Wasco Weekly

As part of the district’s equity audit, students, staff, and families have been randomly selected to participate in focus groups to give them an opportunity to share their thoughts on our district’s strengths, areas of need, and long-term opportunities for providing the best educational experience for all students. The focus groups will be led by our partners in the equity audit process- the Consortium for Educational Change (CEC). If you were not randomly selected to participate in a focus group and would like to provide written responses to the focus group questions, please visit the District 303 website and complete the intake form with the email address used in Home Access Center (HAC). Once your email has been verified, you will be sent a link to the questionnaire.

We thank you for your commitment to equity in education, and we are excited about this next step in gathering the voices of our district so that we can create a comprehensive plan.

Vision and Hearing Screening

Vision and hearing screening is performed according to Illinois State mandates.

The program is conducted by state certified screening technicians under the

direction of the certified school nurses who are also licensed by the state as

both Vision Screening and Audiometric Technicians.

Vision and hearing screening may be conducted at the request of a teacher as

well. Screening is not a substitute for a complete eye and vision evaluation by

an eye doctor. Your child is not required to undergo this vision screening if an

optometrist or ophthalmologist has completed and signed a report form

indicating that an examination has been administered within the previous 12

months, and that the evaluation is on file at school.

If you have any questions about this, please call the school nurse at your child’s

school. Tina Ahrens 331-228-2904

Public Act 95-671 requires that all children enrolling in Kindergarten in a public,

private or parochial school and any student enrolling for the first time in a public,

private or parochial school shall have an eye examination. Each child is to

present proof of having been examined by a physician licensed to practice

medicine in all its branches or a licensed optometrist by October 15th of the

current school year. An exam completed within one year prior to that date will

meet the requirement.

A waiver is available from the Illinois Department of Public Health for any

student who shows undue burden or lack of access to an optometrist or

physician for the purposes of having an eye examination. Religious objections to

vision test must also be made in writing to the school.

Vision will be the only exam Wasco will be performing on Monday, April 25th through

Wednesday, April 27th.

Hearing will not be screened this year.

Returning Student Registration for 2022-2023 will open at 9:00 a.m. on April 25. See button below.

The first week of June, the St. Charles North High School Track & Field program will be hosting a Track Camp for students 3rd grade and older. This counts current 2nd graders who are going to be in 3rd grade. More information in the attachment below.

Our PTO has openings for Treasurer and Secretary. You can use the PTO’s Website (link here) to learn more about their work and find contact information. Individuals interested in serving should contact any of our current board members (contact information listed on PTO site). The election will occur at the May 9th PTO meeting.

Website- Please visit our brand-new website at the link below. We are working very hard to get this to be a great resource for all things PTO. This is going to be our main source of communication from here on out. We will be posting the most up to date information here.

https://sites.google.com/d303. org/wascopto/home

Email- We will still continue to send emails as needed

Freshschools- Please send an email to one of the following board members to get added to this communication platform. This is a great way to be able to get in touch with other student's parents.

Shannon or Scott Von Essen: WascoPTOPresident@gmail.com

Alison Sweet: WascoPTOVicepresident@gmail. com

Misti Floyd: WascoPTOSecretery@gmail.com

Heidi Hastert: WascoPTOTreasurer@gmail.com

Shannon Martin: sm3martin@gmail.com (Executive Fundraiser)

Please reach out with any questions you may have to any of the executive members above.

Thank You all for your continued support.

Wasco Elementary PTO

Starting on February 23rd lunch/breakfast will be going through your child's

Pushcoin accounts. There is no charge associated with either, as all are free. The only charges will be ala carte, such as milk, juice box and water as we have been doing all year.

Hello Wasco Families!

During art class, our students upload a photo of their work onto Artsonia, the world’s largest online student art museum. It's a free, safe, educational program designed to connect parents and families with their child's creative activities at school. Many of you are familiar with Artsonia because we have used it in the past.

Founded over 15 years ago, Artsonia has been recognized with the national distinguished service award for outstanding contribution to the arts by the National Art Education Association, as well as the distinguished service award by the state art associations in New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan and Colorado.

Families in K-1 or those new to Wasco School, if you would like to grant permission for your child to join our exciting school art gallery or click on the link and enter your child's name and grade, along with an email.

https://www.artsonia.com/connect/XP526348

We participate only for the digital gallery and it is not necessary to purchase anything that Artsonia offers. Thank you for your support! If you have further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at Joellen.Anderson@d303.org.

Sincerely,

Jody Anderson, Art Teacher

During our school day students are scheduled for a classroom recess, lunch recess, and possibly outdoor P.E. We are so impressed with the responsibility of our students who bring their outerwear every day to school demonstrating how to prepare for their school day!

Our Elementary School Handbook shares the guidelines for Outdoor Physical Activity. If temperatures are at or below zero degrees (with wind chill), we do not go outside. The specifics can be found on page 8 in the Section Dress Code: Outdoor Physical Activity. This section of the Handbook also lists our policies for other types of weather.

