This coming week is Red Ribbon Week across District 50. Red Ribbon Week was started when drug traffickers in Mexico City killed DEA agent Kiki Camarena in 1985. This began the continuing tradition of displaying red ribbons as a symbol of intolerance toward the use of drugs. The mission of the Red Ribbon Campaign is to present a unified and visible commitment toward’s the creation of a Drug-Free America.This year’s Red Ribbon Week theme is Life is a movie, film drug free. We wanted to expand that to Life is a movie, life healthy.The theme is a call to action to speak out in support of healthy choices. It also serves as a reminder that we are all empowered with shaping the communities around us through positivity, bravery and strength.

Our school will be celebrating “Red Ribbon Week” from October 28- November 1, 2024. Red Ribbon Week is a national campaign to focus on healthy lifestyle choices. The following is a schedule of activities that your child is invited to participate in this week. Help us promote healthy choices! Monday's collective action is written below. Click on the attachment to see the whole week's plan.

Monday, 10/28 "We're Ready to ROAR"

Wear RED or any color that makes you ROAR today!

Family Discussion: Be Kind to Your Mind! Have a chat about how drugs can affect your mind and body and how to handle situations your child may experience.

Each school year, as part of our school curriculum, all Intermediate students will participate in one lesson focusing on personal safety in a program called Erin’s Law.

Erin’s Law is named after childhood sexual assault survivor, author, speaker and activist Erin Merryn, who is the founder and President of Erin’s Law, which is registered with the State of Illinois and the IRS as a 501 (c)(4) non-profit social welfare organization.

After Erin introduced the legislation in her home state of Illinois, the bill was named “Erin’s Law” after her by legislators and it has caught on nationwide. Illinois is the first state by law to mandate child sexual abuse prevention. As of June 2018 Erin’s Law has been passed in 35 states.

“Erin’s Law” requires that all public schools in each state implement a prevention-oriented child sexual abuse program. As referenced in the Woodland School District 50 Parent/Student Handbook, the law, commonly referred to as “Erin’s Law”, requires educators to take part in specialized training about sexual abuse and the recognition of warning signs of sexual abuse in children. The law also requires “age-appropriate curriculum” be presented to our students. This age appropriate curriculum will be taught to all of our Intermediate students.

Unless you notify us in writing (email is sufficient), your child will participate in the program. If you DO NOT want your child included, we will be happy to exclude them upon your WRITTEN NOTIFICATION to your child’s homeroom teacher and myself. As a parent, please feel free to discuss this with your child. If there are any questions, please ask. The schedule of the lessons is listed below so you are aware of the date that these lessons will be taught.

As you know parent teacher conferences will be happening just before the Thanksgiving Holiday. The sign up process for these conferences will be conducted through Skyward Family Access. While it is currently NOT open for sign-ups, it will be opening within the next two weeks. In preparation for this, I am including some tips, tricks, and guidance on how to best navigate and prepare to sign up.

Use the Skyward App on a Mobile Device, if possible: The interface is easy and straightforward regardless, but our initial testing shows the easiest user experience is with the Skyward Family Access App on your phone or mobile device. Here are links for those, if you don't already have it. Skyward App for Apple; Skyward App for Google/Android

Check out the video below: The video below is less than 90 seconds and will give you a brief preview of what to expect. Again please note, you will NOT be able to schedule conferences yet. So when they say, you can click on "Conferences" you won't see that on your end, yet. It will appear when the sign up window opens.

Check your ability to login: Whether you use the app or the interface from a computer, neither will help you if you can't login to Skyward. We are working to continue to use this system more and more to make is as useful as possible. From registration to report cards to refilling your student's lunch to reporting absences account you can use this system for so many things. We are excited to add registering for parent teacher conferences to that list this year.

This morning was our professional development led by our newly formed Instructional Leadership Team. This team, composed of teachers from across the building, including general education classroom teachers, specials, PE, advanced, and instructional specialists, has been tailoring their support to our staff in alignment with the Skillful Teacher research and training. Today's session was about fostering a growth mindset. Our staff engaged in important discussions, reflections, and action planning on how to inculcate a growth mindset within our students about their learning and their choices at school. The frame of mind is for adults, too! If you would like to learn more about the concept of a growth mindset, please click on some of the included information below.

What is a Growth Mindset

Resources for Parents and Kids

Growth Mindset in Adults

On the afternoon of Friday, November 1st, we will be hosting our Fall Fest School Party. This is a wonderful event to support as a parent volunteer. If you are interested in doing so, please contact your student's homeroom teacher. While this is not intended as a "Halloween Party," students are permitted- but not in anyway expected- to wear costumes provided they are appropriate for school. No depictions of violence, including blood, gore, nor weapons of any kind, including items that could be used as a weapon (a magic wand very quickly turns into a sword/spear at school, unfortunately) will be allowed. If you have any questions about this event, please reach out to your student's teacher or send me an email.

Alternative activities will be provided for students who would rather not participate for any reason.

Please note that students, while permitted to wear a costume on Friday, November 1st, should NOT wear a costume on Thursday, October 31st.

I am including this recent summary of research on cell phones in school.

"More parents now support banning cell phones at school"

By Micah Ward October 22, 2024

School districts around the country are implementing restrictive cell phone policies, and

parents say they’re on board.

Nearly 70% of adults say they’re in favor of cell phone bans during class in middle and high

schools, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. Forty-five percent of them

“strongly” support such restrictions, compared to just 24% who oppose them. Most notably, adults are more likely to back policies that only prohibit cell phone use during instruction. Whole-day restrictions are less favorable among 53% of the survey respondents, while only 36% support them. When narrowed down to K12 parents specifically, the numbers remained similar. Sixty-five percent of parents support policies that ban cell phone use during class and 36% support bans that last the entire school day.

The researchers also asked folks why they support cell phone bans in schools.

Overwhelmingly, respondents believe they lead to fewer distractions (98%), followed by:

Students would develop strong social skills (91%)

Students would be less likely to cheat (85%)

It would reduce bullying (70%)

Finally, respondents identified why they would oppose a restrictive policy. Unsurprisingly,

they believe parents should be able to reach their child when needed (86%), followed by:

A ban would be too difficult for teachers to enforce (86%)

Cell phones can be a useful tool to teach students (70%)

Parents should be able to decide if their child can use their phone in class (64%)

You can find the survey here.

Miss the Middle School Book Fair? You can still shop online HERE through 11/2.

Save the Dates!

11/12: Second Tuesday Fundraiser - Wendy's in Gurnee

11/14: November PTA General Meeting

11/15-11/16: Signature Chocolate Pick Up

Our Adopt-A-Hallway Program kicked off this week with the following homerooms taking responsibility of different areas around the bulding:

Mrs. Ziegler

Mrs. Butera

Mrs. Rosenblum

Mrs. Kohler

Mrs. Cocom

Mrs. Lother

Mrs. Del Campo

Ms. Syverud

Students were excited and took pride in making sure that our school looks great. Taking ownership in their school is a huge part of our ROAR philosophy, but more importantly it helps us to build a cohesive learning community. Some students, including two 5th graders named Ella and Natalie, have asked to have our school do a service project taking care of a wetland area in outside of the school in just the same way. We are actively looking to make something like this- a school-wide service project in the community- a reality sometime in the spring. As promised, you will see below the winning submissions from the poster contest too!

As many of you may recall, our courtyards have been an area under development over the past year. In addition to turning our West Courtyard into a native species garden, we are also working on transforming our East Courtyard into an inclusive play area for our students with special needs. This summer we got a boost in this effort from none other than Simon Property Group which manages the Gurnee Mills Mall. They dispatched their leadership team for a day of service to help us weed and work on landscaping in this space. It was a difficult job to say the least, but they tackled it willingly.

They were so excited about the project that they asked to help out beyond their day of service. Over the last several weeks, they have worked with our district to arrange for their landscaping company, Balanced Environments, to provide services and materials to us free of charge! This week, they took steps to help remove all of the invasive species, weeds, and other prickly bushes to make way for grass in the future. They plan to help us landscape this space in phases in the coming months and years to make it a play area to be proud of, including donated sod and other materials, along with their expertise. We are so grateful to Simon Property Group and Balanced Environments for their generous, professional support of our efforts to be an even more inclusive school. Specials thanks goes to the following individuals:

Randy, General Manager

Kelsey, Director of Marketing & Business Development

Alessia, Marketing Administrator

Tim, Operations Director

Peter, Central Plant Supervisor

Tracy, Senior Specialty Leasing Representative

Jon, Office Administrator

John, Administrative Assistant

Nate, Security Director

Karen, Vice President of National Accounts

Balanced Environments, Landscape Firm

Here are a few words from Kelsey Castrejon, their Director of Marketing and Business Development who has been our point-person for this collaboration: Gurnee Mills Management Team volunteers in the community on a quarterly basis. The team is excited to take on the project of the Woodland Intermediate School’s courtyard to provide space to the special needs students. This hits close to home for the team because we work closely with the WTHS Transition Program and we find it rewarding to be able to give back to the special needs students that will soon grow and development into the Transition Program. We appreciate the opportunity to partner with your team and our landscape firm, Balanced Environments, to make this project possible.

Today our students all had a chance to hear from Amber and Jessica from the Warren Special Recreation Association. In addition to learning about the programs that are offered through the WSRA, students received information about what it means to be an inclusive citizen of their community, inside and outside of school. Jessica and Amber also shared the work they do with the Special Olympics in our area, including some pictures of local athletes some of whom are Woodland alumni!

Speaking of Special Olympics, our staff Ms. Weidemann, Ms. Valkenaar, and Ms. Wodrich shared with students the many ways we are an inclusive school and how we want to continue to become even more inclusive by becoming a Unified Champion School with Special Olympics. Students learned about our Adaptive PE programs, Recess and Lunch Buddies Program, and now our efforts to make Bocce Ball an inclusive unit of study across the building. More important than any of these intiatives were the many stories that were shared about how our students have shown kindness and inclusion for our students will special needs. As was mentioned frequently, sometimes just a smile, a hello, and an invitation to play or eat lunch together can mean the world to someone.

