WES Weekly

Week of November 18

Dear Worthington Estates Families,

We had a great turnout at our annual WES PTA Pancake Breakfast with nearly a thousand pancakes served! What a great community event! BIG thanks to our volunteer chairs, set up/clean up crew, book fair volunteers and more! We really appreciate all that goes into such a great community event!

We have only a few days until our Thanksgiving Break and we hope you're all doing well!

Thank you,

Beth/Ms. Niskanen

principal, Worthington Estates School

Priority/To do:

Progress Reports are posted November 15th. Worthington Schools uses Infinite Campus and you'll need your log in/access to view your child's progress report (aka report card). These will come out three times a year, and if you are not familiar with Infinite Campus (aka "IC") yet, you'll want to use these elementary years to get used to it, as it's used on the daily in Middle & High School.

Never logged in? Start with INFINITE CAMPUS DIRECTIONS HERE

Logged in but now can't? Start with DISTRICT PASSWORD RECOVERY LINK HERE

Nov 18 = PTA Skate Night, 6:30PM Skate Zone 71 (links below)

Nov 20 = PTA Meeting (via zoom @6:30PM, link below)

Nov 20 = Grade 3: Peace Ambassador Program (assembly)

Nov 25 = BOE Monthly Meeting @ WEC

Nov 27 through Dec 1 = NO SCHOOL, Thanksgiving Break

Dec 2 = Back to school!

Dec 23 through Jan 3 = NO SCHOOL, Winter Break (back to school Jan 6, 2025!)

This week:

Lunch this week @ WES

Monday - Chicken Patty Sandwich or SB&J
Tuesday - Beef & Cheese Nacho or Toasted Cheese Sandwich
Wednesday - Breakfast Entree w/ Chicken Sausage or SB&J
Thursday- Chicken Corn Dog or Cheesy Breadsticks
Friday - #1 Cheese Stuffed Crust Pizza #2 Turkey Pepperoni Stuffed Crust Pizza #3 SB&J

Can you help in our WES cafeteria??

Kindness day follow up

*From our School Counselor, Ms. Packert*

Hi! This week, your child participated in a celebration of World Kindness Day, in partnership with Seeds of Caring and The Columbus Foundation's Center for HumanKindness. Through discussion and group activities, our school learned about connecting with others and how we can make a big difference in our homes, schools and communities when we choose kindness. We also got to expand kindness and connections in our community by selecting a nonprofit to direct a donation to, thanks to a pool of $20,000 provided by the Center for HumanKindness.

Use the questions & activity suggestions below to expand your child's learning at home:

-What nonprofit did your class choose to donate to and how did you choose it?

-What is one thing you are already doing to make our world a kinder place?

-Based off of what you learned through this World Kindness Day project, what is one new thing you could start doing to make our world a kinder place?

Did you get to see our nearly 600 acts of kindness? Acts of kindness were written on paper 'links' to make this beautiful chain of kindness!

Update on Elementary Technology Practices

As technology continues to become more present in our student’s lives, Worthington Schools has been seeking to better understand the impacts of technology in our classrooms. All schools in Ohio are required to adopt a policy regarding cell phone use by July 2025. Superintendent Dr. Bowers recently presented student, community, and staff feedback regarding cell phone use in our schools and Worthington’s progress toward defining a cell phone policy which you can view here.

Based on this feedback, we are adjusting our technology practices at the elementary level. Students at our elementary schools have always been asked to silence cell phones and are required to keep them in their bookbags during the school day. Now, this practice will also apply to smartwatches and other wearable technology.

This change supports a more focused and distraction-free classroom environment while still allowing students to access technology for communication to and from school. We understand that many families find value in features like location tracking, and this adjustment allows for these needs to be met without interrupting the school day. Thank you for your continued support as we work together to create the best learning experience for all our students!