Link to Elementary School Handbook

• District 303 is recommending, but not requiring mask usage for all students and staff members

• Masks are required on any school-based transportation, including all school buses, due to a Federal Order

• All other mitigation strategies will continue such as:

• three feet social distancing in classrooms,

• six feet social distancing when eating,

• appropriate hand hygiene,

• cleaning and disinfecting surfaces,

• enhanced ventilation systems

• Per the Kane County Health Department, students and staff who are experiencing COVID symptoms or test positive will still be excluded from school

• Due to the TRO, District 303 will not be contact tracing or excluding close contacts

• Students or staff who are currently excluded due to being a close contact may choose to return to school effective Tuesday, February 8

• SHIELD Testing will continue to be available for those who choose to participate

• As always, if your child is ill, please make sure to keep them home

Arrival

Our front door closes at 8:00 so we can all start our day together with morning routines. If you are dropping off your student, please arrive between 7:45 and 7:55. When students are late they feel out of place and they are missing valuable connections with their whole school community.

Arrival and Dismissal

When using the drop off lane, please drive all the way forward so that we can load/unload as many cars as possible. Please stay in your car. If you wish to get out and load your child, you are welcome to park in the lot. By following this procedure, we can expedite everyone’s waiting times in the car lane.

The School Board has approved an E-Learning plan that gives the district the option to offer remote learning in place of emergency days. Currently, our last day of school is Tuesday, May 24, which is the week before Memorial Day. As we move into the winter months, we want to update you on the plan for how the district will manage emergency days and e-learning days.

• If we experience inclement weather, the first three days will be “snow days” that will be made up at the end of the school year on May 25, 26, and 27 as needed.

• Subsequent emergency days will be remote days so the last attendance day will still be before Memorial Day.

• If there is a long stretch of inclement weather (blizzard, polar vortex, etc.), we may split the days into “snow days” and e-learning days so as to not have too many non-attendance days in a row.

We have many items (including winter coats and lots of sweatshirts!) in our Lost and Found. Stop by and see if anything is yours! All remaining items after the winter break will be donated! Thank you!

Miss Green, our fantastic Empower Teacher, is on the search for the following materials you are no longer using around your house to help with upcoming modules this year:

• Board games, board game pieces/parts (broken or incomplete games are great).

• Cardboard of any type large or small including paper towel and toilet paper tubes.

• broken toys, figures, etc.

• Large Wooden craft sticks

• Wires, pipe cleaners/chenille sticks, wikki stix

• Packaging materials such as bubble wrap

Please have your child bring all tube donations directly to the office. We appreciate your help!

Website- Please visit our brand-new website at the link below. We are working very hard to get this to be a great resource for all things PTO. This is going to be our main source of communication from here on out. We will be posting the most up to date information here.

https://sites.google.com/d303. org/wascopto/home

Email- We will still continue to send emails as needed

Freshschools- Please send an email to one of the following board members to get added to this communication platform. This is a great way to be able to get in touch with other student's parents.

Shannon or Scott Von Essen: WascoPTOPresident@gmail.com

Alison Sweet: WascoPTOVicepresident@gmail. com

Misti Floyd: WascoPTOSecretery@gmail.com

Heidi Hastert: WascoPTOTreasurer@gmail.com

Shannon Martin: sm3martin@gmail.com (Executive Fundraiser)

Please reach out with any questions you may have to any of the executive members above.

Thank You all for your continued support.

Wasco Elementary PTO

January 26

February 23

March 23

April 27

Release will be at 2:10 p.m.

If you'd like to register your unvaccinated child to participate in the free weekly testing, Click here. Testing is one method for identifying cases and preventing the spread of COVID-19.

If you changed your mind about your initial response to SHIELD testing, you can go back to the portal and update your response.

YOU WILL ONLY BE NOTIFIED OF POSITIVE TEST RESULTS

(no news is good news)

As we enter into some possibly cooler weather, students should come to school prepared to spend time outdoors. Students are typically outside for recess breaks, PE four times a week, and can be outdoors for classroom activities. We appreciate your attention to the forecast and providing your child with clothing choices to adjust to cooler temperatures is appreciated. Also, as the weather gets cooler, it is helpful to send extra masks in case a change is necessary due to condensation. The D303 mask guidelines are provided below for your reference and can also be found at the link below.

You can use the map link above to identify your child’s entrance and exit door. Upon arrival, students should enter the building through their designated door, where they will be greeted by a staff member. At the end of the day, students exit through the same door and proceed to a designated area sorted by their transportation home. Our students who ride the bus line up with a peer and staff bus monitor. Students who are picked up by car stand on the front sidewalk and wait for their ride to arrive. This is the same pattern we used last year. We appreciate it when you extend cooperation and consideration for others in our school community. The kids learn from all of us and we are a team working together to help children build lifelong skills and positive community habits.

Reminder: When dropping off your child from your vehicle, please do not exit your car. If you need to help your child exit the vehicle, please park in the lot and walk your child to the sidewalk.

Did you know, ALL D303 students may receive a student loan card to checkout and access books from the St. Charles Public Library?

Click on the button below for more details on how to get one for your student!

Email: heather.kudabeck@d303.org
Website: https://district.d303.org/
Location: 4N782 School Street, Wasco, IL, USA
Phone: 331-228-2900