Our school will be celebrating “Red Ribbon Week” from October 28- November 1, 2024. Red Ribbon Week is a national campaign to focus on healthy lifestyle choices. The following is a schedule of activities that your child is invited to participate in this week. Help us promote healthy choices! More details will follow in next week's edition.

Additionally, recall that our Fall Fest is on November 1st! This is the day that students are allowed to wear costumes, if they would like, and we will have classroom parties with parent volunteers. If for whatever reason, you would like your student to have alternative activities to the fall party, we will have them available. Just let your student's teacher and/or me know.

WSRA Trunk-or-Treat, Sunday 10/20 from 1-3pm, REGISTRATION required.

Middle School Book Fair will be 10/21-10/25! Preview the fair and/or set up e-wallet HERE. Volunteers needed as well.

Save the Dates!

11/12: Second Tuesday Fundraiser - Wendy's in Gurnee

11/14: November PTA General Meeting

11/15-11/16: Signature Chocolate Pick Up

Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration, Oct. 19

Join us for Woodland's Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration on Oct. 19 at Woodland Middle School! This is a districtwide event for all students, staff, and families from all four schools.

Date: Saturday, Oct. 19

Time: 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Location: Woodland Middle School, Cafeteria A (Enter through "B2" Doors)

The event will include Music & Dancing, Arts & Crafts, Food Samples, Community Organizations and more!

• Event Flyers: English / Spanish
• Facebook Event Invitation

Clearly our school was inspired by the kick off of our Adopt A Hallway program last week as we collected 103 submissions for the logo contest over just a few days! Student Leaders from PBIS teams helped to narrow down the selections. As you may have seen, students were all sent a ballot to pick 5 favorites from those on Schoology. We promise to showcase this great work in this newsletter once the election is over!

As you know doubt heard from your students, this past Thursday, October 10th we conducted our first of two legally-required lockdown drills in coordination with the Gurnee Police Department. The drill proceeded without issue and was over inside of 15 minutes. After that, we were back to our regular school day.

Looking ahead, on Tuesday, October 15th, after the long weekend, we will be conducting both our Bus Evacuation Drill and another Fire Drill. Safety is paramount at schools and we want to conduct these drills early in the year to maximize our preparedness for any of these potential emergencies, no matter how unlikely they are.

We are excited to continue to host cultural enrichment and awareness assemblies throughout the year. Our district's motto states that we are, "Together, inspiring tomorrow's creators, thinkers and leaders." These assemblies are part of living that mission by ensuring that our students understand that they are part of a diverse community and everyone deserves to be acknowledged, included, and feel that they belong. As part of this assembly, our students will hear from staff members and participants in the Warren Special Recreation Association. This organization is staff is "made up of full time members who have degrees as specialists in Therapeutic Recreation. In addition, we employ more than 50 part-time staff who work with us during our four programming season." You can learn more about this organization which includes member districts such as Warren Township and the Gurnee, Grandwood, and Wildwood Park Districts.

On the afternoon of Friday, November 1st, we will be hosting our Fall Fest School Party. This is a wonderful event to support as a parent volunteer. If you are interested in doing so, please contact your student's homeroom teacher. While this is not intended as a "Halloween Party," students are permitted- but not in anyway expected- to wear costumes provided they are appropriate for school. No depictions of violence, including blood, gore, nor weapons of any kind, including items that could be used as a weapon (a magic wand very quickly turns into a sword/spear at school, unfortunately) will be allowed. If you have any questions about this event, please reach out to your student's teacher or send me an email.

Please note that students, while permitted to wear a costume on Friday, November 1st, should NOT wear a costume on Thursday, October 31st.

We would like to invite any of our Woodland Intermediate students’ family members who are veterans or active duty military personnel to a celebration on Monday, November 11, 2024.

Please join us for a small ceremony from 9:45-10:30 am in the Intermediate School Multi-Purpose Room. Please plan to arrive between 9:30 - 9:45 so that we can begin promptly at 9:45 am. All guests must sign-in at the front office, so please allow time to do so.

Students may arrive with their Veteran at that time, or they will be dismissed from class to attend the event.

If you would like to participate in this event, please fill out this included form.

In addition to this assembly, our students will have an opportunity to feature their loved ones who have served in the armed forces through a display in our Hallway of Heroes. More directions will be sent home on October 28th; however, these displays have typically feature a picture (no original phots please), the family member's name, their years of service and and their relationship to the Woodland Intermediate School community.

"A" Letter The Is Questions Both To Answer The

Wrote it backwards, but to make it easier and more obvious, I will write it Forwards Because I want every child to be here every day possible!

The Answer to Both Questions Is the Letter "A"

Signature Chocolate Fundraiser EXTENSION!! Due to the no school days, we will accept paper order forms through Tuesday 10/15. Online orders ONLY will remain open through Thursday 10/17. This fundraiser is crucial to the success of the PTA and we appreciate your support!! More details.

DunkFest Registration CUT OFF is Tuesday 10/15. DunkFest is a 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament held on Friday 10/18 at Woodland Middle. ALL 3rd-8th grade students are eligible to participate. More DETAILS and REGISTRATION.

October PTA Meeting, Thursday 10/17 at 7pm via ZOOM. REGISTRATION required.

WSRA Trunk-or-Treat, Sunday 10/20 from 1-3pm, REGISTRATION required.

Middle School Book Fair will be 10/21-10/25! Preview the fair and/or set up e-wallet HERE. Volunteers needed as well.

WISE – Woodland Inclusion and Special Education Empowerment, Oct. 23

Introducing WISE – Woodland Inclusion and Special Education Empowerment! This initiative started last year as a Special Education Resource Group for parents, and we are ready to bring you a whole new series of programs for year two. WISE will be a great place to connect with other district families, get to know Woodland staff members who can help with resources, and get answers to your questions.

Join us for the first WISE meeting of the 2024-2025 School Year:

• Date: Wednesday, Oct. 23
• Time: 5:30 - 7 p.m.
• Location: Woodland Educational Support Center (District Office)
• Register/RSVP

At the end of the school day today, we were joined by Gurnee Mayor Tom Hood, Superintendent Dr. Robert Machak, and Gurnee Police School Resource Officer Det. Kelly Hansen for a school-wide virtual assembly to kick-off our Adopt-A-Hallway Initiative. As you may recall from last week's edition, this project allows homerooms to voluntarily take ownership of a hallway for a week to help make sure it remains neat and tidy. To be sure, no students are being asked to do anything that should be done by a custodian only, such as mop a floor. Rather, we want our students to take pride, responsibility and ownership for their school environment. Mayor Hood spoke eloquently about how this is a great example of civic duty and good citizenship. To cap things off, Laurel Wodrich, who is the inspiration behind this entire idea, explained that we are holding a competition to design our new logo for the signs that will mark the hallways and areas that have been adopted that week. Students received additional details through Schoology this afternoon. Below you can find this information along with some great photos our virtual assembly today.

This past week 4th graders on the 4th West Hallway engaged in a very smelly and slimy, but fun and engaging science lesson. As you can see, they dissected squid! This science experience is done outside to help ensure that our school remains smelling fresh, not to mention it makes the clean up process a lot easier! Engaging in STEM opportunities like this is emblematic of our desire to make children excited about school, to make them understand that the world of knowledge extends beyond our walls, books, and screens. We are grateful to all of our teachers for being willing to get their hands dirty (literally!) to ensure our students have such a great learning opportunity. Don't worry, if your student isn't on 4th West our other hallways do many of the same things, but not necessarily on the same day!

Midterms: As you may recall from previous editions, Family Access in Skyward is now open for you to review your students Learning Habits initial scores. Here again are the instructions on how to locate and understand them:

To understand your child’s performance rating please refer to the Standards-Based Grading and Reporting website to find the rubrics that describe expectations. Rubrics are available in both English and Spanish.

Directions for accessing Skyward Family Access:
Sign in to Skyward Family Access with your username and password to view your child’s learning habits. There is a “Forgot your Login/Password?” option if you are having trouble logging in, or you can send an email to AccessHelp@Dist50.net.

Assessment Data: Throughout the first few weeks of school, students take several assessments to help us determine their starting point for learning this year. MAP and iReady are two assessments that the district uses in both the Fall and the Spring to help us gauge students progress academically. Additionally, the Illinois Assessment for Readiness (IAR) scores from last spring are returned to schools at this time. We want to make sure you have all of this data too! Students will be coming home with score reports for these assessments on Thursday, October 10th. You may have received one or more of these reports already; rest assured the plan is to have all of them to you by the aforementioned date.

In the next two weeks, we have three separate emergency drills that students will engage in to boost our preparedness and safety.

On October 15th in the morning, we will do a bus evacuation drill and another fire drill (we want to make sure we get as many of these types of drills done before the weather turns too much!). These types of drills are ones that generally cause less anxiety among students and staff, but I still wanted to give you a heads up for these drills to help your students prepare.

More significant in the minds of most families are Lockdown Drills. The Illinois School Code requires all Illinois schools to conduct several types of emergency drills, including Lockdown Drills. On the morning of Thursday, October 10th, in conjunction with the Gurnee Police Department, we will be conducting one of these lockdown drills in our school.

I wanted to make sure you understand what is and is NOT involved in this drill. What is absolutely NOT involved in this drill is any play-acting of an active shooter in our building. While police are on the scene to supervise, they are NOT drilling their potential actions in such event at the same time. (running through the building with weapons drawn, etc).

What IS involved in this drill is an announcement over the public announcement speakers that the school is going into a lockdown. Students will stay in or go to the nearest secure location, doors will be locked, lights turned off, and black-out safety screens rolled down over doorway windows to the room. Students will move to a location within the room to be out of anyone's line of sight and they will remain quiet. The drill will last less than 15 minutes. Administrators and law enforcement staff will walk the building to ensure that the aforementioned precautions are all taken. Then we will make an announcement that the drill is over and students can return to school as normal.

