Wyalusing Area School District

Welcome to the next edition of RAM eNews, a product of the Wyalusing Area School District. This publication will be produced quarterly during the school year to keep community stakeholders engaged in our schools.

The district leadership team and school board continue to navigate the challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The district health and safety plans remain in full effect and are posted on our school webpage for public review.

Despite a few school closure periods that have occurred during the first semester, our students and staff continue working hard to keep students in school and keep the virus out of school.

Future school closure periods remain a possibility and are dependent upon:

• active cases affecting students and staff in the school buildings consistent with the state-mandated school closure matrix;
• adequate staff and employee attendance that ensures a safe environment so that the components of the health and safety plan can be fully implemented.

As an additional reminder... continue monitoring and screening your children every day for COVID-19 symptoms prior to entering the school bus or arriving at school and do not send sick or symptomatic children to school. Mrs. Spencer, School Nurse is available for any questions or concerns by calling 570-746-1600 x2310.

Each November, Sixth Grade honors veterans with an annual Veterans Day Luncheon. This year, a virtual tour of a mobile veteran unit from the Bradford County Veterans Affairs office was planned for the students and their guests during the event. However, the luncheon and virtual tour had to be canceled due to the pandemic. It was a great disappointment not being able to honor local veterans. However, in December, sixth-grade teachers thought it would be a great idea to raise money for local veterans. Mr. Peter Miller, director of the Bradford County Veterans Affairs office, helped with all the information necessary to be able to make this donation possible. The Bradford County Veterans Affairs Office along with The Northern Tier Veterans Group help local veterans from our area in times of need. For example, this group helps veterans with electric bills, furnace repairs, and homelessness.

When students returned to school from Thanksgiving break, the collection began as sixth-grade students, families, and teachers brought money in for this worthy cause. In one week, student helpers, like Charlotte Sitas (pictured to the right), helped count money as it came in each day or hour, and reported the class totals to each homeroom. At the end of the week, a grand total of $682.95 was raised. This was beyond what anyone in sixth grade anticipated, but everyone was excited to know that sixth grade was giving a grand gift to veterans, as the sixth grade continued way of saying, “Thank you for your service”.

Over Christmas break, sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Moss received an email from Mr. Miller letting the sixth grade know that their gracious donation helped a veteran of the Wyalusing Area School District pay for furnace repairs. Sixth grade was very Ram Proud to be able to help a veteran who lives in our hometown.

4th and 5th-grade gifted students Storey Newell, Conner Earle & Arabella Girven came in 3rd place in the Blast IU Gingerbread STEM competition led by Wyalusing Elementary Teacher, Melissa Bennet!

Storey shown in the picture showcases the project. Students had to design a house for Georgie Gingerbread completely out of recycled materials. It had to fit within the size requirements, have a door that opened and closed and 3 windows.

The students used Google Meet-videoconference and flipgrid to brainstorm ideas. Each team member created a blueprint on the program Sketchpad and then produced a basic build of their project. The students met again on Google Meet and voted to use Storey's project for their final submission. Storey decorated it and created a short video showing that the project met all the requirements.

Great Job Team!

Three Wyalusing Elementary students received recognition in the United Way poster contest. Bradford County United Way hosts this competition every year for 5th-grade students within the county. Student’s posters are to share the idea of highlighting community and the United Way.

Congratulations to Paisley Decker, Marshall Huston, and Mina Fowler on being recognized for their talented work!

On November 19, 2020, thirteen new members were inducted into the National Honor Society via our Livestream broadcast.

In order to be considered for NHS induction, candidates must meet rigorous standards including a 90% or better average, demonstrate active participation in school and community, and are assessed by faculty in leadership and character, and be at least a junior in high school.

NHS follows the fundamentals of Character, Scholarship, Leadership, and Service and these students represent some of the best and brightest to walk our halls. This year's inductees include Travis George Bahl, Grayden Matthew Cobb, Emily Paige Girven, Hailey Margaret Jayne, Marissa Lynn Johns, Spencer Britton Krewson, Shane Mychael Malinowski, Madelynn Rae Muench, Pearl Ann Elizabeth O’Connor, Madison Paige Patton, Riley J. Smith, Olivia Elizabeth Spencer, Sage Elizabeth Superko. Mrs. Mary Sohns serves as the NHS advisor.

Retiring educator Mrs. Gayle Huffman was recognized for her many years of service to the district at the January 11th school board meeting.

Gayle Huffman spent many years fostering student success. She was employed as a Learning Support Long-term Substitute for the 2nd semester of the 1986-87 school year. She was then employed with IU 17 and IU 20 for many years coming to WASD full-time in the 1993-94 school year. Gayle also coached Volleyball for 13 years!

