The Banks Bulletin

Dear Banks Families:

As a reminder, first semester grades were made available for families to view beginning January 27th at 5 PM. We are so proud of our students for their efforts. If you have not already, please check your student's report card and praise them for their successes!

We are looking forward to our pep assembly this afternoon! It's a beautiful day to be a Banks Bulldog!

Cheers,

Jennifer VanWagnen, Principal

We Are Banks!

January

1/31: In-District Transfer Application Deadline

1/31: Pep Assembly

February

2/3: Wrestling vs. White Lake, Away @ 4 PM

2/3: Girls Basketball vs. White Lake, Home @ 4 PM

2/4-2/6: WIDA Testing

2/4: ALICE Drill

2/5: Girls Basketball vs. Smart, Home @ 4 PM

2/6: Wrestling vs. Smart, Away @ 4 PM

2/6: Board of Education regular meeting

A Look Ahead

2/13: Name of Love tour

2/14: Schools of Choice Application Deadline

2/17-21: Mid-Winter Break - no school for students or staff

We are excited to announce that eleven of our Walled Lake band and orchestra students have proven themselves to be among Michigan’s best young musicians by being selected for the 2024-2025 MSBOA All-State Program! Over 2,700 middle school and high school students across the state of Michigan auditioned for the All-State program. Only the top performers for each instrument were selected for the All-State ensembles.

Students rehearsed with esteemed conductors for two days, and performed at the Michigan Music Conference in Grand Rapids on Saturday, January 25, 2025.

The following students were selected for the All-State bands and orchestras:

Middle School Band:

Brady Cruzen – Banks, clarinet

Nicholas Heuvers – Banks, tuba

Arden Ishmakej – Banks, clarinet

Evan Reed – Smart, French horn

Middle School Orchestra:

Chaewon Kim – Banks, violin

High School Band:

Vadim Afanasyev – Western, clarinet

Alejandro Samaniego Ramos – Western, baritone saxophone

Matthew Staron – Northern, percussion

High School Orchestra:

Caleb Bauer – Northern, violin

Claire Spoutz – Northern, double bass

High School Jazz Ensemble:

Carter Tucker-Gough – Western, trumpet

Additionally, Han Chau (Central, violin) Scott Konopka (Northern, bass clarinet), Gustave Vellozzo (Northern, baritone saxophone), and Josh Wilson (Banks, bass clarinet) received honorable mention recognition for their outstanding auditions.

The instrumental music teachers are so proud of the accomplishments of our All-State band and orchestra students. Their commitment to excellence is a point of pride for the music program, the school, and the district!

We are excited that Walled Lake Schools had such strong representation in this year’s MSBOA All-State Program. This is a tremendous display of musicianship from our students, and we are happy to share this fantastic news with you!

Swim/Dive Team

Our Winter II Banks Athletic Teams have begun competing and are making us proud.

Basketball

The girl's basketball season began game play last Monday at Walled Lake Central, where they hosted its first annual Showcase for Middle School girls' basketball.

Both Banks teams played Walnut Creek, with our 8th grade winning the trophy with a first game win. Coach Tayon said "it is great to be on the winning side and our MVP of the showcase is Madison R. It was a well played game by our entire team. Congratulations girls. GO Bulldogs!!"

7th grade team took a tough loss to Creek in the final minutes.

Wrestling

The Bulldog wrestling team continued their fast start to the season winning 23 of 28 matches last Monday. Leading the way were Ethan, Max, Jackson, Ellington, Jordan, AJ, Sal & Leo who all had multiple pins. Key victories also came from Brody, Blayde, Cooper, Chase, Jaxon and Landon.

Thanks to all the fans who showed up to cheer on our team, Coach Vaughn mentioned.

We’re currently in our enrollment period, and we want to make sure students who are interested have the chance to join.

Our meet this year is scheduled for May 17th, and we’re excited to get the team organized for the season.

Dear Banks Middle School Families,

Since the 2019-2020 school year, we have shared information about district-wide efforts to improve our emergency responses. At the start of the 2022-2023 school year, our district adopted ALICE, a research-based training program to ensure schools are prepared to respond to potential intruder events. ALICE is about empowering individuals and providing options or strategies beyond the traditional lockdown methods.

Our next step is to review ALICE safety protocols with our students. Our objective is to provide meaningful, life-saving information to our students in an age appropriate manner. We see this day as an opportunity to empower our students in life-saving measures in the extremely rare event that we are faced with a threatening situation in our school. We will be conducting both verbal and movement-based ALICE scenarios with our students on

Tuesday, February 4th.

