Weekly Hoots

Dear Wise Owls Family,

Welcome to the 2024-2025 school year! I am thrilled to begin this journey with you as the proud principal of Whitesville Elementary School. It is with great excitement and a sense of purpose that I step into this role, ready to support your children in their educational journey.

At Whitesville Elementary School (WES), our goal is to foster an environment that’s best for learning, teaching, and building life-long memories by cultivating a caring community that utilizes a multitude of teaching and learning experiences to prepare children for their next adventure. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect, inclusion, and excellence. Our dedicated team of teachers and staff are here to ensure that your children receive the highest quality education while feeling safe, valued, and appreciated.

Communication and collaboration between home and school are key to your child’s success. We believe in the importance of a strong partnership between parents and educators. Throughout the year, we will keep you informed through our Weekly Hoots, providing updates and various school events. I encourage you to stay involved in your child’s education, and I welcome your feedback and ideas on how we can continue to improve our school community.

As we embark on this new school year, please know that my door is always open. Whether you have questions, concerns, or simply want to share your thoughts, I am here to listen and work together to make this year a memorable and successful one for all of our students.

Thank you for entrusting us with your children’s education. I look forward to meeting each of you and working together to make WES the best it can be.

B. Gantt

#AllforONE!

Our mission is to cultivate a caring community that utilizes a multitude of teaching and learning experiences to prepare children for their next adventure.

1. We believe that everyone deserves to feel safe, valued, and appreciated.
2. We believe that all children deserve a high quality education.
3. We believe in collaboration and making connections.

Staying Safe

Owning Your Actions

Acting Responsibly

Respecting Everyone & Everything

Thursday, August 15th

First Day for our Wise Owls!!!

Tuesday, August 20th & Wednesday, August 21st

iReady Fall Diagnostic

Saturday, August 24th

PTO Day of Service (11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.)

& PTO Sponsored Ice Cream Social @ WES (2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.)

Monday, August 26th

Monday Morning Parliament

Monday, September 2nd

Labor Day - Schools & Offices Closed

Friday, September 6th

Kindergarten - 2nd Grade Grandparents Lunch

PTO Sponsored Movie Night

Monday, September 9th

3rd - 5th Grade Grandparents Lunch

Wednesday, September 11th

3rd - 5th Grade Curriculum Night

Thursday, September 12th

Preschool - 2nd Grade Curriculum Night

PTO Meeting (6:00 p.m.)

Progress Reports sent in Thursday Folders

As you are all aware, Tropical Storm Debby has really put a wrench in our plans. Consequently, our teachers have not, technically, been in our building, which is why we felt it is important to move Meet the Teacher Night to Tuesday, August 13th. We sincerely apologize for the change, knowing that families had made arrangements; however, our teachers have a lot of work ahead of them to prepare the learning environment for welcoming nearly 1,200 students.

With that being said, we could use your help if you're available and interested. Our teachers could potentially use your help with setting up their classrooms, our custodians could potentially use your help with helping around the building, our coaches and administrators could potentially use your help with still passing out school books and materials. 😁

Please email your child's teacher or any member of our front office staff to see if they could use your help if you are interested in volunteering your time this week to help WES Faculty & Staff Email Directory.

#AllforONE!

Where: We'll see you at 324 Gaillard Road, Moncks Corner, SC 29461

Time: We'll be here from 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

What Will We Do: Come out, see your friends from school, meet your teacher, grab some Kona Ice, join PTO, Get the information you need for transportation, meet some of our business partners, support your the school by purchasing your student's WES School Shirt & car magnet, drop off your student's school supplies so you don't have to carry everything in on the first day of school, Thursday, August 15th. 😁

Be sure to complete your registration prior to Meet the Teacher Night.

*To ensure appropriate placement of students, we will not be able to provide classroom schedules for parents who have not registered their child(ren).

All Wise Owls that can be assigned a bus number will be assigned a bus number.

Safety is of the utmost importance. We will continue with the Red, Yellow, and Green Tags for our PK - 2nd Grade & Mighty Owl Students.

Red tags are for all students that do not have a signed release form from a parent. For all red-tag students, the parent or guardian has to be at the stop.

* Sitting in the car or standing at the front door does not count as receiving that child. Those students will be brought back to the school.

Yellow tags will be issued to the PK - 2nd-grade students who have a sibling(s) in the 3rd - 5th grade riding the bus and parents have signed the release form for them to get off with that student. When issuing these tags, please include the older sibling's name at the bottom of the yellow tag. The bus driver will match the name on the yellow tag to the sibling with the green tag.

*Quick reminder, this has to be a sibling. We cannot release a student with a next-door neighbor who is in the 4th grade.

Green Tags will be issued to students in PK-2nd grade whose parent/guardian signed a release form for them to get off alone. All these students will get a green tag.

*We will have Tag sign-ups at Meet the Teacher Night (in classrooms)

All Wise Owls will be assigned a Car Rider Number.

We will be providing car rider tags during Meet the Teacher Night in the classrooms. Students with siblings will get the car rider tag in the classroom of the youngest sibling. Families will be provided 2 tags and 1 bookbag tag for every student. Additional car rider tags will be available for purchase.

We will have a number of our after school partners with us during Meet the Teacher Night to tell you about their programs if you are looking for extended day care. Unfortunately, our program does not accept 4-year old Wise Owls at this time, so these programs may be a viable option.

