Carleton Washburne

Washburne was filled with around 500 Skokie and Washburne students on Friday evening as they danced, ate, crafted, played basketball and socialized during the 2023 Dance Marathon. The event was a huge success with both schools coming together to raise over $80,000 for the advancement of care and treatment at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. A huge thank you to the many parent volunteers, our amazing staff, and our student steering committee who helped organize, plan, and supervise this event. What an accomplishment!

If you have any pictures from this event that you would like to share, please use this link to upload your photos.

Bike Safety Reminder

As the weather warms up, we know that many of our students will return to biking or walking to school. Thank you in advance to our families for helping us reinforce the following practices:

• understanding the importance of using caution and following all traffic signals

• wearing a helmet while riding a bike, skateboard or scooter

• walking a motorized scooter or bike on school grounds

• being respectful to pedestrians while riding on the sidewalk, and

• walking bikes through crosswalks.

We are grateful for your partnership on this important issue. Last year, Washburne students worked collaboratively with Skokie students to create this bike safety pledge. Please ensure that your student follows safety guidelines when biking to school.

Take Care and Be Well,

Andrew Fenton & Ben Horwitz

Washburne Principal & Assistant Principal

As we head into the final week of trimester 2, students in Industrial Design, Engineering and Architecture (IDEA) have been applying their learnings about mechanical energy for one final project. Students were tasked to build a car powered only by a mouse trap (no, not the board game, an actual mouse trap). Working in groups, students used creative designs for the wheels (compact discs) and experimented with the best pulley design to give them a mechanical advantage. This week, students will be racing their mouse trap cars to see which ones can travel the farthest distance.

Kudos to Mr. Mann and his IDEA students for ending the trimester on a high note.

In this section we will be shining the spotlight on our Related Studies program and all the wonderful opportunities available to our Washburne students.

As trimester 2 comes to a close; Innovation Technology, Computer Science, and CW Broadcasting students take time in class to create and add to their Washburne STEAM portfolio. Students use Google Sites to create and share their classwork from this trimester. Videos, reflections, and educational artifacts authentically represent and share their STEAM journey.

On March 12th , Winnetka Public Schools Foundation (WPSF) Board members will be reaching out to D36 parents and community members by phone, text and email in order to secure donations for the coming year. Every donation can make a difference in our schools and for our community!

Donate online by March 11 to to “Beat the Call!” With your support, WPSF can continue to provide our teachers with the resources they need to bring creativity to the curriculum while enhancing the learning experience for all Winnetka D36 students.

What is the Winnetka Public Schools Foundation (WPSF)?

WPSF is a non-profit volunteer organization which raises funds from District families and the

community. Those funds are used to provide grants to D36 educators which enable them to go above and beyond what is possible with tax dollars alone. This year, WPSF provided over $111,000 in grants to Crow Island, Greeley, Hubbard Woods, Skokie and Washburne.

What People Are Saying About WPSF

“The Foundation continues to be a vital partnership that supports [our] work, allowing us to consider resources that we may not otherwise have immediate access to, while also continuing to promote the creative and innovative instructional design that our district has historically celebrated. We are immensely grateful to the Foundation for its commitment to our schools, students and staff, and excited about the possibilities in the year ahead.”

Dr. Kelly Tess, Superintendent Winnetka School District 36

WPSF Funded Carleton Washburne Grant Highlight: Your Human Body

Through its Core Plus and Summer Institute grants, WPSF provides funding for teacher and staff professional development programs. This past year, training for teachers in Fifth through Eighth grades focused on Project Based Learning (PBL). In addition to providing deeper engagement and interaction with subject materials, PBL encourages higher order thinking and real-life problem-solving skills.

At Washburne, Seventh grade science teacher, John Pappas’s students embarked on a project to help them learn more about human body systems. Students set personal improvement goals and researched the body parts associated with their goal. They used this research to develop an action plan and then tracked their progress.

