, 48184
- Attendance at an orientation session is required before students can begin classes. The student and at least one adult must attend.
- Orientation sessions last approximately 45 minutes.
- Students may check out a Chromebook if one is needed.
- Please bring a writing utensil with you and any questions you have.
- Handouts will be provided.
If you have completed the 26.27 Virtual Learning Contract for your student and need to pick up a Chromebook before school starts, Chromebooks will be available for check out on the following schedule:
August 17-21 - 7:30am-2:45pm
August 24-28 - 7:30am-2:45pm
In addition you can check out a Chromebook in the 30 minutes before the evening New Student Orientation Sessions.
August 19th - 5:30-6:00pm
August 20th - 3:30-4:00pm
August 24th - 5:30-6:00pm
August 25th - 5:30-6:00pm
August 27th - 5:30-6:00pm
COMPLETE TODAY FOR VIRTUAL PROGRAMMING IN THE FALL
If you and your student desire to remain virtual for the 2026-2027 school year, or if you are interested in moving your 6th - 12th grade student to virtual learning please complete the form below. Forms should be completed at your earliest convenience but no later than August 1st.
Please note that if your child has an IEP please email me a copy at your earliest convenience as IEP's have to be reviewed by our special education team to determine if virtual learning is an appropriate offer of FAPE (free & appropriate education.) An approval by the IEP team would need to be made before enrollment was made.
If you wish your currently virtual program student to move to in-person for the 26.27 school year, please complete the form in the next section of the newsletter, "Return to In-Person Learning For 26.27."
PLANNING FOR THE 2026.27 SCHOOL YEAR
As we look to the 2026-2027 school year please complete this form if you wish your student to return to in-person learning in the fall. Counselors at the middle and high schools are beginning to schedule students now and we want to give your student the opportunity to have all classes available to them when scheduling.
If your student is a high schooler and wishes to return to Wayne Memorial or John Glenn he/she must have a minimum of
5 credits entering 10th grade
11 credits entering 11th grade
15.5 credits entering 12th grade
An interview with the Wayne/Glenn principal/counseling team may be set up to discuss returning to in-person
If the High School student is interested in returning to in-person but is credit deficient an appointment with Dr. Rosser and Mrs. Swanson will be set up to complete an intake to in-person WWIA. Current and projected credits will be confirmed to ensure that students are eligible which building student are eligible to return to.
Middle School students and entering freshman can return to in-person as long as there are no behavior/disciplinary restrictions currently in place.
Students interested in returning to in-person learning will be track transferred to their homeschool, based on your current address listed in Mi-Star. If a school of choice form has been completed and approved the student will be moved to that school instead.
For Juniors and Seniors who have been accepted to William D. Ford Career Technical Center and plan to drive daily or intermittently please complete the form below. Students will need to go the Career Tech office the first week of school to obtain the parking pass. Students must have registered the request on the google form first.
CTE SCHEDULES:
- AM scheduled students should report beginning Tuesday, August 25th.
- PM scheduled students should report beginning Wednesday, August 26th.
- Any day that the district has a half day AM students report, PM students do not.
FOR EASIER AND MORE IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION & INFORMATION UPDATES
A few facts:
- ClassDojo is COMPLETELY FREE. Though there is a paid version that you can use at home for chore charts, there is no monetary obligation to families.
- WWCSD has gone district wide with ClassDojo for the 2026-27 school year.
- All families in the district are expected to join ClassDojo to receive and be able to send information to your child(ren)'s school.
- ClassDojo is an app for your phone so there is no need to search through emails for the info you need, all dates and events are listed in Dojo.
If you have not yet joined WWIA's ClassDojo please click on the link or button below.
Helpful Videos:
- How to submit a quiz
- How to submit a discussion post
- How to submit and activity
- How to copy and activity to complete
HOW TO GET THE BEST SCORE POSSIBLE:
- Complete all quizzes and activities.
- You must complete ALL activities. You will NOT get a passing grade by only completing the quizzes. All classes are based on 1,000 points. Quizzes are worth a few points (2-20) but activities and project make up the majority of the points (50-100 a piece.)
- Redo any quizzes or activities that are below 70%.
- If after completing all lessons you have a 70% or higher you can skip the final.
TEACHER FEEDBACK - SPEECH BUBBLES: Ever wonder what your teacher thinks of your work. Look for the speech bubble. When you look for the score to an assignment if the teacher has given feedback there will be an icon that looks like a speech bubble from a comic book (💬💭.) Click on the bubble and your teacher's feedback will be presented.