Mrs. Spencer serves as the Certified School Nurse and has a vast amount of responsibilities. This year in particular Mrs. Spencer's knowledge and leadership are crucial as we work through the COVID-19 pandemic and we couldn't do it without her!

Getting to know Mrs. Spencer a little bit... She graduated from WVHS in 2003 and attended Misericordia University Majoring in Nursing earning her bachelor's degree in the Spring of 2007. She began her career as an RN at Robert Packer Hospital on the Telemetry Floor. During the Spring of 2008, she started working in the Emergency Department of the Towanda Memorial Hospital and began classes at Slippery Rock University to obtain the School Nurse Certification. Later she began serving as a substitute nurse in Wyalusing, Towanda, and Northeast Bradford school districts, eventually earning the full-time position at WASD In August 2012.

Mrs. Spencer lives in Herrickville with her husband, Levi, and three children Olivia, Wyatt, and Lola. When you see Mrs. Spencer, please take the time to thank her for the especially hard work during this pandemic!

Mariah Ogle is an alumnus of Wyalusing Valley Jr./Sr. High School class of 2010. Upon high school graduation, she attended Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA where she majored in Special Education Integrated Studies.

Once completing her Bachelor's degree, she was offered a position at Signal Knob Middle School in Strasburg, VA where she spent 5 years teaching middle school special education. In her time there she had the opportunity to work with learning support students for 3 years and emotional support for 2 years. She was also heavily involved in the school community through coaching volleyball and basketball. In 2019 Mariah was offered a position at Sayre High School, so she and her husband decided to return to NEPA where she has been working with 7-9 learning support and life skills students for the past year and a half.

In March of 2020 Mrs. Ogle welcomed her first child into the world, Lucy. Mrs. Ogle shares "I am looking forward to continuing my professional career at WVHS. The Wyalusing community has given me so much over my lifetime and I’m excited to be able to give back to the place I proudly call home!"

Emily Delp (Mosher) grew up in Sugar Run, PA. She graduated from Mansfield University in December 2019 with her degree in Elementary and Special Education. After graduation, she returned to Wyalusing, accepting a long-term sub position. Over the past year she has covered various capacities in the elementary school, including K-2 Learning Support, Emotional/Behavior Support, Second Grade, and will be teaching Fourth Grade for the rest of the school year.

Mrs. Delp lives with her husband Evan in Dushore, PA. She loves spending time with family and friends and enjoys hiking around Worlds End and Ricketts Glen State Parks.

Teaching throughout the school has given her the opportunity of connecting with many students and staff. The relationships she has made has been her favorite part of working at Wyalusing. She looks forward to continuing her career in the district!

Head Coach, Mike Earle shares...The wrestling team has quite a few guys back from last year with 3 seniors on the team. We all are especially grateful for the opportunity to focus on something positive and work hard towards achieving some goals. Going into the season, we all knew that it was going to be far from normal. With having a later start than normal, we are going to be extremely busy this season with 2 or 3 matches (sometimes more) happening each week. The wrestling team opens up with a non-league match against Tunkhannock and then follows up with Athens and Towanda, two of our biggest league rivals, the following week.

I'm reminded why Wyalusing is a good place to be when I'm working with these young men. There are a lot of excuses out there for not putting forth the effort of working hard towards goals and representing our school with pride. They have not let a very unusual and sometimes frustrating start let them get distracted from being part of the program and focusing on getting better. We are all looking forward to competing this season, no matter what we are required to do.

The Wyalusing Lady Rams are looking to use their experience and athletic ability. They are led by Seniors Callie Bennett, Hailey Jayne, Catherine Brown, and Madison Putnam. These ladies are looking to end their Varsity careers on a high note. They are joined by Layla Botts, Laci Norton, Olivia Leichliter, Marissa Johnson, Bryn Zionkowski, and Karley Chamberlain.

Coach Lindblad shares "The Varsity started with a 60-37 victory over Troy Jan. 14th in their first game of the season. The team played great team basketball and they have the potential to compete in the strong NTL Large School division. We look forward to competing for an NTL title and look to make it to the playoffs."

New to this years team; Allie Liddick, Chloe Kunkle, Anna Briggs, Elaina Goodwin, and Danielle Wilson are looking to have a successful season on JV and develop their games for the future. Good luck Lady Rams!

Coach Keyes shares "We are incredibly excited about our 2021 season as we have many key returners back from last year's team. We are hoping to keep the momentum going in our program after reaching last year's District IV AA Final and recording the program's first PIAA state playoff win in 17 years."