We will be contacting families on our waiting list for Owl's Nest this week about openings due to staffing. Our goal is to be able to accept all of our families on our waiting list. 😊

Every student at WES will go on a minimum of 4 Field Studies (field trips) this school year which will include off campus Field Studies and on campus Field Studies. To ensure that our students remain safe while off-campus, we are asking families to purchase a WES School Spirit Shirt. Students will be able to wear their School Spirit Shirt on all of their Field Studies which has our 2024-25 AllforONE! logo and our school's contact information (on the front of the shirt). Also, 100% of the proceeds will go back in our field trip budget to ensure that we can keep costs down for families.

The shirts will be for sale during Meet the Teacher Night for $10; however, families will be able to buy their student's shirt after the school year begins as well. We are excited for all of our Wise Owls having their WES School Spirit Shirt this year! 😄

*shirts will come white with the blue logo or blue with the white logo

Did you know that your child attends one of the best schools in the state of South Carolina, and the Secret Gem of the Lowcountry?

Well, make sure you share it! Get your WES Car Magnet and share it proudly everywhere you go. WES Car Magnets will be available during Meet the Teacher Night for $10 a piece, and you will be able to grab 1, 2, or 10 throughout the school year. The proceeds from our Car Magnet fundraiser will go towards student clubs and activities.

Immunizations

Each year the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) provides the South Carolina Immunization Requirements for Childcare and School.

Immunization requirements are regularly updated by DHEC. The following changes have been made for the 2024-2025 school year for students in third grade, eighth grade, ninth grade and 11th grade – this information is also available on DHEC’s Childcare & School Vaccine Requirements website.

• Third grade: two doses of hepatitis A vaccine with both doses received on or after the first birthday and separated by at least 6 months.

View full state immunization requirements for childcare 2024-2025 here.

Medications

BCSD would also like to remind its families of the protocol for giving prescription and non-prescription medicines at school:

• In order for a child to be given non-prescription medicines at school, the child’s parent/guardian must sign a permission form. Schools may have special rules for non-prescription medicines and may require parents or guardian to sign additional forms.
• In order for a child to be given a prescription medicine at school, the child’s health care practitioner and the child’s parent or guardian should sign a separate permission form. Because the instructions for some medications require more space than is provided on the form, some health care practitioners may prefer to use a practice specific form.

In both cases, schools may have special rules for prescription medicines and may require parents or guardians to sign additional forms. A responsible adult should deliver the medicine and the permission form to the school. The medicine must be in the original container with the label on it.

For information, please visit BCSD’s Nursing Services page.

It's hard to have someone go to sleep at a specific time at night. With school beginning on Thursday, a wonderful trick to getting your students back on a school schedule is to wake them up EARLY and keep them up until its time for bed. 🤭

Assigning students to the right classroom can be the difference between a student excelling and loving school and a student doing the opposite, and the trick is, there is no right teacher or wrong teacher. At WES, we have the best teachers in the world! However, like with anything, teachers have areas of strengths, and we really try to pair students with teachers who have specific strengths that would be beneficial for our Wise Owls.

A lot of work goes into assigning classes.

1. Teachers look at their rosters in March-May (of the previous year) and add student information including student test data, social-emotional notes, important feedback, and other information gathered throughout the year. Parent feedback is also reviewed and added into the equation.
2. Based on teachers' comments and feedback and parent input, the admin team and coaches build classes for the upcoming year.
3. After the classes are built, the classes are shared with the previous grade level to determine if any students should be moved or added. The classes are also shared with the school counselors, related arts teachers, and special education teachers.
4. Once the final approval is provided by all of the students' previous teachers, parent input is revisited and teachers are assigned to classes based on their perceived strengths.
5. Then, classes are shared with teachers, and then families.

We ask that all of our families to please trust in our process of assigning classes. Our goal is to ensure that every student is with the adults and students who will provide them the greatest academic and social & emotional success as possible.

Saturday, August 24th - Ice Cream Social

Friday, September 6th - Movie Night

Saturday, October 12th - Fall Carnival

Saturday, February 8th - Sweetheart Dance

Friday, March 7th - Boosterthon Fun Run

Thursday, April 10th - Spring Fling (a part of STEAM Night)

Friday, May 23rd - 5th Grade Celebration

Students at WES will receive school breakfast and school lunch at no cost to the student during 2024-25 school year, under the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). The Community Eligibility Provision is a federally funded initiative, which serves schools with high percentages of students from low-income families. The program was established in 2010 and is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

If a negative balance exists on a student's account from previous school years, the balance will need to be paid in full.

Breakfast and lunch will be served on every day. If your student wants to eat breakfast at school, they should arrive to school between 6:50 a.m. - 7:18 a.m. Breakfast will no longer be served after 7:45 a.m.

“South Carolina Compulsory Attendance Law requires that a parent or guardian shall require his child to attend regularly a public or private school or kindergarten of this State which has been approved by the State Board of Education, a member school of the South Carolina Independent Schools and Association, a member school of the South Carolina Association of Christian Schools, or some similar organization, or a parochial, denominational, or church-related school, or other programs which have been approved by the State Board of Education f rom the school year in which the child is five years of age before September first until the child attains his seventeenth birthday or graduates from high school.”

• Our school's website is found at https://www.bcsdschools.net/o/wes
• WES Facebook page is Whitesville Elementary School Wise Owls
• The Weekly Hoots newsletter will be emailed & texted to families every Sunday evening. Please be sure to have your updated information in PowerSchool.
• Our PTO's website is wiseowlspto.com.
• Our PTO's Facebook page is Whitesville Wise Owls PTO.
• Schoology: Teachers will update their grades weekly.
• Rooms: Our two-way form of communication at WES. Every teacher at WES will use Rooms as a tool for communication.