If, for any reason, you would prefer your student to not participate in this, we can make alternative arrangements for them.

It is an unfortunate reality that, though these situations are extremely rare, we do need to educate and prepare our students and staff to know what to do in these situations. It is of little solace to most that a fire in a school is far more likely (though still extremely unlikely!) than an active shooter situation. The trauma of active shooting situations, both physical and emotional, is severe and seemingly ever-present in our popular culture and news media. For that reason, regardless of statistics, I feel it is important to spend a little bit more time addressing this type of drill than a fire drill. If you have any questions or concerns about this issue, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Here are a few tips about talking with children as a parent about a lockdown drill.

As I frequently lament, our students sometimes act as though their phone is an extension of their hand. To attempt to take it away from them is equivalent to asking them to sever a finger. (This is a real documented psychological issue in the world!). In any event, using our devices is often a hard habit to break for anyone, parents included. From keeping track of kids to family stuff to work (not to mention whatever game you have on your device), most of us have phones that demand/we give our attention.

I am linking here to what is the equivalent of a phone jail.

Whether you like this version of one of the million others out there is not the issue. Rather, I am just suggesting that having something like this can help everyone in the family be more mindful of their device usage. I have one and challenge myself to put my phones in there for multiple hours a day. It's good for me, my kids, and my family to personally be more available in the moment, not to mention modeling good behavior or even keeping myself from becoming addicted to screens, too! I have found this helpful and am sharing it in the hopes that you do too.

Second Tuesday Fundraiser: MOD Pizza 10/8, all day. 20% of sales will be donated to the PTA. Show this FLYER or enter code MODGIVES20 when ordering online. More DETAILS.

The annual SIGNATURE CHOCOLATE FUNDRAISER is LIVE!! All paper order forms and payments are DUE on Wed October 9th. This fundraiser is crucial to the success of the PTA and we appreciate your support!! More details.

Save the Date! - DunkFest 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament will be taking place on Friday 10/18. ALL 3rd-8th grade students are eligible to participate. More DETAILS and REGISTRATION.

October PTA Meeting, Thursday 10/17 at 7pm via ZOOM. REGISTRATION required.

Miss the Primary Book Fair? Families are still able to shop online HERE through October 7th. All online sales will count toward our totals.

Midterm reports for Trimester 1 will be available on October 4th through Skyward Family Access. These midterms will focus solely on Learning Habits, rather than reporting on academic performance at this time. Academics and Learning Habits are reported separately allowing teachers to identify and address specific behaviors that may impact student learning.

The Learning Habits are based on our ROAR expectations of demonstrating Respect, Ownership, Accepting, and Ready. Students are assessed based on the following performance ratings: 4 - Exemplary, 3 - Meeting, 2 - Approaching and 1 - Beginning. It is the goal that all students are Meeting expectations.

Strong learning habits form the foundation for success in all academic areas. Early in the school year, we want to ensure that your child is building essential skills such as:

• Time management and organization

• Active participation and engagement in lessons

• Perseverance and resilience in the face of challenges

• Responsibility for completing assignments and tasks on time

By focusing on these habits first, we are setting students up for long-term success. As they develop these skills, their academic achievements will naturally follow, and future reports will reflect their progress in content areas.

We encourage you to review your child’s learning habits report carefully and discuss how they can continue to grow in these areas. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact your child’s teacher.

To understand your child’s performance rating please refer to the Standards-Based Grading and Reporting website to find the rubrics that describe expectations. Rubrics are available in both English and Spanish.

Directions for accessing Skyward Family Access:
Sign in to Skyward Family Access with your username and password to view your child’s learning habits. There is a “Forgot your Login/Password?” option if you are having trouble logging in, or you can send an email to AccessHelp@Dist50.net.

On Friday, September 27th, all of our student had an opportunity to hear from a local author, Vicky Weber. She has authored a myriad of different children's and picture books. Addiitonally, she collaborated on the book version of the Disney Movie, Encanto. She spoke to our students as part of our celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. Specifically, she gave students examples of and the historical background and context for Taino Tales.

Intermediate Teacher Laurel Wodrich and School Resource Officer Kelly Hansen came up with a great new initiative to promote our ROAR behaviors of responsibility and ownership called "Adopt A Hallway." We are excited that Mayor Hood will be joining us on October 4th, along with Dr. Machak, to kick off this program with Zoom meeting with our whole school. Ms. Wodrich and Det. Hansen describe the program as follows:

Encouraging students to be better citizens in our school starts with fostering a sense of responsibility and ownership in their daily actions. When students take accountability for their behavior, they not only develop integrity but also contribute to a positive and respectful school environment. This includes simple yet impactful habits, like cleaning up after themselves, respecting shared spaces, and supporting one another. By embracing accountability, students learn that their actions have consequences and can either uplift or diminish the community around them. Promoting this mindset helps shape a school culture where everyone plays an active role in maintaining a clean, respectful, and supportive environment for all.

Adopt A Hallway at Woodland Intermediate is a way for classrooms to sign up/volunteer for one week at a time to make a personal contribution to a cleaner school environment. The idea of the program is to promote good citizenship, taking ownership, and accountability of our actions. The goal of Adopt A Hallway is to have the students make sure our school is looked after and to take pride in it. The students will be tasked with making sure no trash is in their assigned hallway, check bathrooms, lost and found, and report any messes or spills to an adult. (We are NOT asking students to clean toilets, take out the trash, clean up dangerous spills or fluids, etc. Just pick up general papers, paper towels, straighten up the lost and found, put posters back on the walls, etc.)

Each week, classrooms will have the opportunity to participate in the Adopt A Hallway program. The goal is for students to take pride in maintaining our school by keeping their assigned hallways clean. Responsibilities will include picking up any trash, checking bathrooms, tidying the lost and found, and reporting any messes or spills to the front office. This is a great opportunity for students to become great citizens inside our school and community by holding themselves accountable and taking ownership of their actions.

This is not the post where I blame all of society's ills on violent video games, although I don't know that they help much. Rather, this is my reminder for many or introduction for some, that when students are playing games online together, it's an opportunity for exposure to bad language and behavior at best and even dangerous predators at worst. The examples are legion of when online predators have used games as rudimentary as Clash of Clans or popular as Fortnite to establish connections with minors and eventually lure them into terrible situations. Here is an article about the difficulty Roblox is having keeping pedophiles off of their gaming site. Within it, you will discover that "Since 2018, police in the US have arrested at least two dozen people accused of abducting or abusing victims they’d met or groomed using Roblox, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Businessweek." I urge you to be vigilant regarding what games children are playing and more importantly who they are connecting with online.

Many of these gaming sites turn into group chats that students assume, sometimes rightly so, that parents are not going to review the way they do with their actual text messages on their phones. Like those text messages, children even at this age group will write words and use language they do not understand and would never say out loud. For some it creates fear and anxiety, for others it exposes them to hateful speech, and still for others it creates a forum where they may write words they will eventually regret and that might get them involved with law enforcement.

I urge you to discuss these issues with your students and actively monitor their behavior with online gaming. Here is an excellent resource with some tips for parents about how to do this effectively.

If all else fails, go on Ebay and find them an original Nintendo without any internet connection. And remember, up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, b, a start will get you 33 lives on Contra as the title screen scrolls over. (Add select before start if you are doing two player, just saying).

The annual SIGNATURE CHOCOLATE FUNDRAISER is LIVE!! The packets and instructions were sent home this week. This fundraiser is crucial to the success of the PTA and we appreciate your support!! More details.

Save the Date! - DunkFest 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament will be taking place on Friday 10/18. Stay tuned for more details and registration information.

Miss the Elementary Book Fair? Families are still able to shop online HERE through October 1st. All online sales will count toward our totals.

Miss the Primary Book Fair? Families are still able to shop online HERE through October 7th. All online sales will count toward our totals.

OPEN POSITIONS! The PTA is still looking to fill some open positions for this year. Some vacancies include Book Fair Co-Chair at INT and PRI, Dunk Fest Co-Chairs and more. Click HERE for more info on each position. Email dist50pta@gmail.com if you are interested/have questions.

We are so excited that our extracurricular activities will be going full throttle as of Monday, September 23rd!

Already this past week, two incredible performing arts opportunities have begun. Our Fall Play, A Tale of Snow White, began read throughs and rehearsals. All told between cast and crew, almost 50 students will be participating in this awesome opportunity! Additionally, our Intermediate Choir began practices this week with 107 students!!!! There are so many they are split into two rooms for rehearsals!

As of Monday, the number of students involved in activities and clubs will effectively double with the commencement of our clubs and intramural activities. With over 150 applications of students for clubs and activities, we will now have over 300 students involved in some capacity with our school outside of the school day! That represents well over 30% of our student body.

These activities have been shown to be important catalysts for new friendships and experiences, not to mention engagement and enthusiasm about school in general. Every student who joins a new club or activity has another way to feel like they belong here at Woodland District 50 and Intermediate School. We are so grateful to our teachers and staff for giving of themselves for these activities and to our families for entrusting your children to us for even more of the day. We are likewise grateful to the Board of Education and the district community at-large for their generous support of these extracurricular opportunities for students.

Please note that you should use the same drop-off and pick up procedure for students like we do at entry and dismissal. All the same rules and expectations apply!

Woodland District 50, as part of our Strategic Plan Goal to foster Social Emotional Learning and

Belonging in our schools, we continue to focus on “the practice standards of safety, inclusivity and

belonging to support students’ academic and interpersonal success”.

Beginning with the 2024-2025 school year we will be administering the FastBridge SAEBRS and

mySABERS, mySAEBRS Spanish, universal Social-Emotional Screener. This tool is designed to help us better understand and support the social and emotional needs of our students, fostering a positive and healthy learning environment. The SAEBRS informational sheets are attached to this letter and provide further information.

