Welcome to Black History Month! While it is essential that we celebrate all parts of our community and elevate them all year round, we take time on specific month's to celebrate, highlight and elevate the contributions and excellence of specific parts of our community. During Black History Month this year we celebrate 50 Years of Hip Hop! Please take extra time to check out the upcoming Black History Month events and mark your calendar to attend!

Last week we celebrated excellence in so many ways with the SP West TEDx event, a Harvard Lecturer spending time with our students, sending off our SP United Dance Team to STATE with a SP West Send Off Parade. We also celebrate the daily work happening in our classrooms to support our students with disabilities along side their peers in our inclusive classrooms. Don't miss any of these great celebrations in our Classroom and Student Spotlight Section.

Also, last call for any Schedule Change Requests. The deadline is tomorrow (the 10th day of the semester)!

• Upcoming Events
  
• Daily Announcements
• February- Black History Month
• Second Semester Schedule- TOMORROW (2/5) is the LAST DAY
• Celebrating Excellence
• Strength and Conditioning Summer Registration
• Traffic Safety and Summer School Registration
• Online School Store
• Classroom and Student Spotlights- AWESOME things happening!
• In Case You Missed It!

• February 1st-29th- Black History Month

• February 15th- Parent Teacher Conferences 4:15pm-8:00pm (more info to come)

• February 16th- Parent Teacher Conferences 7:30am-11:30am (more info to come)

• February 13th- Dane County Youth Assessment during school- Modified schedule- no SP30
• February 18th- February Frost 5K
• March 12th- Juniors (11th Grade) ONLY- ACT Testing
• April 9th- Freshman and Sophomores (9th and 10th Grade) ONLY- Pre-ACT Secure Testing
• May 18th- Junior and Senior Prom

Have you ever walked by the screens while in the building at West and thought, I want to make sure my student knows about that? Here are our student announcements so that parents/caregivers can have the same information to remind and encourage student involvement.

We are excited to celebrate and honor our 2nd Annual Black History month celebration at SP West! During the month of February we center, highlight, celebrate and elevate Black Excellence, in addition to working to create this as our way of being year-round This year's SPASD Black History Month theme is: 50 Years of Hip Hop.

Hip hop was set out in the dark. They used to do it out in the park.” – MC Shane, The Bridge 1985

In the dimly lit streets of New York City’s marginalized neighborhood, under the open sky of public parks, a cultural revolution was brewing. Born from the struggles and aspirations of African American and Latino youth, hip-hop emerged as a powerful force that would eventually illuminate the path toward social change and empowerment. Beyond its musical influence, hip-hop has made a profound impact on social work, empowering communities, advocating for social justice, and providing innovative approaches to therapy.

Hip-hop music culture is a product of African American, Afro-Caribbean and Latino inner-city communities plagued by poverty, the proliferation of drugs, and gang violence in the 1960s and early 1970s. By providing the youth with a sense of identity and belonging, Hip-Hop’s strong influence fosters a sense of unity. Marked by economic hardships, racial discrimination, and limited opportunities. In these challenging conditions, young artists turned to music, poetry, and dance to express their experiences and emotions. (From columbia.edu)

Over the next month we will be elevating and celebrating 50 Years of Hip Hop and the irreplaceable role that Black Excellence has had and continues to have in our community.

Checkout this awesome upcoming opportunities to celebrate 50 Years of Hip Hop and Black History Month

We have finished our FIRST WEEK OF 2ND SEMESTER!!!! We hope that you had a fantastic week and are experiencing a great fresh start start to the semester. A reminder that grades started fresh last week as well as we are looking at new attendance trends starting this semester. Are you thinking about a schedule change? Checkout our schedule change procedure.

After reading through the schedule change policy are you interested in submitting a schedule change? Schedule changes MUST be submitted no later than the 10th day of the semester (February 5th).

Registration is now open for our Strength and Conditioning Summer Program!

Registration is now open for our Summer School Traffic Safety and Behind the Wheel program!

The Traffic Safety and Behind the Wheel are ONLY open to students who are CURRENTLY (Spring 2024) in grades 9-12. Although the law allows students who are 14.5 to be involved in Drivers Ed, we limit registration/participation to students currently in grades 9-12 due to the demand.

This week SP West hosted our very own TEDx event! It was student led and organized and featured two student and two staff speakers. It was an incredible evening of networking, inspiration and the power of sharing our stories with each other.

SPASD's very own Marcus Porter provided us with a moving Hip Hop Performance.

Suhani Pandey spoke to us about "The Need for Passion" and her leadership in a non-profit in Nepal. A combination of her culture and love for volunteering has motivated for volunteering motivated her to talk about how passion has driven her to success. This organization called the Jageshwar Foundation, focused on disaster recovery in Nepal.

Quinton Maddox is a natural-born leader, who participates in many clubs around SP West including: Black Student Union, MSAN, Asian Club, DECA< National Honor Society. Quinton also works with the non-profit CEOs of Tomorrow and plays on the Varsity Tennis Team. Quinton received the event license through his application and worked on all aspects of developing the event. Sun Prairie's Mayor, Paul Esser, was in the audience learning and celebrating our staff and scholars with us.

Mr. Piotrowski, an SP West English Teacher, shared about his experience supporting East Timor, bringing a hidden genocide into a light in his talk: "How I found Hope (and myself) by Resisting Genocide". Mr. Piotrowski is also the advisory for SP Wests Amnesty International Club.