IS YOUR CHROMEBOOK GOING SLOW? - CLEAR THE COOKIES USING CHROME MENU:
Open the Chrome browser on your Chromebook.
Click the three vertical dots (More menu) in the top-right corner of the window.
Hover over More Tools, then select Delete browsing data.
In the "Time range" dropdown menu, choose a time frame. More ⬇️Select All time to delete all cookies.
Make sure the box next to Cookies and other site data is checked.
You can uncheck other items like "Browsing history" or "Cached images and files" if you only want to remove cookies.” Make sure to hit 'Show more ⬇️' if you plan to select more boxes.
Click Delete data.
Is your Chromebook stating that the disk is full? If your Chromebook is stating that the disk is full, it won't let you download or upload a document to Graduation Alliance, or you can't get into Graduation Alliance it may be because your Chrome OS needs to be updated.
Steps to Update:
- Click on the button on the bottom left of the screen - it looks like a donut.
- Click on the Settings button
- Click on Choose Chrome OS
- Click on Update Chrome
- Reboot your computer and log back in with your school account.
Once this update is complete students have found they can complete all functions needed to complete their Graduation Alliance lessons.
TIPS:
- If you are new to Graduation Alliance, or if you have been stumped so far about a part of the dashboard watch the Student Dashboard Tour.
- If you have a question about a concept in a class you can text, email, or schedule a tutoring session with your Graduation Alliance Teacher. The information for instructors can be found under the "Need Help" tile on the dashboard.
- If you text make sure to include your name, the class, and the lessons you have a question about.
- If you are emailing include your name, the lesson, the class, and the question you have.
- If you are making a tutoring appointment check to make sure your email is spelled correctly and you add the meeting to your google calendar. The Meets Link, meeting date and time, will be sent to your email and your Google Calendar (your calendar can be found in your Google Waffle.)
- Reminder: You can retry any assignment as many times as you need to achieve the minimum 60% to pass the assignment. You can redo any assignment to earn the highest percentage you desire.
- Make sure to complete and redo all quizzes and activities for higher scores before submitting the last assignment. You MUST complete all assignments to get a grade and close the class.
Grade Codes:
- 0% = automatically assigned for missing work past the due date
- 1% = plagiarism
- 3% = significantly incorrect work or blank attachment
- 4% = unreadable link/incorrect file type
- 5% or above = score earned on the assignment based on work completed.
Grading Turnaround Times
Because feedback is important for student success, teachers strive to have all assignments graded within 24-48 hours (excluding weekends and holidays). If a student has waited more than 48 hours on the weekday, please inform Mrs. Swanson, the program administrator.
Late and Missing Work
Late/missing work is normally indicated by a 0% grade. Graduation Alliance policy allows for late/missing work to be accepted. Students may turn in late/missing work for full credit, so long as it is turned in by the last day of class (the course end date).
Other important information:
Please make sure to read through the Course Introduction section of each course, especially the section titled, “Course Success Strategies.” Student will learn how to:
- Access and work on lessons and assignments
- Upload documents - Watch this video to learn how to upload work.
- Links to assignments will not be accepted.
- Submit quizzes - Watch this video if you keep scoring 0% on your quizzes
- Submit discussion posts and respond to comments
- Avoid plagiarism and understand what happens when they plagiarize
- Understand rubrics and how assignments are graded
- Access the course syllabus, which also includes how students will be graded and the total points possible in the class.
GOOGLE DOCS THAT WON'T DOWNLOAD
Are you having difficulty getting your documents to download from your Google Drive so that you can attached them to your Graduation Alliance assignment? A number of students reported to staff this week that their Chromebooks were not allowing them download to their desktop and upload their document to Graduation Alliance.
The Technology Department came to the rescue with a workaround for us. Watch the video below for the steps on how to use your Google Drive to save a pdf of your document and then access that document in your Google Drive to upload to Graduation Alliance.
As you run into other stumbling blocks please email or call Mrs. Swanson or your virtual program mentor teacher (Mr. King, Ms. Nosakowski, Ms. Hess, and Ms. Blay) so that solutions can be found.
For those interested in playing sports or participating in clubs at their school of residence I will include links to the middle and high school newsletters as they become available. If you are not sure what would be your school would be you can look it up at LOCATE MY SCHOOL
Some schools may not yet have a newsletter out to families. I will add and update schools as they become available.
Procedure for the work permit completion:
- The student should fill out the top portion of the document.