What is a Social-Emotional Universal Screener?

The Social-Emotional Universal Screener is a comprehensive assessment tool that evaluates students’ social-emotional competencies. It is designed to identify areas where students may need additional support and to monitor their progress over time. The screener will help us understand aspects such as:

● Emotional regulation

● Social interactions

● Self-awareness

● Relationship skills

● Decision-making abilities

Why Are We Implementing This Screener?

Our primary goal is to ensure that each student receives the support they need to thrive both academically and emotionally. By using this screener, we aim to:

1. Identify Needs Early: Detect potential social-emotional challenges early so that we can provide

timely interventions.

2. Provide Targeted Support: Tailor our support and resources to address specific needs and

strengths of individual students.

3. Promote a Positive School Climate: Foster a school environment where all students feel

supported and valued.

More information and resources are included in the attached letter and resources below.

As you know, we are firm believers in our PBIS systems at both the district and the school level. Whereas last week students ordered items and experiences with their ROAR cash, this week, our student leaders delivered them!!! In addition to expected fun items, we also champion experiences and privileges for students as incentives to purchase. For example, students have the opportunity to purchase a VIP lunch. This lunch entails a special table that is decked out with decorations and table cloth, but also comes with inviting friends from any homeroom to eat with them on this day. Similarly, students can purchase the use of the Principal's Chair for the day in their classroom.

Part of PBIS Implementation involves providing opportunities for stakeholder input and participation. Student Leaders are representatives from each homeroom. In addition to helping with the ROARazon store, they help us decide what goes in the store and also how to design effective incentives to motivate student behavior. They are official members of our Tier 1 Team!

Speaking of our Tier 1 Team, I want to thank those parents that reached out to me regarding joining as parent representatives. If you did, you will be getting an invitation shortly to come to a planning next week. If you didn't reach out yet, but our interested, please email me.

Every so often, I love to showcase some student work that finds its way to my desk. This past week, a few students dropped off their articles for a Civics/Social Studies assignment in their 4th grade class. As you can see below, they have great ideas about ways that we can make Intermediate even more amazing than it already is. I admire both their ideas and that they expressed them so well, especially to the principal of the school. I will definitely stop by their classroom next week to address some of these great suggestions! A seesaw and a dedicated real science lab are some great suggestions! Kudos to Yasmine and Olivia for sending them my way!

Online Spirit Wear Store is OPEN! Now - September 24th only. Click HERE for more details.

COMING SOON! Next week will launch our annual SIGNATURE CHOCOLATE FUNDRAISER!! Watch for the packets and instructions to be sent home early next week. This fundraiser is crucial to the success of the PTA and we appreciate your support!!

Save the Dates - September 24-25 - Primary Book Fair and Curriculum Nights. Volunteers needed.

OPEN POSITIONS! The PTA is still looking to fill some open positions for this year. Some vacancies include Book Fair Co-Chair at INT and PRI, Dunk Fest Co-Chairs and more. Click HERE for more info on each position. Email dist50pta@gmail.com if you are interested/have questions.

It would be hard to start my newsletter with anything other than addressing the last few emails you have received today regarding a recent SnapChat post that referenced our Middle School. To that end, I want to share with you a great resource from the National Association of School Psychologists that includes a host of strategies for talking to children about this issue. You can find these strategies by following this link.

I trust that you will follow the link, but I want to highlight the first three notes as they apply just as readily to you as parents- italicized language added by me- as to your children. Reassure children (and their parents) that they are safe; Validate children's (and their parents') feelings; Make time to talk. I have had a number of individual conversations today with some of you and I have tried to do all three of these and more for you. More collectively via this newsletter, let me make a few comments to try and do the same for all of you. With that said, I am providing my cell phone number in case any of you want to speak to me personally regarding any of this (847) 344-4121. I always have time to talk with you about your children's safety.

Keeping your children safe is our highest priority. I know you know that, but it bears repeating. Furthermore, knowing that and feeling that are two different things. In moments of anxiety, our hearts and our heads don't always agree. As a parent, I feel that all the time myself. To that end, I want to reiterate a few systems, procedures, and resources that are relevant to any situation such as this one. First, all of our exterior doors are locked and magnetically sealed unless you have an employee badge (our front doors requires you to badge in through two separate sets of doors). Our front office has a silent alarm to go directly to the police station when pushed. We have high-resolution cameras throughout our building. Classroom doors are equipped with blackout blinds to ensure that not only are doors locked, but no one can be visible in the room from the outside. We practice lockdown drills every year to be safe, in coordination with the Gurnee Police. Our district has installed a BluePoint first responder notification system as noted in a prior letter from Dr. Machak.

In addition to these measures, let me reiterate that we pay just as much attention to preventing and intervening safety concerns. Whenever a student makes a threat of violence to themselves or others, we conduct an official threat assessment that can involve administrators, social workers, families, and the police, if necessary. This formal interview is detailed and thorough to establish the credibility of these threats. While the vast majority of threats are not credible, we do not take any chances. Based on the outcome of this assessment, which includes a research-based scoring procedure, we respond and route students and families to the appropriate resources, conduct home visits as needed, and bring in outside agencies, if warranted. If the Gurnee Police or another outside agency gets involved, they will conduct their own separate investigation as warranted by their policies and procedures. We have a tremendous working relationship with our police department and school resource officers. For those of you who have met Detective Kelly Hansen, you know that she is valued member of our school who the students know and relate with regularly for all sorts of school events and activities. Whenever anything is of a concern locally, Officer Hansen and her GPD colleagues increase their presence and visibility around our schools and the district.

I will just close this article by repeating that I want to reassure you that your children are safe at Intermediate. Your concerns about their safety are understandable and valid. I am at the ready to talk with any and all of you about specific questions or concerns that you have. I hope these additional details and reminders about all of the ways we support safety at Woodland District 50 and Intermediate school have helped to assuage some of your anxiety. I am excited to be here at school on this coming Monday and, if I could do it and still be a good principal for all of your children- and not be in Dad mode, I would bring my 2 year-old and my 4 year-old with me. I would bring them with me without hesitation because I know they are safe here.

Don't forget to check out our robust offering of clubs and activities before and after school. You can click on the registration form and sign up still. However, we plan to close the sign-ups soon, so please act now!!!

Come SING with us! The Intermediate Choir will be starting rehearsals on September 18! If your child loves to sing, please look over the form and sign them up to sing in choir. Rehearsals will be before school at 8:05 every Wednesday. Sign-up form is HERE. More information is HERE.

Please note that students can participate in Choir in addition to the intramurals listed above. In this case, students do not have to choose between choir or intramurals. Rather, Choir is big enough that we can accommodate students to choose choir AND an intramural.

Next week begins Hispanic Heritage Month. Every month, Intermediate students gather to plan for our Cultural Enrichment Announcements. This week, students from 5th East started us off with information about Hispanic Heritage Month and the contributions of one famous Hispanic American from the block. Student announcements are posted weekly in the Cultural Enrichment section of our Intermediate Website. Next week your students will see our bulletin board come to life and later this month we will celebrate Hispanic Heritage with a very special event!! Did you know we also have spaces in our school to celebrate the cultures of our students and families?! If you are interested in helping us celebrate your family's culture, please let us know! You can contact Pam Valkennaar pvalkenaar@dist50.net, Michelle Newman mnewman@dist50.net, or complete this form: https://forms.gle/V6igsZuVccvC2Tb27

Additionally, on September 27th, we are excited to welcome our first Cultural Arts Presenter as part of our efforts to honor this month. The guest will be an author, Vicki Weber, who will share her work on Taíno Folktales.

One of our guiding principles as a school and district is to make sure that our students feel a sense of belonging, a sense of inclusion. One of the ways that we do this is by having all of our classes work together at opportunities for inclusive play. For some of our students with unique learning needs, the the large recess setting is inappropriate or challenging for them. This is part of the reason that we have pursued a special recreation space in our East Courtyard. Additionally, we have also procured, with the help of our PTA, equipment and games that are accessible to everyone. This was on full display this week when Ms. Wodrich's Life Skills Class students played Bocce Ball with students from several homerooms on the west side of the building. This is a great game that is also featured prominently in the Special Olympics. We hope to pursue our status as a Special Olympics Unified Champion School and our Bocce Ball equipment (and some day soon, official courts in the courtyard!) is a big part of that.

Your child's school picture day at:

Woodland Intermediate

will be

September 20th

Please use the link below to pre-order your portraits:

http://edclarkschoolphoto.hhimagehost.com/Fall2024WoodlandIntermediate

Picture Ordering will close at 8am on picture day.

If you are having issues with the link copy and paste this into your browser:

https://AccessMyEvent.com/3P6SQ2

Thursday 9/19: September PTA meeting, 9am at ESC (in person)

Thursday 9/19: Elementary Extravaganza! Elementary East Gym 5:30-7:30pm. This event will feature the Elementary Book Fair, Spirit Wear sales, Read aloud story hour from 5:30-6:30, photos with Wiley, and a FREE raffle. Click HERE for more information. Volunteers needed.

Online Spirit Wear Store is OPEN! Now - September 24th only. Click HERE for more details.

Save the Dates - September 24-25 - Primary Book Fair and Curriculum Nights. Volunteers needed.

OPEN POSITIONS! The PTA is still looking to fill some open positions for this year. Some vacancies include Book Fair Co-Chair at INT and PRI, Dunk Fest Co-Chairs and more. Click HERE for more info on each position. Email dist50pta@gmail.com if you are interested/have questions.

We are very excited to include our offerings and registration for Fall Intramurals & Clubs that will begin in a few short weeks. As you will see when you click on the registration form, there is a robust offering of clubs and activities before and after school. We try to ensure that our offerings address student interests across the spectrum of possibilities. Have athletic, artistic, and academic options. From gardening to gaming, newspapers to sports with nets (volleyball and basketball) we hope there is something for everyone. Space is of course limited, but we are committed to the idea that we want as many people to participate in our programs as possible. To that end, we handle registration in the following way. First, we ask you to indicate your top three choices. While can't guarantee a specific choice in that list, we are committed to getting you one of those three options, whenever possible. In terms of students participating in more than one activity, this is possible. However, we are not going to give any one student two activities if it is at the expense of a child having to get zero opportunities to participate.

