The weather is finally getting warmer(on most days) and we are looking forward to all that comes with the arrival of Spring. Our students and staff continue to work incredibly hard in the classrooms and during their extracurricular activities. Thank you to all of you for your continued support of the West Bridgewater Public Schools!

The School Committee approved the FY23 Budget on March 7th. It is our goal to prepare and present a fiscally responsible budget that meets the needs of our students and staff in the district. Here are the upcoming meeting dates when we will be presenting budget information to the public

• March 16th at 7:00 pm - Selectman's Meeting
• March 21st at 7:00 pm - Finance Committee Meeting

Below is a link to view the presentation that was made to the School Committee on March 2, 2022. We appreciate the WB families' support of our budget. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out. We will also be sharing a copy of the presentation for the Board of Selectman and Finance Committee in the future.

Thank you to School Committee members William Flynn and Molly Smith for their many years of service to West Bridgewater. The students, staff, and community thanks you for your dedication and hard work!

Online registration for Preschool will begin on March 14th and end on March 25th. Please contact Maureen Ellis at Spring Street School 508-894-1233 for more info.

Check out the 2022-2023 School Calendar that was recently approved by the School Committee

We are so excited to have West Bridgewater Police Officer and School Resource Officer Tim Pope in the schools every day. We have a great relationship with the WBPD and the WBFD as well. SRO Pope spends time doing Wildcat Wellness with the 6th graders. Recently they taught the kids CPR and Heimlich during our last class for the 6th grade. The next class is coming up on March 18th. In the upcoming classes, they will be discussing vaping, illegal substances, and alcohol. These lessons are so important for our students!

West Bridgewater turneded 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 the James Keith Parsonage (located on River Street) which was built in 1662 and housed the first permanent minister of Bridgewater, MA. It is currently operated by the Old Bridgewater Historical Society as a colonial home museum. It is thought to be the oldest remaining parsonage in the United States

As of February 28, 2022, we are mask optional in all schools in West Bridgewater. We support those students and staff who choose to continue to wear masks. Masking is also now optional on all school transportation. Below you will find more information related to COVID-19 from DESE as well as all updates.

If you are able please donate for our Blood Drive next Thursday, 3/17/2022 from 8:00am-1:00pm in the MSHS Gymnasium. Click on the link below to register for the date. The MSHS is glad to be able to host this community event!

Parents please remind your Senior to bring in their acceptance letters to Ms. Myers in the guidance office and email her their senior photo for a slideshow at tmyers@wbridgewater.com.

Additionally, we want to remind our Seniors and parents to consistently check the Scholarship Google classroom as it is updated when new scholarships become available. There is lots of amazing scholarships available to our seniors. Seniors you can also stop by the guidance office to check out the table which contains all the copies of the scholarships. The google classroom code is 2c4d4xi

French students have been studying the Impressionist movement in class, and they recreated their own interpretation of some of the great masterpieces.

MCAS testing is quickly approaching! The technology department is actively preparing for this year’s tests. All end of life chromebooks in grades 3-6 have been replaced with new devices to comply with MCAS requirements. Remember that during testing, students should fully charge their chromebooks at home each evening to ensure they will have enough power to complete testing that day.

Parents, if you need access to your Aspen account to view your child’s progress, please email John Collins, jcollins@wbridgewater.com.

Howard School News -The Howard School celebrated Read Across America with a celebration on Wednesday afternoon to promote reading for pleasure. In addition, students enjoyed this experience with popcorn donated from the PTO. The school council will be beginning a fundraiser to promote school swag and will be selling Howard Wildcat school sunglasses. All donations will go to the Howard student activity account. For the month of March, Howard School will be focusing on empathy from our school's PRIDE expectations. At the end of the month, students will have their first whole school assembly to celebrate together

Check out this original poem by Alanna Fidalgo

HOWARD SCHOOL

Wildcats who have pride,

We work together

Side by side.

We have passion

A positive trait

And respect

For others who take things off of our plates.

We have ingenuity,

‘Cause we are original

And determination too,

Nobody can stop us,

It’s just what we do.

Empathy,

A very important trait,

We have that too,

It’s just our fate.

Pride,

Very important to have

We do it together,

To keep us from bad.

RLM students had fun celebrating Dr Seuss week!

SSS students (and teachers) had a ball being “Wacky” on Wednesday!

