Happy Friday to all our WB students, staff, and families. It is hard to believe that only a year ago we began to transition from hybrid to full-time schooling and only a month ago we became mask optional. A lot has changed and everyone continues to work hard and do what is best for our students.

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.

The School Committee has voted to approve the FY23 Budget. This budget is a Needs-Based budget that supports what the schools need to operate for next year. A lot of planning and work has gone into building the budget. Thank you to our building and district administrators for all their hard work.

The budget has been presented (see link below) to both the Board of Selectmen and the Finance Committee for their review. If any parents or citizens of West Bridgewater have any questions or concerns about the FY23 budget please reach out to Mr. Bodwell at mbodwell@wbridgewater.com or 508-894-1230 and he will answer your questions. We want to thank the support for a fully funded budget that meets the NEEDS of our students and staff in West Bridgewater.

This is another reminder that parents or any drivers are NOT to be driving into the Spring Street School parking lot to drop off or pick up students. You are creating an unsafe situation by doing this as we have staff as well as parents/caregivers walking across the parking lot with their children going to Surround Care. ALL MSHS drop-offs should be done by entering and exiting the MSHS off Howard Street. You are to drive around the MSHS and exit by the police station. The SSS parking lot is for school buses only. Please be mindful that we all need to follow the established procedures and keep the safety of our students and staff as a priority. A genuine thank you to those who do the right thing every day and follow the rules (even if it takes a little more time) Last week we had a fire alarm at the SSS at dismissal time and several cars were parked in the fire lane which is unacceptable. If anyone has an issue with this please feel free to contact me at 508-894-1230 or mbodwell@wbridgewater.com

The schools will be doing a variety of things during the month of April during Autism Acceptance Month. Stay tuned for more information from each of the schools. There will be morning announcements, bulletin boards, information shared with teachers, and special event days. Here are some upcoming Spirit Days at the SSS, RLM and Howard Schools:

April 8th - Neurodiversity Acceptance Day - Wear rainbow and/or tie-dyed clothes

April 14th - Sensory Friendly Friday - Dress in your most comfy clothes

April 29th - Magnificent Mind Friday - Wear a creative hat

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

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 Howard Bridge on the Town River looking south with a canoe passing through upstream c1914

CIVICS PROJECTS - In 8th grade social studies we are continuing to work on our 8th Grade Massachusetts Mandated Civics project. Students drafted letters and emails to government officials after they did extensive research on their topics. We also set up the bones for our slideshows which will be the final product that we send to the state to show our process and success. Each student is required to complete a slideshow showing their stages of the project and show evidence that they are progressing through the motions of the assignment. It also has a piece on our school's mission of PRIDE. Students must identify how each value in PRIDE connects to their project. It is such an exciting time in civics class! Mr. Despier and Ms. Martin are offering “CIVIC WEDNESDAYS” as after school extra help sessions. Students are encouraged all to attend “Civic Wednesdays”, both teachers want to help you be successful! Projects will be due in May! It is all about the process, so while we would love for all our students to be successful we know that as long as they have put in the effort that means just as much! We want to make change in our community and change the world for the better!

The cast and crew are super excited to bring their performance to you this weekend! We hope you can come out to see the show. 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!

Mr. WB is coming soon. Tickets are now on sale! Come out and watch an amazing show filled with lots of laughs and amazing talent! This is a fundraiser for the Class of 2022 Scholarship Fund

Students at Howard working together on the engineering process through the use of Lego Education. This is their second week working with the legos. Ms. Sullivan, the district STEM teacher, works with the students to demonstrate how to actively engage the motor for the lesson. They love it! A HUGE thank you to the Howard Trustees for their donation!

Lunch outside on our new picnic tables and students enjoying some warmer weather!

The third graders are preparing for next week’s MCAS test. Students played Jeopardy and worked together in teams to come up with the answers. What a fun way to practice and review ELA topics!!!

Kindergartners found comfortable spots around the classroom to work on journal writing!

Save the Date - Friday, April 29th - will be High Five Friday in WB. The WB police officers will be at the schools to welcome the students as they enter with some High Fives!

Did you know that cold cereal is one of our most popular school breakfast choices? In response to students' request to serve their favorite whole grain, reduced-sugar cereals at lunch time, the Wildcat Cafe is excited to launch a brand new daily lunch option at all three Elementary schools starting Monday, April 4th. This Cereal and Pretzel Fun Lunch features a whole grain cereal bowl, crunchy pretzels, apple slices, and new Chocolate No-Nut Butter for dunking. Like all meals, it's absolutely free for all students through the end of the school year.

**We had a great day attending the Sportsmanship Summit at Gillette Stadium last Friday! Remembering the importance of Title IX, equity, positive play, being a good teammate and the love of the sport!

**Big congrats to all of our athletes for completing our Unified Basketball season! The last scrimmage was so fun and it was nice to have a small crowd supporting the team and cheering everyone on! Also a HUGE thank you to Coach Sylvester and Coach Malone on a great season!

**The WB Spring Sports season begins today, March, 31st!! Best of luck to all of our student athletes and coaches!! Let's go Wildcats! Please check out the calendar view of the schedule on the Arbiter Live Website. Link is below:

https://arbiterlive.com/School/Calendar/25160

2022 WB Athletic Booster's Scholarship Open to any Wildcat Student-Athlete! Below is the link to the scholarship application. Thank you to the WB Athletic Boosters organization for their continued support and generosity!

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

Check out the 2 Inclusion Matters events in April. Thank you for your continued support of all students and families in WB!

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!

The second event is for all elementary parents, NOT just parents with kids with disabilities. Any parent who wants to support their child's literacy growth should attend. Parents will participate in a "make and take" with BSU faculty and graduate students; parents will learn some new strategies for supporting literacy at home, and then make and take home a reading game or activity for their kids. It's going to be FANTASTIC! Monday, April 25th from 6-7 pm

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

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.

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

The FY23 School Committee Budget is a "Needs-Based" budget. What was presented and approved by the School Committee is what the district needs to provide the appropriate services for our students and staff. We feel this budget meets the needs but we will need the continued support of our town to move from providing the essentials to becoming proactive in the future. We appreciate the parent's and citizens' support of our budget.

Below is a link to view the BUDGET PRESENTATION. This presentation was updated for the meeting with the Finance Committee. We hope families will review this google slides presentation. 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.