Another reason we request your top three choices is that it eliminates any issues of who found the form first and was able to check their email at the right time! I have been there and it's not fun!!! I had alarms on my phone last month every five minutes before the local swim class place opened registration so that I was sure to get my daughter a spot. We don't do that!!! Instead, we leave the window open for a solid week to give everyone a chance to respond. If any one activity does not have enough space to accommodate those who are interested, then we do a randomized lottery with the preference information we have collected. Responses are due by the end of the day on Friday, September 13th. I want to close by saying we appreciate all of our staff members who run these activities for our students- it creates great new avenues for students to make friends, forge relationships, and learn new skills.

We were thrilled to host our families this past week for our curriculum nights. In addition to opportunities to learn about the scope and sequence teachers have planned for student learning, we also had several community organizations on hand. Representatives from local health resources and our WNPL Library were on hand, not to mention our PTA with their spirit wear and Scholastic Book Fair. We are so grateful to all of the volunteers that helped make this a robust event of parent engagement for our school community. If you have any ideas, feedback, or suggestions on how we can further engage the parent community, please send them my way!

As you know, every Friday, we have a shortened schedule for students. This schedule allows us to embed professional learning into our staff members' work day. Research has shown that job-embedded professional learning is especially valuable for improving everything from student engagement to student learning to staff morale. On our Fridays at Intermediate we have a rotating series of professional development sessions at the district, school, and team levels.

Our school-based Fridays are being organized by our newly formed Instructional Leadership Team, composed of content-area specialists, classroom, and special area teachers, along with the support of administrators. This group will be organizing and delivering a series of sessions that draw from the work of Jon Saphier's The Skillful Teacher. Our first session, given where we are in the year, focused on establishing, refining, and maintaining routines for learning in the classroom. Certainly such things as how to line up come to mind, but our session pushed the typical sense of routines to address areas such as social-emotional and academic expression. For example, what is your classroom routine for how students present their work, provide constructive criticism to peers, and receive it themselves? Teachers and teams worked together to share best practice and design and plan for implementing these and other routines in their classrooms. Future topics will include everything from establishing a growth mindset, activating prior knowledge, providing high-quality feedback on student work, and more.

One of the most important features of this series of school-based learning is that it is being designed, led, and ultimately delivered by members of the instructional community in our building. We value teachers' voices in making sure that the supports we offer are in fact the supports they need and want. We are very grateful to our teacher leaders for supporting one another in these ways.

As many of you know, students earn ROAR cash which they can use to buy experiences and items in our ROARazon store. This coming week, the will get a chance to shop in this virtual store with both the physical and virtual cash (ClassDojo) that they have earned in the last two weeks. The students have a voice in what is available to them at the store throughout the year. Each homeroom has a Student Leader that works with our PBIS Team, composed of staff members. In addition to helping manage PBIS events, these representatives provide insight into student interests and perspectives to help us respond accordingly. Speaking of representation, we would love to have a parent representative(s) on our PBIS committee! The commitment is 1 hour a month to just meet with our team and provide us with feedback and perspective as to how PBIS is working from your vantage point. If this is something that interests you, please email Mr. Sheldon at tsheldon@dist50.net.

Periodically, we have fun initiatives to promote student engagement and school spirit. This can involve wearing spirit wear or items related to student passions and interests. Our first spirit week is next week; you can see the schedule in the images below. Participation is always voluntary.

It's hard to keep up with the social media trends and apps, but one of the most prominent of late is TikTok. Certainly, it has gotten much press exposure recently due to concerns about data safety and national security concerns. However, most of us are aware of it due to random video trends with viral videos of people flipping water bottles and reacting to it as if it was the moon landing. While I am sure everyone is aware that the minimum age requirement for TikTok is 13 (older than any student at Intermediate), I am also aware that some of our students find their way to this app with or without parent knowledge or permission.

With that in mind (and stressing that I am not endorsing this app- the opposite in fact!) I am including a link that gives parents information about this app and, most importantly, the features that it has to better supervise children using the app and also setting limits. It contains useful information more generally about ways to help parents monitor other apps with device-level controls too.

Did you miss the Intermediate Book Fair? You can still shop online HERE through Sept 16th. All online sales through this link will also count toward our book fair totals.

Tuesday 9/10: The first Second Tuesday Fundraiser of this year is Tuesday Sept 10th from 5-8pm at Steak 'n Shake! 10% of ALL sales will be donated to the PTA. More details.

Thursday 9/19: September PTA meeting, 9am at ESC (in person)

Thursday 9/19: Elementary Extravaganza! This event will include the Elementary Book Fair, Spirit Wear sales and more. Stay tuned for more information. Volunteers needed.

OPEN POSITIONS! The PTA is still looking to fill some open positions for this year. Some vacancies include Book Fair Co-Chair at INT and PRI, Dunk Fest Co-Chairs and more. Click HERE for more info on each position. Email dist50pta@gmail.com if you are interested/have questions.

This school year, as you may have already seen or heard about, our Intermediate Building is sporting some cool new features and fixtures! First of all, the vast majority of classrooms have had interactive flat panels installed. These do everything a whiteboard and a projector could do together and much, much, more! Our staff is doing a great job incorporating these devices into their instruction and it is just one more way we make learning exciting and engaging.

A second great new feature are our flatscreen TVs in our Cafeteria. Trust me as you have heard before-and will hear from often- I am not the biggest fan of screens all the time. However, these have their place and time. We use these screens to communicate important information, provide great conversations questions "Which do you prefer roller skates or scooters? Discuss!" (This is the verbalization of an image shown), and even help students track their own behavioral performance. As they may have mentioned (or you can ask about), we expect students to get themselves quiet and ready to travel at Intermediate at the end of lunch. The graphic displayed shows how the hallways are doing and also tracks their progress towards earning incentives for their homerooms and hallways!

A final feature we wanted to highlight is that we have added more bottle filling stations, along with new and improved water fountains, to high traffic locations in our building. Not only do these stations help save the environment by cutting down on plastic waste, they also help speed up water breaks (every second counts!). As we saw this week with the heat wave, staying hydrated is an important part of students being ready and able to learn.

We will continue to make sure that your students have nothing, but the best here at Woodland Intermediate and District 50 and that includes our physical plant too!

Don't forget that we have our curriculum nights coming up this week! They are from 6-7:30 pm. For those of you who have students in Advanced and Challenged Classes, please see the included schedule. You will be able to get information from all of your teachers to the greatest extent possible.

6:00-6:45 Homeroom Presentations

6:50-7:05 AMA/CMA Presentations (CMA teachers are in their homeroom locations)

7:10-7:25 ALA Presentations

Davis - Room E102

Huinker - Room E107

Matheson - Room E104

Moore - Room E101

Rejczyk - Room E103

It is that time of year again!! Time to audition for the FALL PLAY!!! Please find all the information below. Please scroll through the entire document below.

Paper forms will also be available by the LRC.

To view the update, click the link below:
https://dist50.schoology.com/school/114385267/update/7454306630

Watch out in the next week's edition for information on how to sign up for clubs and activities before and after school at Woodland Intermediate!

Good afternoon Parents,

Your child's school picture day at:

Woodland Intermediate

will be

September 20th

Please use the link below to pre-order your portraits:

http://edclarkschoolphoto.hhimagehost.com/Fall2024WoodlandIntermediate

Picture Ordering will close at 8am on picture day.

If you are having issues with the link copy and paste this into your browser:

https://AccessMyEvent.com/3P6SQ2

Woodland School District 50 aims to highlight and celebrate various cultural groups with students and staff throughout each school year.

Here at Intermediate, we support this initiative with monthly lesson resources for teachers, student-led announcements each week, informational bulletin boards in the main hallway, and, when possible, assemblies featuring presenters and/or performers for Cultural Enrichment. We also have a dedicated "Cultural Corridor" where we highlight various celebrations throughout the year and provide a short lesson to teach classes about the celebration.

But we know our Intermediate families have a wealth of cultures and experiences beyond our own. In an effort to offer personal and authentic learning opportunities to our students, we would love to integrate your family's experiences into our Cultural Enrichment & Awareness activities.

Please complete the form below if you would like to partner with our Equity Team to plan these experiences four our students. People from any and all backgrounds are invited and welcome. Your participation is appreciated!

As many of you may know, I am a big advocate that students do not need smartphones or at the very least should not be on social media, if for no other reasons than the apps terms of service say that Intermediate students are too young! (If you don't want to click on the link- the summary is 13 years old and older for basically all apps like SnapChat, etc). However, I know that with a long weekend ahead of us, it is likely and understandable that students may spend more time in front of devices or online. With that in mind, here are a few useful tools and resources to hopeful make those moments as productive and safe as possible.

CommonSense Media: Since 2003, Common Sense has been the leading source of entertainment and technology recommendations for families and schools. Every day, millions of parents and educators trust Common Sense reviews and advice to help them navigate the digital world with their kids. Together with policymakers, industry leaders, and global media partners, we're building a digital world that works better for all kids, their families, and their communities.

YouTube Parent Controls: Use this link to find directions on how to modify and/or supervise YouTube usage. In my recent experience, kids end up spending hours on this and sometimes get pulled down into rabbit-holes of questionable content.

Ways to Start the Conversation: Here is a short article on some ways to approach online behavior and usage with your students. Rather than it being a simple "yes it's fine" or "no, it's bad" conversation, it provides you with some ways to talk about usage that will be useful and hopeful create the right boundaries and guardrails for students.

9/3-9/5 - Intermediate Book Fair! Students will attend the fair during PE class during the day and the fair will be open during curriculum nights on Wednesday and Thursday for parents to attend. Preview or shop Online HERE. Volunteers needed as well.

