White Marsh Elementary School

Greetings, White Marsh Families!

It's the last week of school for 2022! Can you believe that?? We are all excited for the upcoming Winter Break! Schools and offices will be closed over break, and will re-open when we all return to school on January 3, 2023.

As you can imagine, there are some exciting events occurring this week. We will celebrate the holidays all week with a Holiday Spirit Week! See the flier below for more information on our Spirit Days! Thursday is our Winter Concert, and our 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students are excited to perform for you. The concert will begin promptly at 10 am; doors will open for our guests at 9:40 am. For those attending our concert, please walk around the building to the exterior gym doors to enter the building. A reminder that our Kindergarten, First and Second grade students had an earlier opportunity to see the concert; they will not be attending this performance.

From the WMES Bear Family to yours, best wishes for a safe, healthy and happy holiday season.

The weather is getting colder! Please be sure that students come to school dressed appropriately especially with a coat for outside. Recess is 30 minutes, and we want our students to be dressed for the weather.

Please consider joining the PTA; the membership form is here.

Dec 15 Winter Concert, Grades 3,4,5 10 am

Dec 19 - Jan 2 Winter Break

Jan 3 Schools re-open

Jan 4 PTA Meeting, 6:30 pm

One of the goals in the SY 22-23 WMES School Improvement Plan is attendance. Parents can view student attendance at any time by accessing the Home Access Center. You will need your logon and password to access HAC. Please contact the Main Office if you need this information.

Absences can be reported with a note sent in to the Main Office, or by clicking the link on our website. Please refer to the SMCPS Student Handbook for more information about Attendance.

In an effort to communicate with parents and keep you informed about student absences, we send home letters every marking period to those students with 5 or more absences. We understand that a variety of illnesses continue to surround us, and appreciate your communication with Nurse Parrish, teachers, and the Main Office about your children's health.

Band and Strings Rehearsal Schedule:

A Week: Wednesday and Friday

B Week: Wednesday and Thursday

A reminder that all Volunteers (including Field Trip Chaperones) must be approved through SMCPS. Beginning this year, this will be an annual requirement. At WMES, those volunteers being asked to support students and teachers in the building will be required to complete a site based training session.

Any volunteer with an interest in supporting classroom activities, Field Day, Book Fair, copying/laminating for teachers must attend the WMES Volunteer Training Session prior to working with students. Please note- participation in the Training Session does not ensure that you will be needed to support an individual classroom. Teachers will reach out to you if school based volunteers are needed.

Future training dates are less than 30 minutes long, and have been added to the WMES event calendar.

ALL students in SMCPS must have a completed Acceptable Use Agreement on file for School Year 2022-2023.

Elementary (PreK-5th) Link: https://bit.ly/22022-2023_Elementary_AUPForm

From the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE)-

Chronic Absenteeism: Students are chronically absent when absent 10% or more of the school days while enrolled at that school. For example, a student who is registered to attend a school for 30 days and who is absent 3 of those 30 days is considered chronically absent.

WMES will follow up with chronically absent students through the Pupil Services Team, Pupil Personnel Worker, and the Department of Student Services. In order to reduce the number of our students with Chronic Absenteeism, incentives to encourage good attendance include participation in the Bear Crawl, Running Club, and School Dance.

Schoology New Parent/Guardian Provisioning: New Schoology parent/guardian accounts will be created in the coming weeks. We hope to have accounts created and parents/guardians connected to their students in Schoology by Friday, September 2nd. Parents that have difficulty accessing their pre-existing accounts should contact schoology@smcps.org and include the student name and ID number for troubleshooting.

Student Resource Accountability: Students are responsible for the care and upkeep of all of their SMCPS assigned resources: print and technology. The student accountability document is also linked in this SMORE.

SMCPS Text Alerts are a great way to get information quickly. They are not sent often, and usually only in the event of an unexpected school delay or closure. On occasion, WMES will send a text alert about a late bus, substitute bus, or school event. Click the link for information about registering for text alerts.

Email: jwsteele@smcps.org
Website: schools.smcps.org/wmes
Location: 29090 Thompson Corner Road, Mechanicsville, MD, USA
Phone: (301)472-4600
Twitter: @wmes_smpcs