The Northern Tier League is as deep as it has been in years and the team is looking forward to competing every night. Coach Keyes is encouraging the student-athletes to continue working hard, be coachable, and serve as great teammates, they will then have the opportunity to compete at the league and district level. Good luck boys!

Act 158 of 2018 (Act 158) was signed into law by Governor Wolf shifts Pennsylvania's reliance on high stakes testing as a graduation requirement to provide alternatives for high school students to demonstrate readiness for postsecondary success. Act 158, in conjunction with Act 6 of 2017 (Act 6), expands the options for students to demonstrate postsecondary readiness through four additional pathways that more fully illustrate college, career, and community readiness.

Who's Impacted?

The statewide graduation requirement outlined in Act 6 and Act 158 takes effect for the graduating Class of 2022 and beyond.

What are the Keystone Exams?

The Keystone Exams are end-of-course assessments designed to assess proficiency in the subject areas of Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, Literature, English Composition, Biology, Chemistry, U.S. History, World History, and Civics and Government.

Beginning in the 2012-2013 school year, Keystone Exams in the following subjects were developed by the Department and made available for use by school districts, AVTSs and charter schools, including cyber charter schools:

• Algebra I
• Literature
• Biology

The Keystone Exams are one component of Pennsylvania's statewide high school graduation requirements. Keystone Exams will help school districts guide students toward meeting state standards.

What are the five (5) Pathways to graduation?

Keystone Proficiency Pathway

Keystone Composite Pathway

Alternate Assessment Pathway

Evidence-Based Pathway

Career and Technical Education (CTE) Pathway

More information is available on our website (here) or you may direct your questions to your high school guidance counselor, Mr. Otis, HS Principal; Mr. Wincek, HS Asst. Principal, or Dr. Patson, Director of Curriculum.

To date, much of the focus of the career program has been on implementing and introducing Xello, the new college, and career readiness program. In preparation for the anticipated shifts between remote and hybrid learning, supporting instruction for each Xello activity and lesson was created using Google Classroom.

Presently, senior class students are using the program to assist in college planning, career exploration, and to access scholarship opportunities. Students in grades 7 through 11 have been actively working in the Xello program since early November, and grades K-6 are due to begin working within the next few days. Plans are in place to co-teach with face-to-face and remote K-6 students.

Due to the pandemic, it has been necessary to scale back the size, number, and delivery method of career events typically offered in a school year. However, several virtual events have taken place this fall and winter. More virtual events will continue to be scheduled in the Spring marking periods. Efforts to join career awareness and subject area learning have been made to provide condensed and high-quality learning experiences to minimize disruption to the already condensed school schedule.

Mrs. Bennett, Elementary Art teacher has been using google classroom for Art for a few years, but this year it has proven to be a valuable resource to keep students engaged when in remote learning.

Mrs. Bennett shares "I utilize a lot of online resources to teach concepts, art history, etc. so it's a nice platform for that. I also do a lot of computer drawing with students. I will have them reproduce the physical projects that we create as computer-generated drawings." It reinforces the concepts taught, which in this case is using perspective in art, but it introduces students to digital art and gives them practice in using universal tools such as crop, fill, rotate, copy/paste, word art, etc. that can be beneficial across the curriculum. I start students out with easy programs such as Google AutoDraw & Google Drawings and then advance to Sketchpad 5.0.

Shown to the right is Jackson Bolles drawing of boxes in perspective.

Morgan Broschart drawing the same boxes in perspective, but this time using Google Drawing.

Pennsylvania State law requires within the first 90 days of the start of the school year that the district conduct a district-wide safety drill. Due to the pandemic, the state allowed a shelter in place drill to be done in order to promote proper social distancing during these unprecedented times. In mid-November, WASD conducted a district-wide shelter in place drill.

The purpose of this drill is to practice the steps necessary to take in case of an intruder on campus. Both buildings performed extremely well and all the students conducted themselves very maturely and appropriately during the drill. There will also be one more drill conducted sometime this spring with details forthcoming.

Parents are reminded to always have a safety plan in place for their children. If the district needs to dismiss early, students should know your plan for where they should go or have access to your home. You should always have a back-up plan for when emergencies arise. The Safety Team is chaired by Mr. Wincek, HS Asst. Principal

The Wyalusing Area School District is currently seeking several substitute positions:

• Substitute Teacher's (must have a Bachelor's degree): $100 per diem
• Substitute Nurse's (LPN): $18.00 per hour
• Substitute Secretaries: $12.00 per hour
• Substitute Special Education Aides: $12.00 per hour

We also have a variety of athletic coaching and other supplemental opportunities available. Please visit our Employment Opportunities webpage for a full listing and contact Mrs. Laura Carr, Director of Human Resources 570-745-1600 x3007 with any questions.