Shreya Bhargava is an SP West scholar involved in DECA< National Honor Society, Forensics and Student Council. Her talk was focused on how society needs to remove the stigma of failure, and redefine failure as a process. She dove into how culture and expectation can use failure to cast shame and how it needs to be seen as growth in her talk "The Importance of Failure".

Author, historian, and Harvard University fellow Maxine Gordon talked with students at East and West High Schools today. Maxine was married to legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordan, was involved in the civil rights movement during the 1960's and the March on Washington, and continues to passionate work to tell often unheard stories of African American female musicians.

We were proud to send off our SP United Dance team to compete in the D1 Hip Hop competition at State this weekend with our SP West tradition of a State Send Off Parade!

Special Education at Sun Prairie West is all about inclusion. Looking at this picture, I imagine you can’t even tell this is a co-taught (special education and regular education teacher led) science class. That is the idea. ALL students receive at least some instruction in the regular education classroom with support happening in the co-planning, modifications and accommodations happening in the background. In addition, we provide specialized instruction in alternate locations with our special education staff as determined by IEP teams.

If you don't already, please follow SP West on Facebook!

STATEMENT OF NONDISCRIMINATION

No student may be unlawfully discriminated against in any school programs, activities or in facilities usage because of the student’s sex (gender identity, gender expressions, and non-conformity to gender role stereotypes), color, religion, profession, or demonstration of belief or non-belief, race, national origin (including limited English proficiency), ancestry, creed, pregnancy, marital or parental status, homelessness status, sexual orientation, age, or physical, mental, emotional or learning disability. Harassment is a form of discrimination and shall not be tolerated in the District. It is the responsibility of administrators, staff members and all students to ensure that student discrimination or harassment does not occur.

(SPASD District Policy JB)

If a student or parent/guardian would prefer to have this information translated into Spanish, please contact us at 608-834-6620. Si un estudiante, padre ó guardian prefiere tener esta información traducida en Español, por favor contactenos en el 608-834-6620.

If a student or parent/guardian would prefer to have this information translated into Hmong, please contact us at 608-834-6630. Yog tus me nyuam lub xiv los yog niam thiab txiv/tus neeg muaj cai saib xyuas tus me nyuam xav tau qhov ntawv ntawm no ua lus Hmoob, thov hais rau peb paub rau ntawm 608-834-6630.

Information from previous Howls that's too important to miss!

Inspired by the classic game of Monopoly, this unique challenge is designed to spark your imagination and reward you with awesome prizes. Westopoly will begin January 22nd and run until March 22nd. Westopoly is designed to challenge students with tasks related to the library, the school, and the community. Students who wish to participate should register here or by scanning the QR code.

How to Play: Roll the dice daily and move around the board. Complete the task you land on and gain (or lose!) tickets.

Once the program is complete students will have the opportunity to enter their tickets into a drawing for prizes from:

• Kwik Trip

• I’m Board

• Beans n Cream

• Timbers’

• and more!

Stop by the library or email Ms. Dahl at bedahl@sunprairieschools.org for more information.

Our annual state wide exams are approaching. Mark your calendars:

• March 12th is our ACT testing day which is a JUNIORS (11th grade) only day. No school for 9th, 10th and 12th graders that day.
• We will follow that up with our Pre-ACT Secure Testing on April 9th for Freshman (9th) and Sophomores (10th) graders ONLY. April 9th is a no school day for 11th and 12th graders.

Once a month the library partners up with Melissa from the Sun Prairie Public Library to offer Creativity Time! Creativity Time allows students to participate in a library led craft, so far we have done: magazine strip art, TikTok ghost painting, luminaries, jar animals, and book hedgehogs.

On January 11th during WIN time we will be making yarn crafts. Sign up in Flexi under Ms. Dahl. You don’t want to miss out on this craftastic time!

Is your student looking for ways to get ahead in studying for the ACT? Here are a couple resources:

FREE - all students have access to Methodize in their Xello accounts. Methodize offers free study guides and practice tests

For Cost - ACT Prep Plus. Offered by CESA 5, students can register for prep sessions throughout the year.

As we reach the halfway point in the year a few parking lot reminders:

• When dropping off or picking up students use the designated drop-off/pick-up lane OUT SIDE of the student parking lot. We have had many parents/caregivers waiting for students IN the student parking lot, this blocks students in causing students to be late to work, etc. Additionally, student drop-off/pick-up should not take place in the visitor/staff parking lot at the front of the school, this additionally causes congestion.
• While waiting to pick up a student DO NOT pull into handicap parking lots if you do not have handicap plates or placard. We have had many instances of families picking up students that need access to these spaces to load the student and their wheelchair and they cannot access them because others are using the space for waiting.

We know that with a student population of ~1400 students drop-off/pick-up can be a very busy time and waiting can cause frustration. However, if we all work together and follow the system everyone's needs will be met. Thank you!

Since 1980, every three years over 20,000 Dane County youth in grades 7-12 are surveyed regarding their opinions, concerns, attitudes, behaviors and experiences to provide educators, community agencies, parents, policy-makers and funding bodies the data needed to inform grant writing, program development and public policy. The last survey was administered in 2021.

Dane County school districts, including SPW, will be administering the Dane County Youth Assessment to all students on 2/13/2024. Please review the links below for more details on the survey, participation options and who to contact for questions.

Parent consent HERE

Consentimiento de los padres AQUI