- The employer fills out the middle portion of the document.
- The student then brings the work permit to WWIA for Ms. Gladden, Ms. Willibey, or Mrs. Swanson to complete the bottom portion.
- The work permit is then turned into the employer for work to begin.
If your student is interested in playing a sport this year they have to complete the Finals Form
At this time please have your student choose the school they are going to play for, not WWIA. There is a glitch in the system that if you choose WWIA it does not allow students to choose a sport. The athletic department staff are working on fixing this glitch.
We understand that many of our families may be impacted by the temporary shutdown of the SNAP program in November. Please know that Wayne-Westland Community Schools is here to support you during this time.
Our district is proud to offer free breakfast and lunch to every student, every school day—no forms or qualifications required. We encourage all families to make sure their children take advantage of these nutritious meals.
If your family needs additional food assistance, our Family Resource Center can connect you with community resources and local support programs. Please contact our Family Resource Center at (734) 419-2709 or FRC@wwcsd.net.
Care Solace is available 24/7 and 365 days a year. They can help families locate food, housing, medical, dental and mental health resources. Contact them at 888-515-0595. They also have multilingual support.
Below is a list of nearby food banks and pantries that can provide additional help:
- Wayne-Westland Family Resource Center – (734) 419-2709
- Wayne First United Methodist Church Food Pantry – 3 Towne Square, Wayne, MI
- St. Mary Catholic Church Food Pantry – (34646 Sims, Wayne, MI)
- Open Door Ministry – Westland – 4300 S. Venoy Rd, Westland, MI
- Fish & Loaves Community Food Pantry – 25670 Northline Rd, Taylor, MI
- Gleaners Mobile Food Distribution – Visit www.gcfb.org for locations and dates
Please see the information below that can help you and your family have a smooth start to the new school year.
Family Resource Center
Wayne-Westland Community Schools has a Family Resource Center (FRC), offering free services to all students and families within our district. Among the services provided are basic needs assistance, access to over 700 local resources, and a Laundry Assistance Program. Additionally, the FRC offers essential items, such as emergency toiletries, socks, underwear, hats, gloves, and scarves, to those in need. School supplies and backpacks are also available year-round for any district student.
Please contact our Family Resource Center at 734-419-2709 or FRC@wwcsd.net. A Digital Request for Services Form is also available. If you have additional questions about their services, please contact the Family Resource Center directly.
Located inside Adams Middle School
33475 Palmer
Westland, MI 48186
Phone: 734-728-2423
Fax: 734-728-2183
OUR MISSION
The mission of the Beaumont Adams Child and Adolescent Healthcare Center is to improve and maintain the overall health and well-being of the children at the Adams Middle School. This center is funded funded by the Beaumont Foundation and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
- We Accept all Insurances and Uninsured Students.
- Fees are based on income.
- No Insurance? No Problem!
- We can assist you in obtaining insurance.
We provide medical services to all WWCS students:
All students in Wayne-Westland Community Schools are eligible to benefit from the Beaumont Child & Adolescent Health Care program.
We can help your child with:
- School and Sports Physicals
- Immunizations
- Sick Care
- Asthma Screening and Management
- Counseling
- Health Promotion
- Vision Testing
- Hearing Testing
- Nutritional Counseling
Call today to schedule your child's appointment at 734-728-2423!
Since its launch in September 2014, OK2SAY has received over 56,000 tips identifying students in crisis and helping to prevent school violence. The top five cumulative tip categories have been suicide threats, bullying, drugs, other (anxiety, depression, harassment), and planned school attacks.
OK2SAY is available 24/7, and tips can be submitted in the following ways:
- Call: 8-555-OK2SAY (855-565-2729)
- Text: 652729 (OK2SAY)
- Email: OK2SAY@mi.gov
- OK2SAY website: Michigan.gov/OK2SAY
- OK2SAY mobile app: Available for download in the app store for iPhone and Android.
Wayne-Westland Community School District has partnered with Care Solace to support the well-being of our community. If you or a family member are looking for help with mental health or substance use, Care Solace can help you quickly find treatment options matched to your needs, regardless of the circumstance. This is a complimentary and confidential care coordination service provided by Wayne-Westland Community School District. If you would like to use Care Solace to help you find a mental health care provider:
Call 888-515-0595. Multilingual support is available 24/7/365.
Visit www.caresolace.com/wwcsd and either search on your own or click “Book Appointment” for assistance by video chat, email, or phone.
