Dear West Sylvan Families,

We are a mere five school days from Winter Break, and we look forward to some fun things together this week! Our Leadership classes have planned a Spirit Week for the school, which is illustrated below. We will have a locker cleanout at the end of the day on Thursday to purge all unnecessary items prior to the break, and we’ll have a spirit assembly at the conclusion of Friday. We ask that you please make arrangements for any early student pick-ups to happen before 3:15pm on Friday, as it will be enormously challenging to locate a particular student once they have left the classrooms to attend the assembly.

If you plan to start vacation early, please communicate directly with your Scholar’s Educators, and pre-excuse absences at the email here: westsylvanoffice@pps.net. Absences have to be excused for Scholars to make up assignments without penalty to their grade.

Reminder of International Login Restrictions for Student Accounts:

With the holiday season upon us, OTIS would like to remind you that PPS student accounts can only be used from within the United States as a security protection. This includes access to my.pps.net and all Google services, including Gmail and Drive. If your students must access PPS systems while traveling outside the US, please have their parents or guardians send a request for international access to support@pps.net. To allow OTIS to properly provision the access, requests must include the departure and return dates.

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

Jill Hunt, Principal
Ben Keller, Assistant Principal

Mr. Arce, Band Director, had a packed house for Thursday’s band concert!

Thank you to all who continue to support our performing arts program.

Your partnership makes all the difference for our offerings!

DECEMBER

• Tue, DEC 17th: Winter Showcase ~ 7:00PM at West Sylvan, Upper/Lower Gyms
• Wed, DEC 18th: EARLY RELEASE for Students at 1:45 PM due to Staff PD from 2:00-5:00 PM
  
• Fri, DEC 20th: Afternoon Assembly Bell Schedule (all-school assembly at the end of the day)
• Mon, DEC 23rd ~ Fri, JAN 3rd: NO SCHOOL for two-week Winter Break

JANUARY

• Mon, JAN 20th: NO SCHOOL Holiday
• Thu, JAN 23rd, Fri, JAN 24th, and Sat, JAN 25th: West Sylvan Drama performances of Wonka
• Mon, JAN 27th: NO SCHOOL for Students due to Educator Grading Day
• Mon, JAN 27th: Family Information Night for current 5th Graders / 6:00-7:30 PM
• Tue, JAN 28th: NO SCHOOL for Students due to Educator Planning Day

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

Thanks to our Friends of West Sylvan partners, we are hosting two upcoming Coffee Talks. If you are able to attend, these will be in our WSMS Library, and they are open to any family members who are interested:

Monday, December 16: 9:30 - 10:30 AM -- Cyber safety conversation with Officer Haugen, BPD

Friday, January 17th: 9:30 - 10:30 AM -- NAMI presentation

Our Dance and Choir programs will collaborate for the

Winter Showcase on Tuesday, December 17th.

We encourage all families to attend!

The second round of MAP assessments in English and Math will take place in January after the Winter Break. For any Scholars who want to be considered for accelerated Math courses, performing well on the MAP assessments is one component of the process. More details are linked at the MAP GROWTH ASSESSMENT button above. If you would like to have your Scholar plan ahead for these assessments over Winter Break, practice exams are linked here:

https://warmup.nwea.org/app/gradetwoplus/gradeTwoPlus.html

https://teach.mapnwea.org/impl/maphelp/Content/Testing/PracticeTest.htm

Our planned testing schedule is shown below. MAP is a PPS exam for internal growth measurements, and we do not excuse students from taking these exams.

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

TO CREATE YOUR FoWS ACCOUNT:

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

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

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

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

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

Jan 7th - Feb 4th - March 11th - April 8th - May 6th - June 3rd

MAIN OFFICE

westsylvanoffice@pps.net

(503) 916-5690

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT/ PRINCIPAL'S SECRETARY

[Staff / Substitutes / Financial]

Jerda Solonche

jsolonche@pps.net

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT/ SCHOOL SECRETARY

[Students / Attendance / Enrollment]

Kirsten Crombie

kcrombie@pps.net

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