Volunteers are needed at the PTA table at Curriculum Nights if you available. Click HERE for dates/times.

SAVE THE DATES:

Tuesday 9/10: The first Second Tuesday Fundraiser of this year is Tuesday Sept 10th at Steak 'n Shake! Stay tuned for more details.

Thursday 9/19: September PTA meeting, 9am at ESC (in person)

Thursday 9/19: Elementary Extravaganza! This event will include the Elementary Book Fair and Spirit Wear sales and more. Stay tuned for more information. Volunteers needed.

OPEN POSITIONS! The PTA is still looking to fill some open positions for this year. Some vacancies include Book Fair Co-Chairs at INT and PRI, Dunk Fest Co-Chairs and more. Click HERE for more info on each position. Email dist50pta@gmail.com if you are interested/have questions.

Wildcat Saturday Study Hall & Homework Help

Woodland offers free tutoring and instructional support for ALL Woodland D50 students in English and/or Spanish from a certified D50 teacher.

WHO: All Woodland Kindergarten - 8th Grade students can participate.

WHERE: Woodland Intermediate School, 1115 Hunt Club Road, Gurnee

WHEN: Every Saturday starting Sept. 7, 2024 (except for Winter Break, Spring Break, and school/government holidays)

TIME: 8 - 11 a.m.

We have had a fabulous start to the school year! Over the past three days, students have been forging relationships with their teachers and peers, building community in the classroom, and focusing on learning and reinforcing our routines and procedures at Intermediate. As a district and a school, we are strong believers and adherents to the philosophy of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS). At the heart of this framework is the idea that all students are great children who will make great choices when they have the proper instruction and incentives. This is not to say there is not a place for discipline, accountability, and consequences. However, we want to proactively teach and reward students for making great choices throughout their day.

You might be most familiar with PBIS relative to our ROAR matrix (Be Respectful, Take Ownership, Be Accepting, and Be Ready). We use these ideas to create our Cool Tools or clever ways to remember what to do for certain routines and procedures. For example, in the Cafeteria our Cool Tool is Eat, Neat, at Your Seat; in the hallway we say stay silent, single file, every two tiles; the bathroom requires us to be Quick, Quiet, and Clean. (Video examples included). These memorable expressions help students to remember what to do and we can reward them with ROAR cash when they do these things correctly.

At intermediate, we have taken ROAR cash into the 21st Century and use ClassDojo school-wide. The best way to think of this is a digital bank account for ROAR cash for your students. This student-friendly system helps our teachers give students positive reinforcement and also keep track of their ROAR cash. Every few weeks, they will get an opportunity to shop at our ROARazon store for tangible items and intangible privileges (using the principals chair for a day; VIP seating in the Cafeteria, etc).

We stress our routines and procedures because they provide comfort and structure for students. We sweat the details on everything. From which side of the garbage you use to throw away your lunch (prevents children going to put up trays from bumping into students leaving the cafeteria) to how they line up at recess, we likely have a system for it all. One theme that you will learn I like to empathize is the idea of doing everything even 1% better (comes from Atomic Habits by James Clear). Small changes in the aggregate can make a big difference. Sometimes the difference is not observable due to what it prevents. For example, in the included photograph you will see an example of a line we use for students to line up in number order at recess. We instituted that this year due to the fact that we noticed a disproportionate number of discipline issues at recess actually stemmed from problems lining up. Whether it was pushing to be first, standing in someone else's personal space, or going by someone that they shouldn't, students didn't make good choices in line. Adding a visual cue and designating that everyone line up in number order will help prevent this initial sparks from turning into a fire. Today's push in line can turn into tomorrow's mean text message. This can then turn into my friends hate your friends for the rest of the year and into next year when we don't even remember what started it all.

Help us reinforce the idea of sweating the details, earning roar cash, and always making great choices.

One of the most precious commodities for a school is time. To that end, we try to make the most of it throughout your child's day with us. Some of the cool tools we mentioned above help us to stay efficient, but we also attend to this relative to our master schedule. I wanted to highlight a few significant improvements that we have made to our schedule this year to make the most of your child's time with us and use it as wisely as possible.

First, we have structured our schedule such that every child has recess prior to lunch. There is a lot of research that demonstrates that this is better for students' physical health, but also their learning. Students eat more during their lunch, have fewer upset stomachs after recess, and most importantly are much calmer and more ready to learn after lunch when it's after recess. We are hopeful that this is a 1% idea (see above) that will yield substantially more than that in terms of the quantity and quality of time that students are in the classroom ready to learn.

Secondly, we do our best to address the idea of cognitive fatigue relative to students' learning. There is also plenty of research to show that students can learn better at certain times of day and also with strategic breaks. To address this, the vast majority of our students more than 85% do not have a core (math or reading) during the last hour of the day. We are prevented from achieving 100% due to other scheduling restraints with our dual language program. Additionally, we have scheduled everything from lunch and recess to PE and specials to the best of our ability to provide natural breaks in the structure of the day to help students stay ready and able to learn at their highest capacity.

Finally, we have moved to having our Advanced and Challenged classes "on team" this year. In prior years, students from Dual Language hallways would have to make a long transition to join a monolingual hallway's Advanced or Challenge classes. This created multiple issues. Class sizes were larger, walking across the building ate up time, and the instructional blocks between hallways didn't line up. By teaching our students "on team" this year, Challenged Math classes are smaller, less time is lost to transition, and no student ever feels like they are arriving late or leaving early from the rest of the class.

Speaking of making the most of every minute, I want to take a moment to talk about attendance. To the greatest extent possible, we need students in school every day to learn. By no means should anything that I write here be interpreted as expressing a desire for your students to attend when they are ill. With that being said, if there is a day they are healthy enough to attend, then we need them to be here.

Aside from obviously missing out on learning, when student's miss a day, it will be mentally harder for them to return as their anxiety grows about what they "missed" while they were out. Whether it's academic or social, the departure from this routine always requires adjustment when students return. I ask you to keep this in mind if and when your student's express anxiety about coming back to school. While it might seem like one more day at home will make things better; on the contrary, my professional experience leads to me to state that it actually will exacerbate the situation, making it even harder for them to return the following day.

I also ask that you be strategic with respect to late drop-offs and early pick-ups. The state is very specific about what accounts for a full-day versus a half-day of attendance (300 minutes & 150 minutes of instruction respectively). Lunch and recess don't count towards these totals either! So for the vast majority of students, if you are dropped off after 10:45 am, you will only get a half day of attendance. Likewise (due to lunch and recess), if you are picked up early from school before 3:00 pm, then you will also only get a half day of attendance (even if you were at school till 2:59 pm!). I know doctors/dentists/orthodontists' appointments are hard to come by, but if you have any leeway at all, keep these times in mind.

This matters for learning as well as our standing with the State. Twenty percent (20%) of our rating with the state is based on attendance. The good news is that last year, many of you heeded my advice and we reduced the number of students who were chronically truant by 33%!!! (If a student misses 18 or more days of school for ANY reason, they are considered chronically truant by the state)

PS Every year some of you will come to me asking if it's okay to take your child out of school on a vacation, perhaps looking for me to make you feel better about it. This is like asking the dentist if it's okay to have ice cream for lunch and candy for dinner. I am not going to tell you that I approve, but I also know that you might do it anyway :-)

Be sure to mark you calendars for our Curriculum Nights. I would love to say we could pull this off every year, but I don't know that the calendar will cooperate-- 4th Grade is on September 4th; 5th Grade is on September 5th. These evenings are from 6:00-7:30 pm. During these evenings your child's teacher will lay out for you what they will be learning this year, how their classroom community works together, and ways that you can stay involved and support their learning. During these events, the PTA graciously runs the Scholastic Book Fair. A portion of any purchase that you make will come back to our school. There will be books, graphic novels, school supplies, and other fun items on sale as part of this event. The PTA is always looking for volunteers for this event. If you are interested in helping, then you can sign up using this link.

One of my favorite stories from my time here was when I received a phone call from a parent who was very angry about a sign that we had in our building. She was understandably concerned because her daughter reported to her that we had a sign in the hallway that said "Being Bisexual is a Super Power!" Trust, me when I heard this, I too was shocked and concerned. However, my years of experience led me to pause before jumping to conclusions. I knew that I needed to probe a bit deeper and find out more about what was going on with this parent's concern. I assured the parent that I would investigate and get back to her. Once I spoke to the student and checked the sign, I couldn't help but laugh (I hope you do too when you look at the image below).

As you can see, the sign actually said "Being Bilingual is a super power!"

This story is wonderful for a several reasons and I ask that you keep it in your mind when your child tells you something about their day.

First, children's perception is their reality. For that student, they read the sign that way and that is what they understood to be the case. Their opinion and perception is valid and we have to address it with more information.

Second, very often the initial version of events may not be accurate or will lack important context that would make things more understandable.

Finally, keeping lines of communication open will help us to support one another and make sure we get to the bottom things.

As the year progresses, please trust that we will always work with you to make sure you have the information you need to understand anything your child reports about their school day- positive or negative. Keep this story in the back of your mind, though when you hear something that seems somewhat unbelievable...it might be their perception, but not quite the reality.

SAVE THE DATE

FREE FAMILY EVENT

Sunday August 25th 1:00pm-3:00pm

Playground Playdate and FREE Kona Ice

Come join the PTA for a fun time getting to know our new classmates and reuniting with old friends. All Woodland families are welcome to attend this FREE event! The PTA will also be accepting donations of non-perishable items for the Warren Township Food Pantry. Examples of the most needed items are listed below. There will be an information table to learn more about the PTA, become a member or purchase spirit wear for the new school year.