The options-based safety protocol we will be reviewing with our students is called ALICE:

Alert

Lockdown

Inform

Counter

Evacuate

During our lessons, we will be introducing students to this options-based safety concept, and diving deeper into several of the concepts (Lockdown, Counter, Evacuate).

To ensure consistency, a slideshow presentation has been developed to review ALICE concepts that will be presented to all students. Throughout the school year, students will also participate in verbal and movement-based ALICE scenarios. Our students will not be participating in training drills that involve re-enactments, nerf guns, crisis actors, etc. Our students will practice how to barricade a classroom, and discuss safe rallying points outside of our school in case of evacuation.

I strongly encourage all students to attend school on February 4th to participate in our student ALICE day, as this information will be the basis for our protocol for future lockdown/ALICE scenario drills. If you have any questions about our student safety presentations, please contact me directly.

Sincerely,

Jennifer VanWagnen, Principal

The Walled Lake Marching Band is seeking prospective members that will be attending Walled Lake Central HS, Walled Lake Western HS, Walnut Creek MS, or Sarah Banks MS next fall to join the organization! Students currently in eighth grade band are highly encouraged to join on their instrument, but the organization is also seeking any middle students for its premiere color guard. No previous experience spinning a flag or related skills needed for the color guard! Any prospective student and their parents that are interested are invited to attend “Walled Lake Marching Band Information Night” on February 4, 2025 at 7:00 PM in the Walled Lake Central High School Band Room. There will be opportunities to meet the directors, current students, and have some ice cream! See you there!

If you and your student are happy with the school they will be attending next year, please disregard this message. If you are interested in your student possibly attending a different school next year, please continue reading.

The in-district transfer request window is currently open until Friday, January 31st. The application can be found below. This application is for families to request a Walled Lake school different than the one their student is slated to attend based on address/school path. All 8th graders are reviewing their high school path with Mrs. Danforth.

6th and 7th grade families from Loon Lake Elementary, Walled Lake Elementary and Wixom Elementary will continue to attend Sarah Banks Middle School. These paths are based on the elementary school your student attended/would have attended based on your current address in Skyward:

Hickory Woods Elementary will now attend Sarah Banks Middle School.

Transfer requests are not guaranteed and are based on several of factors including if there is space at the school you have requested.

IMPORTANT: families must provide transportation to the new school you are requesting.

Please reach out if you have any questions. Our Banks team is happy to help!

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Our yearbook team has been working hard creating the yearbook. It’s almost time to share the yearbook with your students, and that’s a reason to celebrate!

We will be turning in the number of copies to order soon. Click on the link to guarantee your copy before they are all sold out. When they are gone, they are gone!

We still have room for 4 more students to register for the trip. We are expecting these remaining spots to fill up quickly, so please don’t hesitate to register your child if you are still considering it. The deadline to register is Friday, January 31st or once those 4 available spots fill up, whichever occurs first. The American Expeditions Travel Website has been preset to waitlist any new registrations after those 4 spots fill up. If you register, be sure to purchase the CFAR (Cancel for any Reason) insurance option. We’d love to have your child join us on this memorable experience!

Please visit our Sarah Banks D.C. information and registration link through American Expeditions, click on "GO TO MY TRIP" and enter the tour code: sarahbanksdc2025. When you register, you will need to pay the initial deposit on the trip portal and the required CFAR insurance.

To view the meeting presentation from October 10th, please click here. If you have any questions about the DC trip, please reach out to Mr. Morrow at DavidMorrow@wlcsd.org.

In an effort to find additional ways to celebrate our staff, the WLCSD Community Relations department requests that families fill out the information below for staff who are rock stars in their classrooms and school communities.

A sample of what these shout outs will look like on social media and in our district newsletters is on the right.

In addition to receiving phone calls and email notifications from the school district in the event of a school closing or emergency, parents can also sign up to receive SMS Text messages.

Please find the helpful step-by-step instructions linked below as well as the video tutorial on signing up for SMS messages.

· Signing Up for SMS Messages via Skylert

Jennifer VanWagnen

Principal: jennifervanwagnen@wlcsd.org

Kellan Watkins

Principal's Secretary: kellanwatkins@wlcsd.org

Becky Smith

Interim Assistant Principal: rebeccasmith@wlcsd.org

Jennifer Dean

Assistant Principal's Secretary: jenniferdean@wlcsd.org

Important Phone Numbers:

Main Line: 248-956-2200

Attendance: 248-956-2290

Email: JenniferVanWagnen@wlcsd.org
Website: https://banks.wlcsd.org/
Location: 1760 Charms Road Wixom, MI 48393
Phone: (248) 956-2200
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sarahbanksptsa