Thank you to Mrs. Jennings for allowing me to read, Go, Dog, Go! to her class on Wacky Wednesday. I always enjoy my time in Kindergarten classes. Thank you to my friend Rylee for helping me read the book!

The Wildcat Cafes are celebrating St. Patrick's Day on Thursday 3/17 with a special menu of Dutch (Snowflake) Waffles, Leprechaun Yogurt parfaits and Lucky Tray! Fiesta Salad with seasoned chicken, cheddar, corn and blackbeans with tortilla chips and a southwest ranch dressing are on the menu at the MSHS all next week. Yum!

Here are some updates and information about WB Athletic Programs:

• REMINDER to sign up for Spring Sports now by using the FamilyID registration link below. Spring Sports begin on March 21st. (click on link below)
• Next week (March 16th) is our first game for unified basketball and we are so excited! Our away game will be the following week (March 24th). Join us at 3:30 on 3/16! We hope to see you all there. Inclusion Matters will be selling T-Shirts for $15.00!
• BRWB gymnastics placed 6th in the MIAA State Championship over the weekend! All of our gymnasts did an amazing job and we are so proud of everyone’s hard work and perseverance throughout this season!
• Congratulations to our Boys and Girls Winter Track teams on a successful and exciting season! Several athletes qualified and competed at states! We are proud of the hard work and dedication you put in this season!
• Congratulations to the Cheerleading team! They had a great season and competed at the MAC Winter Cheer Invitational at Tri-County Regional! We are proud of the hard work and dedication you put in!
• Congratulations to the WEB Girls Hockey team on a great season! The team earned their first varsity win in program history and ended up being ranked 34th in Division 1 just outside qualifying for the MIAA tournament. Way to go!
• Congratulations to the WEB Boys Hockey team on a great inaugural season! They played an exciting and great game against Shawsheen last week! We are proud of the hard work and perseverance you have put into this season!
• Congratulations to the SE/BP/WB Boys Hockey team on a great season! They fought hard against Danvers High School last week! We are proud of your hard work and dedication this season!
• Congratulations to the Girls Basketball team on a great season. They fought hard in the first round of playoffs against Millbury Junior/Senior High School last Friday night! We are proud of your hard work and dedication this season!
• Congratulations to the Boys Basketball team on a great season. They beat Frontier Regional High School in the first round of playoffs last Friday night! They fought hard this past Tuesday night against Wahconah High School in the second round of playoffs and gave it their all. We are proud of your hard work and dedication this season! A HUGE shout out to all the students, WB administrators and parents who rode the fan bus or drove out the 3 hours each way to Wahconah Regional for the game. Awesome dedication and school spirit!

Congratulations to all of our MAC All-Stars listed below:

Mayflower Athletic Conference Boys Ice Hockey All-stars!

• Keagan Bunker
• Ryan LeBaron
• Nolan Sturdevant

Mayflower Athletic Conference Boys Basketball All-Stars!

• Chase Ryan
• Nathan Razza
• Ryan Hulme

Mayflower Athletic Conference Girls Basketball All-Stars!

• Sophia Florio
• Jenella Jacobs
• Amanda Jacques

Congratulations to our MAC Coaches of the Year! Well deserved!

• Mike Antonio
• TIm Doherty

Congratulations to the MAC MVP for Boys Basketball!

• Chase Ryan

Please see the Wildcat Write Up Newsletter below for more information.

Howard School - Students at the Howard School are competing in ST Math’s March Mathness - they have a bracket poster and all classes are competing in this competition.

ST Math March Madness video

Preschool - The preschool students in Mrs. Mattos’ class are working hard on becoming young authors, they recently “wrote” a book titled “I am an Illustrator.” They did an amazing job and we cannot wait to see what their next “published” piece of work will be!

Mrs. Dancey’s preschool class has been learning about volcanoes and dinosaurs. They have conducted experiments with making volcanoes erupt and on Friday, they will be exploring what they might find in a “dinosaur egg.” They are future scientists in the making!

Star Assessment - Students in grades 1-8 recently took their mid-year Star Assessments in English language arts and Math.

Grade 8 - Students in grade 8 are busy working on their Civics Project. Cannot wait to see what they end up doing and to see what they have created.

Next week (March 16th) is our first game for Unified Basketball and we are so excited! Our away game will be the following week (March 24th). Check out the information below for game times and locations. Also if you would like to buy a t-shirt you can stop by the MSHS main office. Lets Go Wildcats!!!

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.

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