Brookside Bulletin
School Newsletter for Brookside Families
- Sept. 9 - Last Day of Mumkin Sale
- Sept. 9 - Marathon Milers Starts
- Sept. 22 - Mumkin Delivery at 3:30pm
📢 September is Attendance Awareness Month!
As an All-Star District, we're kicking off our Stay in the Game! Attendance Awareness Campaign, participating in monthly themes that support and celebrate attendance.
September attendance is critical and sets the tone for the entire year. Data shows that students who miss just 1–2 days in September are significantly more likely to become chronically absent. This is why our attention, encouragement, and outreach right now matter so much.
When we connect with students and families early—whether through a quick check-in, a supportive phone call, or simply celebrating their presence—we send the message loud and clear:
✨ You belong here.
✨ We ALL care about your future.
✨ Every day in school matters.
Each week throughout September, we’ll roll out themed activities to spotlight attendance. Plus,
there are opportunities for our school community to:
âš½ Engage in friendly competition and win big prizes sponsored by the Columbus Crew
📸 Be featured on Stay in the Game! and partners' social media pages
Let’s work together to make sure every student feels seen, supported, and celebrated for showing up. With your commitment, we can turn September into the launchpad for a year of success—and help all students become Attendance All-Stars! 🌟
Sign the Stay in the Game Pledge today!
The sun always shines on Brookside! 🌞
Warmly,
Dr. Jenny Wielinski
Dear Families,
As we begin the new school year, we will be implementing our Portrait of a Learner Survey September 7th - September 18th. This tool helps us understand and measure the durable skills our community values most, skills students carry with them throughout their time in Worthington and beyond.
Why the Portrait of a Learner Survey?
Designed in-house to directly serve our district's goals, this survey provides the flexibility, control, and alignment to support our students effectively. Specifically, the survey is designed to:
Align Directly to the Portrait of a Learner: Highlighting the specific skills and mindsets our community wants students to develop.
Support Executive Function Skills: Connecting directly to key habits like response inhibition, flexibility, task initiation, emotional control, sustained attention, and organization.
Provide Actionable Insights: Giving teachers, principals, and staff real-time data to support students’ growth in these critical areas.
What We’re Doing:
The survey is age-appropriate, tiered by grade level, and preceded by a short preparatory lesson to help support students and is administered via Google Forms, with results connected to the district’s Monitoring Score system. Our goal is to use the Portrait of a Learner Survey to build a clear picture of student growth, and identify areas where additional support is needed.
If you have any questions or would like to opt your student out of this spring window, please contact us at 614-450-5300.
Thank you for your continued partnership in helping us grow alongside our students.
Respectfully,
Dr. Jenny Wielinski
Student Lunch Accounts
Families can add money to their lunch account through My Payments Plus. You can also use MPP to track your student's account and see much money remains on it. My Payments Plus is also used to pay other fees, like high school parking permits and AP testing fees.
Free & Reduced School Meals for Students
Worthington Schools has eligibility-based pricing of meals (Free/Reduced/Paid).
All Worthington School families are required to complete the online Free/Reduced Lunch Eligibility Form. All students use their Lunch ID for meals. The student's number can be found in the Parent Portal. Select the Student ID tab and look for your Lunch PIN.
🎉 Our First PTA Meeting of the School Year is Coming Up! 📣
Join us to hear what’s happening at school, learn about upcoming events and fundraisers, and find out how you can get involved this year.
Date: Tuesday, September 8th
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Brookside Elementary Library
Not a PTA member yet? Now is a great time to join! Your membership helps support our students, teachers, and school throughout the year. Join here: brooksidepta.com/join and you will receive a Brookside school year calendar magnet that is the perfect addition to any fridge!
Mumkin Fall Flower Sale is UNDERWAY!
It’s time to get your Mumkins! Our annual Mumkin fundraiser is officially underway, and there’s still time to get your orders in! Sale Ends September 9th!
Mumkin Delivery on September 22nd at 3:30pm
Don’t miss out—grab your Mumkins before the sale ends!
Register your student’s online Mumkin store today using this LINK! It takes less than a minute, and once you're registered, you'll receive a personalized fundraising link that you can instantly share with family and friends.
Marathon Milers Kicks Off Next Week!
Run or walk with friends during recess, earn shoe tokens, and reach new milestones!
Open to ALL Brookside students! Commit to at least one ¼-mile lap on running days.
Starts: Wednesday, September 9th
Running Days: Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays this fall
Get moving, have fun, make new friends, and reach new goals—one lap at a time!
Sign up at this link: brooksidepta.com/marathonmilers
We also need parent volunteers to assist with scanning student badges, passing out water, and encouraging students on reaching their goals! If you are able to help out, sign up at this link: Marathon Milers Volunteers
Brookside is looking for volunteers to build reading skills with kindergarten students. Even if you only have 30 minutes a week, our kindergarten students would love to welcome you! Read below for more information and click HERE or on the flyer to register. Following registration, a program coordinator from our school will be in touch with more information.
Brookside uses a car loop for parents who choose to drop their children off in the morning. Please be sure your child is ready to exit the car in a quick, but safe manner on the passenger side only. We do this for safety puproses. Please keep your speed to a crawl. Now and then we have family members who are not familiar with our process or are simply new to our school community so your patience is appreciated. Feel free to park in the front parking spaces to drop your child off should you not use the car loop.
Thank you in advance for adhering to our guidelines. 🙂
For the safety of children, do not send any nut or peanut items (including Nutella) to school in your child's lunch, snack, or school party item as we are a nut and peanut free school. It could literally mean life or death to another child. Thank you in advance for your understanding and compliance.
- Pedestrians: Where neither sidewalk nor shoulder is available, pedestrians shall walk as near to the outside edge of the roadway and only on the left side of the roadway, facing traffic. Any pedestrian upon a roadway shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon the roadway. Cross streets at crosswalks or intersections.
- Cyclists: Cyclists should ride on the right half of the roadway, riding with traffic instead of against it. Please wear a helmet!
- Drivers: Yield the right-of-way to pedestrians at intersections and crosswalks.
Please be sure you are observing road safety laws and educating your student(s) as well. Please always stay vigilant.
FIELD TRIP CHAPERONES
Field Trip volunteers/chaperones must have their volunteer badges. If you are interested in volunteering in our school or for a field trip. Please go to the district website and follow the instructions HERE.
Contact Information
CONTACT INFORMATION: Parents, if you have not done so this year, please make sure to verify/update information in the Emergency Data Review through the parent portal. You can access the portal* on the WCS website. This process must be completed every year in case of an emergency and in order for your child(ren) to participate in class field trips. Instructions for using the parent portal appear here.
Special Education Key Communicator
Worthington’s Special Education Key Communicator Committee strives to build positive, productive and collaborative relationships and partnerships amongst the educators and community of families whose children receive special education and related services. We will engage in two-way communication, with the goal being to provide a circle of influence where we can share out and learn from and with each other.
The key communicators will convey information from their building to the committee, as well as information from the committee to their buildings.
The Key Communicators for Brookside are Sandra Sell at snsell74@gmail.com and Emily Smith at lightseekerem@hotmail.com 614-563-3687. Please reach out to either of our communicators if you have questions or topics to discuss.