Dear West Sylvan Families,

We are looking forward to returning to school on Tuesday, February 18th, after the school holiday tomorrow for Presidents Day! Hopefully, most of the winter weather is behind us, and it’s important to please remind your Scholar to wear warm clothes on colder days. Recess is outdoors, and students who do not come prepared with warm clothes, are often uncomfortable during recess time. We also have our WSMS Clothing Closet for any Scholars who are in need of assistance with extra clothes and/or coats.

Our site Oregon Battle of the Books competition occurred last Tuesday at WSMS, with the Cheesy Chapters winning the battles, and the Last Page coming in a close second! Check out the winning teams below, and congratulations to all Scholars who participated and demonstrated their love of literacy through the OBOB battles! The Cheesy Chapters will move forward to our regional OBOB battles in March!

We have concluded all MAPs testing for Winter, with the exception of some makeup exams for Scholars who were absent during testing. Results for tests are viewable in StudentVue/ParentVue.

February 19th is vaccination “exclusion day” meaning that any student who still has not submitted necessary vaccine documentation to the School Nurse will be excluded from attending classes. Our School Nurse, Trudy Davis, has reached out to all families who have these items pending, notifying families of this date.

Communications related to the upcoming school year will continue to come from both our West Sylvan and PPS district team with regular updates, weekly or bi-weekly.

Jill Hunt, Principal
Ben Keller, Assistant Principal

FEBRUARY

Black History Month

• Mon, FEB 17th: NO SCHOOL for Presidents Day
• Wed, FEB 19th: Family Information Night for current 5th Graders / at WSMS 5:30PM-7:00PM
  
• Tue, FEB 25th: (*new date!) Late Start for Students due to Staff Meeting (building opens at 9:20AM)
• Wed, FEB 26th: EARLY RELEASE for Students at 1:45 PM due to Staff PD from 2:00-5:00 PM

MARCH

• Mon, MAR 3rd: NO SCHOOL for Students due to Teacher PD Day
• Wed, MAR 19th: EARLY RELEASE for Students at 1:45 PM due to Staff PD from 2:00-5:00 PM
• Mon, MAR 24th ~ Fri, MAR 28th: NO SCHOOL for Spring Break

We held our first of two Fifth Grade Family Information Nights on Monday, January 27th, and had nearly 200 participants. Our presentation is linked below, with important updates about the Math acceleration TAG changes starting in the 2025-26 school year. We look forward to welcoming a larger group of 6th Graders than last year, with potentially 260 incoming 6th Graders (an increase of 60 students from 2024-25). The second opportunity to hear this presentation and tour campus is scheduled for February 19th from 5:30-7:00 p.m. This presentation evening is only for future WSMS families, and it is not open to the outside public.

Some Scholars who are taking Common Core Math 6 currently, may have the opportunity to qualify for Math acceleration in 7th grade. Our District criteria is below. All of the items below must be satisfied for a Scholar to be eligible for Math acceleration in 7th grade.

2024-26 Criteria for 6-8 Grade Math Options:

School starts at 9:15 AM and ends at 4:00 PM every day, with this bell schedule:

The exceptions to these start times are on the following Staff Meeting days,

when students have a 15-minute later start at 9:30AM (with building opening at 9:20AM)

due to monthly Staff meetings *(only affecting PPS Middle Schools).
Buses should pick up 15 minutes later than the typical pickup time.

NEXT LATE START DATE: Feb 25th [*changed from Mar 11th]

April 8th - May 6th - June 3rd

Please calendar the Early Release days this year, which are listed below. All Scholars are released at 1:45 PM, and Staff are in meetings beginning at 2:00PM, meaning we will not be available to supervise any students who are not picked up on time. Buses will drop students off two hours earlier than usual.

Auditions for Matilda Jr. will be Tuesday, February 25th after school.

Sign up by scanning the QR code below,

or click on the image to go to the West Sylvan Drama website.

FRIENDS OF WEST SYLVAN is parent/family organization that supports Scholars and Staff and fosters community connection through fundraising and volunteer opportunities. Join the mailing list and stay connected with other families!

TO CREATE YOUR FoWS ACCOUNT:

• Exciting plans are ahead for WSMS and Friends of West Sylvan. In order to take advantage of our activities this year, please be sure to login to www.friendsofwestsylvan.org and get your account set up. All events will be run through this system.
• If you previously had an account, you'll be prompted to update your information upon logging in. If you are new to West Sylvan or didn't set up an account before, you'll be asked to create one. Just use your email that you provided to PPS and that will link to your family information.
• Once logged in you can determine whether you would like to be included in our family directory and what information you would like to share. Our directory requires login to access, so it's not available to the public. Any questions? Email us at hi@friendsofwestsylvan.org

MAIN OFFICE

westsylvanoffice@pps.net

(503) 916-5690

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT/ PRINCIPAL'S SECRETARY

[Staff / Substitutes / Financial]

Jerda Solonche

jsolonche@pps.net

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT/ SCHOOL SECRETARY

[Students / Attendance / Enrollment-Registration]

Kirsten Crombie

kcrombie@pps.net

Website: www.pps.net/westsylvan
Location: 8111 Southwest West Slope Drive, Portland, OR, USA