WHAT:

FREE Family Fun: Playground Playdate, Free Kona Ice treats

WHO:

ALL Woodland Families

WHERE:

Woodland Elementary Playground, 17261 Gages Lake Rd

WHEN:

Sunday August 25th, 1:00pm-3:00pm

DETAILS:

If you would like to bring a donation of non-perishable items for the Warren Township Food pantry, examples of the most needed items include:

-Paper Towels -Bottled Water

-Laundry Soap -Trail Mix

-Canned Pasta -Fruit Snacks

-Granola Bars -Fruit Cups/Dried Fruit

-Canned Fruits/Vegetables -Canned/Dry Soups

-Tuna -Peanut Butter

Questions? Contact Stephanie Ingram dist50pta@gmail.com

Need to renew your membership for 2024/25? Just $15 per family for the year, click HERE to join today!

Interested in Volunteering? Opportunities are listed in these emails as well as on the PTA website. Come join us!

Upcoming PTA Events:

8/25: FREE Kona Ice Playground Playdate, 1p-3p, stay tuned for more details, Volunteers Needed

8/27: August PTA Meeting, 7pm via Zoom, Registration Required

8/29: 6th Grade Curriculum Night, VOLUNTEERS Needed

9/3-9/6: Intermediate Book Fair, VOLUNTEERS Needed

9/4-9/5: Intermediate Curriculum Nights, VOLUNTEERS Needed

9/10: 2nd Tuesday Fundraiser: Steak n Shake, stay tuned for details

9/19: September PTA Meeting, 9am at ESC (in person)

9/19: Elementary Extravaganza!, stay tuned for details and volunteer information

9/24-9/25: Primary Book Fair, stay tuned for details and volunteer information

9/21: September PTA Meeting, 7pm, Registration Required

9/25: Signature Chocolate Fundraiser begins

Wildcat Saturday Study Hall & Homework Help

Woodland offers free tutoring and instructional support for ALL Woodland D50 students in English and/or Spanish from a certified D50 teacher.

Does your child need:

• Additional support in Reading, Math, or another subject area?
• A quiet place to finish homework, or work on a project?
• Help with researching or writing a paper?
• Help studying for a test?

Our certified teaching staff is ready to help! Register HERE.

WHO: All Woodland Kindergarten - 8th Grade students can participate.

WHERE: Woodland Intermediate School, 1115 Hunt Club Road, Gurnee

WHEN: Every Saturday starting Sept. 7, 2024 (except for Winter Break, Spring Break, and school/government holidays)

TIME: 8 - 11 a.m.

Before we dive into all of the details of everything happening next week, I wanted to just take a moment and highlight an important insight about the first day of school based on my years of experience as an elementary school principal.

There is a lot of anticipation and anxiety that comes with the start of a new school year, let alone the start at a new school, if that applies to your child and you. Sometimes, if the first day of school isn't perfect, students may jump to the conclusion that the year is ruined. I urge you this weekend to broach this subject with your students and let them know that you aren't expecting them to come home saying "Mom, Dad guess what?! I love every kid in my class and my teacher is so cool and every teacher I have is so cool and I didn't even see one single student that I have ever had a problem with in my whole life! And the bus ride was smooth, we went over no bumps the entire time!" That would be great, but it is not a realistic expectation for anyone at any school or any job for that matter.

By no means am I trying to lower expectations; I believe every child will have a wonderful start to the school year at Intermediate and I want every day to be a great one. Rather, I am just highlighting this so that we don't let their anticipation turn into expectation which could turn into outsized disappointment. I encourage you to foster a growth mindset with your student. Talk about what worked during the first day and what, if any, challenges there might have been and how you will navigate them together. As my favorite teacher, Fred Rogers has said "Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting and less scary.”

I am excited to start this journey together with you- we are going to have a wonderful year.

We are incredibly excited to welcome our students and families back to school starting next week! There are a lot of important details to follow in this edition of the newsletter, but I wanted to highlight a few things in a brief overview of the week.

Tuesday, August 20th: Sneak Peek from 2:00-3:30 pm at Woodland Intermediate. Students and parents come during this time to drop off school supplies in their classroom and meet the teacher. Bus Tags and CurbSmart IDs will be available with your homeroom teacher for pick-up on this day (more about this later).

Wednesday, August 21st: The First Day of School! Doors open at 8:50 am for students arriving by car or bus. Breakfast will be available in the cafeteria for those who want it from 8:50 am to 9:05 am when students are expected to be in their homerooms. Wednesday is a HALF DAY of school with an end time of 12:30 pm.

Thursday, August 22nd: This is a full day of school that ends at 3:40 pm.

Friday, August 23rd: This is ALSO a full day of school ending at 3:40 pm. I know, I know, I know, haven't we been all talking about the new schedule with Fridays ending early? Yes! However, that early release schedule will start with Friday, August 30th when classes will end at 2:30 pm.

Busses will be running with start of school, but you need to expect them to NOT be on time the first few days. Intermediate's routes are the last ones to run in the morning and the afternoon for our district. This means that any delays that accumulate from the other schools will bump into our times. These delays are the result of anything from difficult goodbyes on the first day of school (think kindergarteners) to driver's learning routes to students finding their precise stops, not to mention perennial issues like construction, weather, and traffic. Because some routes are longer or shorter than others, this means that there is often a big window of time between when busses start arriving for dismissal and when all of them have departed. These issues usually smooth themselves out by the end of the first week, for the most part.

To help you stay informed on these days when the busses are unexpectedly late or delayed, I use the Remind App. As busses arrive and depart, I will send out messages and, to the extent I am able, provide you updates on our progress with dismissal at the end of the day. Many of our 5th grade parents are used to this procedure and received a test message earlier today. If you received that message, you DO NOT need to sign up again on the lists below. If you are a 5th grade parent who did not receive a text message, then use the 5th grade link. If you are a 4th grade parent who would like to receive these updates, please use the directions provided.

5th Grade Parents: https://www.remind.com/join/876g3a9 or text @876g3a9 to the number 81010

4th Grade Parents: https://www.remind.com/join/4dkhka8 or text @4dkhka8 to the number 81010

(Special Note the list fills up at 150 people- that's why it's broken up an then I will add another list if need be)

Also, the busses have GPS tracking so I encourage you to use the My Stop App provided by the district for even more information

Don't forget to download our new "MY STOP APP by Versa Trans"

MY STOP APP *this one is to Track your child's bus*

Please use this link to view it from your browser. You may also download it from the google play store or the App Store. Use your family ID as your username and password.

Your Family ID has been setup as your USER ID and PASSWORD.

You should find your Family ID in Family Access Family Access -Student information -Family page.

Please see the included images for a map of the procedure for the pick up and drop off procedures at Woodland Intermediate. If you are a returning family, rest easy and know that nothing has changed about this procedure. If you are a new family, please do take note of the route of cars and the fact that the expectation is for one way traffic on our access road through to Cemetery Road from N Hunt Club Road. For the safety of everyone involved, please do not make a U-Turn or cut back through our parking lots.

Also, please know that our staff will always make cars wait a few extra seconds if that is what it takes to allow students to enter and exit our building safely. We ask that you grant them grace in their duties. No one is trying to make anyone late; rather everyone is trying to keep everyone safe. Please expect delays as half the school (our 4th grade families) may be adjusting to a new building, new start times, and a new procedure for picking up and dropping off.

Please also read the included letter about using our Curbsmart system to verify your identity for picking up your students. This was distributed at popsicles with principals and will be given out to those families that missed it during Meet & Greet on Tuesday.

I will be hosting a Google Chat on Tuesday, August 20th from 7-8 pm so that any parent or student can say hello, ask any last minute questions about the start of school, or any questions on other topics too! Here is a link for that meeting

Optional Office Hours

Tuesday, August 20 · 7:00 – 8:00pm

Time zone: America/Chicago

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/bnz-osey-yqc

Or dial: ‪(US) +1 432-756-7278‬ PIN: ‪386 763 339‬#

More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/bnz-osey-yqc?pin=5430142047641

Only slightly less anticipated than the all-around floor gymnastics gold medal winner in the Olympics or the Oscars is the release of your child's homeroom teacher for this school year. Many, if not most, of you will be excited and happy with what you see. Some of you may not for one reason or another and seek to reach out to me about this. Rest assured, I understand that all of your are being the best advocates for your children that you can be- that is your role as parents. That is to be expected. I assume nothing, but the best of intentions on the part of parents who have reached out or may soon reach out about their child's teacher next year. Before you see that information tomorrow morning and/or check social media, I would like to put forward a couple of thoughts I have relative to this moment as a result of my dozen years of principal experience with this moment, day, and subsequent reactions.

How are placement decisions made?: We examine a host of criteria when making placement decisions. From learning styles to assessment scores to placement in advanced classes to compatibility with other students and teachers as well as language supports, all of these criteria and more are considered. We also have taken into account the feedback that we have received from you as parents along the way, whether you gave it to us personally or to your 3rd grade teachers. We do our best to balance all of these factors to make the best choice possible for every student.

Why didn't I get the teacher I requested?: We have never guaranteed and, in fact, explicitly noted that we cannot guarantee that requests would be honored. Sometimes it is impossible to do so. For example, your child's placement in an advanced class might necessitate them being with one teacher on a team in 5th grade (the math teacher for example) as opposed to the ELA homeroom teacher you requested. In that scenario, they will still have the teacher you requested, but just not for the 15 minutes at the start of the day when attendance is taken and lunch counts are made. Other times, there are conflicts we are seeking to avoid. For example, another student in the class you requested is the same student you requested your child not be with next year. While we take into account all of the feedback we have received, we cannot always honor requests because they are impossible, in conflict with other considerations, or not something that we can equitably grant across the board to everyone. Please trust that we have made an intentional choice for your students with nothing but the best of intentions for their success this year.

Why don't my students have their best friends in their class?: It is important to keep in mind everything that I wrote above about requests and placement criteria. Furthermore, the placement of another child with yours is not something that would take precedence over that child's parents' concerns. Put another way, if your child was placed with a teacher based on another parent's request, you would understandably be concerned. I will also tell you, as you all may have experienced, it is not uncommon the bond of friendship between two students to grow, change, or even break over the course of a year, let alone a summer break.