“Goal setting is a lifelong skill that requires hard work, dedication, discipline, and sacrifice, which is why many people make goals and eventually give up. This project started right after the New Year, where goal setting is a cultural theme making it particularly relevant.”

John Pappas, Science Department, Carleton Washburne

The Accelerated Placement Act requires Illinois public school districts to adopt and implement policies on acceleration that provide opportunities for single subject and grade level acceleration. To learn more about District 36’s acceleration policy implementation visit the following links: acceleration infographic and updated webpage which includes a link to the application form.

The request window opens today, Monday, March 6, and closes on Friday, March 31.

UP NEXT:

From Washburne to New Trier:

A D36 Parent's Guide to the New Trier Transition

March 7, 2022

9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.

Carleton Washburne School, 515 Hibbard Rd.

Paul Waechtler, Principal at the New Trier High School Freshman Campus, and Lori Worth, 8th Grade Transition Faculty, will discuss the New Trier freshman placement process and the efforts made to ensure a smooth transition to high school. A Q & A will provide an opportunity for parents to learn more about how to best support their child(ren) as they prepare for their New Trier experience.

Interested: RSVP here.

Learning the Mood Meter- District Implementation of RULER

(District 36 SEL Coaches)

March 14, 2023

Location: Washburne RC

Time: 10:00-11:00 AM

The Mood Meter is a tool that helps build awareness of emotions in ourselves and others. This tool aids us in understanding how our emotions influence our thinking and behavior, empowers us to recognize and label our full range of emotions, and assists us in developing strategies to learn how to work more skillfully with our emotions.

Interested: RSVP here

D36 K-8 Math Programming: An Overview

(Dr. Becky Mathison, Director of ITL and District Math Teachers)

March 21, 2023

Location: Washburne RC

Time: 10:00-11:00 AM

During this session Dr. Becky Mathison, Director of Innovation, Teaching and Learning, alongside a team of math educators from the District will provide an overview of D36 math programming K-8 including an upper grade course map, explain how the approach aligns to progressive education and the portrait of a graduate, and ways to support your student at home. This session will feature a panel of D36 math educators.

Interested: RSVP here

APRIL 2023:

Differentiation: What is it? What does it look like in D36?

Dr. Becky Mathison (Director of Innovation, Teaching and Learning)

April 19, 2023

Time: 10:00 AM

Location: SK Community Room
During this session Dr. Becky Mathison, Director of Innovation, Teaching and Learning, alongside a team of educators from the District will provide an overview of what differentiation is, how it is implemented in D36 classrooms, explain how the approach aligns to progressive education and the portrait of a graduate, and ways to support your student at home. This session will feature a panel of D36 educators.

Interested: RSVP here

Winnetka Voices is a podcast hosted by The Winnetka Public Schools, featuring candid conversations on issues relevant to education and shared resources to support our students and families.

NEW! Episode #4:

Recruiting & Retaining Incredible Educators

In this episode Dr. Kelly Tess discusses the national teacher shortage with The Skokie School Principal, Michelle Cooney; Jeff Knapp, Assistant Superintendent of Professional Learning and Human Resources; and Daniel Walsh, Interim Dean of the School of Education and Associate Professor at North Park University. The guests reflect on the landscape when they initially began their careers in education, the need to enhance recruitment and retention practices, and what makes this a unique era in terms of hiring the next generation of teachers. The guests reflect on how these factors may specifically impact our practices in Winnetka. According to Principal Cooney, "In order to do hard and important work, we need to be in a community where we support one another." Listen the full episode to learn more about this timely topic.

Listen here:

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Amazon

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iHeart Radio

Google

For upcoming events, access FAN’s website here.

Wednesday, March 8th: Centerstage and Stagecraft Performance @ 7:30pm in Washburne Little Theater

Friday, March 10th: Last Day of Trimester 2

Tuesday, March 21st: Board of Education Meeting @ 7:15pm