A HUGE shout out to all our educators in WB! Thank you to all who recognized our staff this week. I want to thank our staff for all they do each and every day by putting kids first and how they continue to show dedication and work to make the experiences of all students in WB the best they can! Thank you WB educators for all you do! I am so proud of our staff!

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. Below are links to the district's Facebook and Twitter pages. Information is also shared out there as well as on the district website.

Students stressed out and anxious about taking AP Exams at the West Bridgewater High School?! Never fear! Trigger is here! SRO Pope was assisted today by, town resident and owner of Om Obedience Dog Training, Michaela Collins, and her certified therapy dog! The therapy team of Michaela and Trigger visited students and staff with SRO Pope at the High School before the AP exams started for the day. Trigger is highly trained in therapeutic contact with the goal of helping to reduce anxiety and stress while increasing the smiles on the student's faces. Thank you to Michaela and Trigger for accepting the invite and for volunteering their time to help out our community! Good luck Wildcats on your exams!

WEST BRIDGEWATER ACADEMIC SHOWCASE - SAVE THE DATE

THURSDAY, MAY 12TH, 5:30-7:00 PM

West Bridgewater Middle/Senior High School

Please join us as we showcase all of the great things that go on in our #wbwildcats classrooms throughout the year. Drop by the MSHS Wednesday, May 12, 2022, from 5:30 to 7:00, while PK -12 teachers and students will be presenting innovative examples of teaching and learning throughout the evening. Hope to see you there and we know you will be impressed.

Check out the flyer below to see all the great things that will be included! On the night of the event, we will have brochures for each guest that will provide more information.

Thank you to members of the West Bridgewater Police Department who came to the schools last Friday to give High 5s to all who entered the schools. Thank you for your continued support and partnership with the schools. WB is very lucky to have such a great connection with our public safety organizations!

Just wanted to share some pictures with you from our MLL family night last Friday. Thank you to our EL staff, Ms. Pistorino, Ms. O'Laughlin, Mrs. Cashman, and Mrs. Roberts for helping to coordinate the event. Thank you Mrs. Grinder and staff provided a wonderful chicken parm/pasta/salad meal. Families contributed to a multicultural dessert table that was phenomenal. The public library made cards for all the children and they did a presentation on what's available from the library - museum passes, multilingual books, kids programs during the summer, etc. The Children's Museum in Easton also came and had an engaging activity for kids and brochures on all the things they had available for kids as well.

The following area businesses were extremely generous in contributing gift cards to their businesses. We raffled all of these prizes off to the families. THANK YOU to all who donated to this wonderful event!

• Market Basket
• Chilis
• Crystals Kitchen
• Clean Cut Barber Shop
• Hector's Automotive Repair
• Zorba's
• Good Day's
• New Image Salon
• FunZ Trampoline Park
• Farley's Flowers
• Grand Slam Pizza

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. Below is the latest video DETERMINATION. We also are reposting the videos on PASSION, RESPECT and INGENUITY. Thank you to all the students who volunteered to be on camera and thank you Mr. Cray and all the students who created the videos!

Any history buffs with old West Bridgewater pictures please feel free to share them with us so we can post them.

Mr. WB was held last week featuring 14 senior boys and 13 senior girls along with multiple senior members who ran behind the scenes, ticket selling, and advertising. It was a full senior event. Ms. Flynn and Ms. Lawler did a great job helping students put on a fabulous show. Special thanks to Mr. Sylvain and Ms. Hammel for being amazing MCs. Mr. WB 2022 was awarded to Chase Ryan. It was a full house and the class of 2022 raised money for their scholarship fund.

New members of the Tri-M were inducted last week. A ceremony was led by the current Tri-M officers along with their advisor Ms. Kendall. Senior members received their cords for the society at the ceremony as well.

Senior Students and Parents,

An important email went out earlier this week regarding technology items for seniors.

• Chromebook returns will be Monday, May 23 starting at 8:00am. Be sure students turn in their chargers as well.
• Senior Google Accounts will be suspended on or around July 1. After this time, students will no longer have access to their school email accounts. Please check if any important accounts have been set up using a school email account. If so, please change the account email to a personal gmail account.

Please email jcollins@wbridgewater.com if you have any questions.

Upcoming dates:

• Grade 4 Field Day, June 6th
• Grade 5 Field Day/Picnic June 14th
• Grade 6 Celebration - June 13th at 11:30

The Howard School is running a fundraiser and is selling Howard Swag Sunglasses for $5 each. They come in red, blue, green, and pink. All proceeds will go toward the Howard Student Activity Account.

Mrs. Mill's grade 6th social studies students held two fundraisers for their GeoInquiry Projects. One fundraiser was a fundraiser for Ukraine, which ended last Friday. The fundraiser raised 250$ that will be donated to the Red Cross. The other fundraiser is to raise awareness of unsafe drinking water in South Sudan. All proceeds will go to the Water for South Sudan Foundation. A big shout out to the grade 6 students running both fundraisers: They are the following amazing students: Max, Nina, Maddie, Addison, Norah, Kaitlen, and Lauren.

Wax Museum - As part of our third grade, Social Studies curriculum children are asked to research a famous person with Massachusetts ties. The kiddos pick from a list of people they would like to research and are given a poster of information to fill out. They work at home to find all the information about their person, and then come to school dressed as them to present in a wax museum set up. They present their information in first person, essentially becoming their character. It is truly History coming to life!

Kindergarten STEM classes are having fun building houses for their little pigs and Ms Sullivan (STEM Teacher) tested their sturdiness with the big bad wolf! (hairdryer)

Information was shared in the last newsletter and in a district email.

• Thursday, June 16th - half-day schedule for all schools in WB
• Friday, June 17th - half-day schedule for Rose L MacDonald School only

There will be morning Surround Care at all sites on Thursday, June 16th, and at the RLM on Friday, June 17th. If families want to send RLM students to Surround Care in the afternoon on June 16th they will be able to sign up using the link below.

School Lunch Hero Day!– Did you know that West Bridgewater has the most awesome and caring Lunch Lady’s? Between preparing healthy food, adhering to strict nutrition standards, navigating student food allergies, and offering service with a smile, they are real-life superheroes. They love what they do and it shows!

To honor them, Friday, May 6th is School Lunch Hero Day. This day, celebrated annually since 2013, was designated by The School Nutrition Association and Jarrett Krosoczka, author of the “Lunch Lady” graphic novel series. School Lunch Hero Day provides an opportunity for parents, students, and school staff to thank those who care so much and provide healthy meals to nearly 30 million of America’s students each school day.

The Athletic Awards night will be held on Thursday, May 19th at 6:30PM in the WBMSHS Gymnasium. An invite went out last week to those athletes/families who have earned a varsity letter this year. For our spring athletes who have qualified for a varsity letter, they will be notified by their spring coaches soon.

Please check out the most updated spring sports power rankings using the link below. The MIAA State spring tournament starts at the beginning of June. Good Luck Wildcats!

https://miaa.net/power-rankings/

Please see the newest Wildcat Write Up Newsletter (May 6th) below for more information. These newsletters are full of great information for WB Families!

Check out the flyer for a chance to win 4 seats for the Class of 2022 Graduation Ceremony.

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, Inclusion Matters is hosting its annual Grant of Gratitude nominations!

Visit bit.ly/37ypmvF before Monday, May 16 to nominate a special educator or inclusive teacher in the West Bridgewater Schools for a $500 grant.

ADD GRADUATION SEAT RAFFLE FLYER

The next Coffee Hour with Mr. Bodwell will be on Friday, May 13th 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. 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