Another thing to consider is that I have never had a year where a parent didn't acknowledge at least some regret about a request they made that was able to be met. Perhaps the dynamic with the teacher wasn't what they expected or the friendship that was previously rock-solid turned out to be quite rocky after a few weeks. As I said to many of you last year about this topic, I ask that you have patience and trust in our process. Please keep an open mind and be mindful of the sage advice of The Rolling Stones: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you might just find, you get what you need."

In order to access Skyward you use this information and follow these directions. I have also attached visual guides & directions and screenshots (in English and Spanish) to assist.

If you are NOT able to login, there are two possible reasons:

• You forgot your Login/Password and need help. Try using the “Forgot your Login/Password?” option, or you can email AccessHelp@dist50.net to request login credentials.
• Your registration is incomplete. If you have not completed all of the necessary steps, you will be unable to login to Skyward Family Access. Visit the Registration page for instructions and contact information.

When looking for your child's teacher in Skyward, did you find a "TBD" notification? Don't worry! Your child will have a teacher. If you see this notice it just means that there are still some last minute changes and adjustments happening behind the scenes due to last minute student registrations and late summer hiring to meet the needs of the district. As we finalize paperwork, and balance the class sizes, teacher assignments will be updated.

Basic bus route information will be available in Skyward this year, but for a more detailed schedule for those with busing needs that fluctuate throughout the week, please refer to Versatrans e-Link. (https://versatransweb04.tylertech.com/woodland/elinkrp/Login.aspx) Bus times will continue to adjust slightly over the next few weeks as new students are added to the bus routes, so check back closer to the start of school for the most accurate information.

If you are new to the district and did not have an opportunity to sign up for Band last spring, please visit our website and then contact the band directors as soon as possible so we can get your information and discuss the process for signing up for 5th Grade Band. Band is not a required class, but a fun opportunity for our 5th graders! Band starts shortly after the school year begins, so the sooner you contact us the better. Enjoy the rest of your summer! https://sites.google.com/dist50.net/woodlandintermediateband/home

-Mrs. January Muetz- jmuetz@dist50.net

-Mrs. Emily Dorgan- edorgan@dist50.net

CALL VOLUME…

• We expect that the District Registration Department will be experiencing an increase in call volume on Friday once this information goes live. Please remember that this is a very small team of individuals and they are still helping new families register and responding to a number of other urgent beginning of the school year tasks. We appreciate your patience as it may take a few days to get back to you.

COMMENTS ABOUT TEACHERS…

• Social media is a great place to connect with other parents to find who else is in your child’s class. Please remember that many of our teachers live in the community and may see your comments about your past experiences and interactions with Woodland staff. Even if a teacher wasn’t the best match for your child, they may be the perfect match for another child. Help us keep the conversation positive and productive as we continue to build excitement for the start of school.

Hello and welcome from me, Woodland Intermediate Principal Tim Sheldon. For those of you who are 5th grade parents, much of this will be familiar. However, half of you are our new 4th grade parents and I want to introduce myself.

In terms of my educational background, I was graduated from Georgetown for my undergraduate degree and have subsequently received a master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Loyola University Chicago, along with the requisite course work in Educational Leadership to receive my administrative credentials. Most recently, I received my Ed.S degree from National Louis University in Educational Leadership and also received a Chief School Business Official Certificate from Concordia University. As you can see, I love learning and am hoping to pursue coursework this year towards an additional special education certification (LBS I).

Professionally speaking, I am entering my 24th year of work in education. During the first half of my career, I worked in the Chicago Public School System as a teacher, instructional coach, assistant principal, principal and district administrator. I have been an elementary school principal for the past 12 years, including those three in Chicago. This will be my fourth year as principal of Woodland Intermediate here in Gurnee. Please also know that I am proficient in Spanish and love to have conversations, phone calls, and emails in that language too.

I am blessed to have a wonderful wife who is also an educator, serving as an administrator at a special education cooperative. I have two beautiful children, Eleanor (4) and Paul (2). Family is so incredibly important. As a parent myself, I know all the feelings one has when it comes to one's own children - the hope, the fear, the joy, the anxiety- and everything we want for them now and in the future.

If you listen to the district's podcast (more on that below) you will hear me describe my educational role model as being Mr. Rogers. Hopefully (though I realize that I am getting older and older each year) you all had the opportunity to see his programming as a child, as I did. Though television was his classroom, he was an incredible teacher. On my desk and in my office, I have several reminders of him in terms of his signature quotes and words of wisdom. I try to remember that one of our most important and overriding messages to students must always be "There is no one in the world like you and I like you just the way you are." Children must always feel welcome and accepted if they are to open up to learn and grow here at school. I strive every day to make every child feel this way at our school.

I am thrilled to get started this year with all of you and encourage you to check out all of the information below about the start of the year. Each week, I will send out an addition to this newsletter with important information, updates, and reminders. We have an incredibly dedicated staff that is ready to welcome and support your students this year. As we approach the start of school, you will receive additional information from those teachers, as well.

If there is anything that I can do between now and the start of school to help answer questions and prepare us for success, please let me know. In subsequent weeks' newsletters I will detail things like parent pick-up drop off information, clubs and activities, websites/school computers, and more. One thing you will also hear about from me is student personal electronic devices (ie smart phones), social media (mis)use, and internet safety.

You are incredibly important to any success that we will have this year. The extent to which we work together- family and school- directly impacts the success your students will have. We hope to build and strengthen our relationships with you and your students throughout this school year. We welcome your feedback and participation in our school community. Together, we will inspire tomorrow's creators, thinkers, and leaders.

To stay in touch with us, you can follow Woodland Intermediate via social media, including Twitter @d50intermediate, @Woodland50news, also my YouTube Channel is here. As a district you can 'Like' us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/WoodlandDistrict50. Additionally, you can continue to receive updates from me on a regular basis through my SMORE account.

Also, please feel free to email me at tsheldon@dist50.net or call me on my cell phone (text is fine too!) 847-344-4121.

The Woodland Wildcast enters Season 2 with big Back to School energy! Listen in as Woodland’s four school principals discuss important plans and information for the 2024-2025 school year with Dr. Machak. Listen Now.

Teacher assignments will be available on Friday, Aug. 9. Log-in to Skyward Family Access to view your child’s teacher. If you forgot your Family Access Login, there is a “Forgot your Login/Password?” option, or you can email AccessHelp@dist50.net to request login credentials.

If you do not see your child's teacher listed in Skyward after Aug. 9, it may be because you did not complete the online registration process.

Did you know that you can now report your child's absence in Skyward? Try our new reporting system in Skyward for a quick and convenient way to report absences in ONE place.

How it works: A parent may enter an Absence Request by logging into Skyward and entering the request for one child, or multiple children from the same household. Once logged into Skyward, select “Attendance” from the left column, and follow the prompts to indicate which child will be absent, the date(s), and reason for the absence.

Please note that, until Skyward is open with all of the information for classes (after August 9th), this feature will not be available, yet. See the video below for a preview for what it will look like.

Popsicles with the Principal: We welcome families to come to have a popsicle with the principal on Thursday, August 15th from 3-5 pm. This is an event for the whole family. Additionally, we will have families bus tags available for pick up this event too! We will be meeting on the West Side of the building by the playground, which will be open for students to use!

Sneak Peak/Meet & Greet: Our teachers, staff, and administration cannot wait for your child to return. During this event, you will have the opportunity to briefly meet your child’s teacher, tour the school, drop off school supplies, and meet the Intermediate staff. This year our Meet and Greet event is Tuesday, August 20th, from 2:00-3:30 pm. I will be outside the main office during these times as well, if you would like to meet me.

Optional Virtual Office Hours with Principal Sheldon: I will be hosting a Google Chat on Tuesday, August 20th from 7-8 pm so that any parent or student can say hello, ask a question, and also hear some tips on using (or avoiding!) social media, personal electronic devices, and the internet while a student/parent at Woodland Intermediate. Here is a link for that meeting (I will share again when we are closer to the date.)

Optional Office Hours

Tuesday, August 20 · 7:00 – 8:00pm

Time zone: America/Chicago

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/bnz-osey-yqc

Or dial: ‪(US) +1 432-756-7278‬ PIN: ‪386 763 339‬#

More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/bnz-osey-yqc?pin=5430142047641

Curriculum Nights Save the Date!!!: On September 4th from 6-7:30 pm, we will welcome 4th Grade Families to our Curriculum Night. On September 5th from 6-7:30 pm, we will welcome our 5th Grade Families to their Curriculum Night. Stay tuned for more info on this as we get closer to this date.

Your child's bus information can now be found in Skyward Family Access!

If your child has a bus schedule that changes throughout the week, you may need to look for a more detailed view in Versatrans e-Link (bus times are still being finalized). Your Versatrans login and password is your "Family ID number" and this can be found in Skyward under “Student Information”. (View "My Child's Family" and look for "Family ID Number".)

If a bus stop change is needed, fill out the Revised Bus Information (English / Spanish) as soon as possible. Please understand, one slight change to a route forces a change for every stop that follows. If you know that circumstances have changed for your child (for example, they will be going to a new day care provider), do not wait until the deadline to contact Transportation. The last day to request a change to be active by the first day of school is Aug. 12.

For further assistance, please call the main Transportation number at 847-856-3644, or email them at trans@dist50.net.

Medication Drop Off for ALL schools will be on Monday, Aug. 12 at the Middle School from 8 a.m. - 12 p.m. and 3 - 7 p.m.

Nurses and health assistants from each school will be on hand to take medications, physicals, vaccine forms and discuss health needs prior to the first day of school.

DID YOU KNOW? Several grade levels require an updated physical and vaccination record for the 2024-2025 school year! View Requirements.

The deadline for vaccines and physicals is Oct. 15. If you do not have the proper documentation on file in the Health Office, your student will be excluded from school. Please contact the Health Office at your student’s school if you need assistance in meeting these requirements.