Wildcat News

Principal Message

Happy April! A few reminders for the week:

~ Conferences: Thank you to all the parents who attended spring conferences. Your attendance, commitment, and engagement all MATTER! Also, a HUGE thank you to anyone who signed up to donate beverages or desserts for teacher conference meals and to the volunteers who helped to clean up each night!!! Our teachers are beyond appreciative of the PTO for supporting them during the long conference dates. Thank you also to our rockin' book fair volunteers who helped make our fair such a success!!

~ PTO officer need for next year: The PTO will be looking for an interested individual to be the Vice President for the 2026-27 school year, which then leads to being the president the following year. Don't let this scare you, really. We're a fun group that is growing in numbers with each meeting, and we figure things out together! If this interests you, please reach out to me.

~ Early Release: Our next Early Release is Wednesday, April 8. Please complete this Google Form to let us know what your student's plans will be for the Early Release. Thank you for your cooperation!

~ NO School tomorrow, Friday, April 3.

Thanks for always being so supportive of our work!

Ann

Ann Haggerty

Washington Principal

ahagge1@isd77.org

Staff Spotlight-Mr. Attig

What do the students at Washington call you?

Mr. Attig, or Attig

What is your job at Washington?

I am the full time Physical Education Teacher. We also have Mr. Hanson who teaches 1 Phy. Ed. class here.

How long have you worked for Mankato Area Public Schools?

This is my 9th year teaching at Washington/ MAPS

What is one of your favorite things about your job?

My favorite thing about teaching at Washington is working with students on accountability. Helping them understand that all of our actions have results. They are all leaders each day, are you going to lead in a positive direction or negative direction? The choice is YOURS.

What is an interesting fact about you?

I am the second oldest of four kids in my family. Also, I have never consumed an alcoholic beverage.

Tell us about your family.

I am married to Crista Attig. I have a daughter Ella who is in 10th grade at Mankato East H.S. I have a son Jackson/JT, who is an 8th grader at Prairie Winds MS. Both Ella and JT went through Washington Elementary and loved every minute of it!

Where did you go to elementary school?

I went to Sibley Elementary in Albert Lea, MN

Anything else you would like to share with families?

Thank you for all that YOU do for your kids! We as a staff love working with your sons/daughters everyday! As amazing as our staff is, we need YOU, our community, and your kids to all be in this together so that ALL of our amazing kids/students understand what it takes to grow up and be successful!

GO WILDCATS!

Goal #1: Increase consistent student attendance to 92%.

September 2025: 90.34%

October 2025: 89.69%

November 2025: 90.4%

December 2025: 90.73%

January 2026: 88.89%

February 2026: 89.52%

March 2026: STAY TUNED...I don't officially have this number yet.

Goal #2: Decrease the number of students who are chronically absent from 45 to 30 or fewer.

September 2025: 32 students chronically absent

October 2025: 32 students chronically absent

November 2025: 24 students chronically absent

December 2025: 32 students chronically absent

January 2026: 31 students chronically absent

February 2026: 34 students chronically absent

March 2026: 33 students chronically absent

Any student who has missed more than 13.4 days by the end of March is included in this count. Please continue to help us reach our goals!!!

Dear Families,

Our district values your feedback! We are surveying MAPS families during the month of April to gain insight into your perception of our school and district effectiveness. To ensure we continue to provide high quality, rigorous learning experiences that meet the needs of our learners and prepare them for college and career, we need your feedback. We want to know what you think.

To administer these surveys, we have partnered with Panorama Education to conduct our 2025-26 Family Survey. Panorama safeguards your privacy, keeping your responses confidential. The survey shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to complete and will be a valuable source of information for us as we work to make our schools and district as good as they can be.

You may complete the survey online between April 1, 2026 and April 30, 2026 using a computer, tablet, or smartphone by visiting the website: https://surveys.panoramaed.com/mankato and entering your school’s access code: [7003017472]

We thank you in advance for your thoughtful responses. If you have any questions about the survey administration, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thank you,

Ann Haggerty

This year was District 77's first year of full-day 4-year old programming which mirrors the K-5 student calendar. Many of our families throughout the district would qualify for tranpsortation as part of the VPK scholarship program. See the flyer below!

We hope you can join us for our Spring Concert on May 1.

Just to be clear: students perform the concert 3 times throughout the day. Parents are asked, if at all possible, to attend the concert time that corresponds with the first letter of their last name. We recognize this may not be possible with work schedules, BUT it helps immensely with having enough seating for all. The last concert will be standing room only, so it really helps, and is immensely appreciated, if you can attend at the time that corresponds with your last name.