Welcome to the end of the 2023-2024 School Year! We have SO MUCH to be proud of in our 2nd year as a community and our first year truly focusing on becoming ONE WEST. This is the last Howl of the year and there is A LOT here as we celebrate our accomplishments and look to growing even more next year. SP West is trending! Grab a favorite beverage, sit out in a comfortable chair or get cozy on the couch and take a read through the last Howl of 2023-2024.

In the Howl this week:

• Upcoming Events
• Daily Announcements
• Pride Month!
• End of Year 2- SP WEST is TRENDING
• Talk about Vaping
• Gel Blasters- They're Back!
• Courtyard
• June 6th- We need your help!
• Welcome to West!
• Musical Theatre Workshop
• Fall Musical: Seussical
• Senior Information
• Youth Cheerleading Camp
• Classroom and Student Spotlights
• In Case you Missed It!

• June 4th- Choir Concert, 6:30pm, West PAC

• June 5th- Senior Graduation walk at feeder schools

• June 6th- SP West End of Year Student Celebration (afternoon)

• June 7th- Half day of school for all students- done at 12:15pm

• June 7th- Graduation at 5:00pm at Alliant Energy Center (no tickets necessary)

Have you ever walked by the screens while in the building at West and thought, I want to make sure my student knows about that? Here are our student announcements so that parents/caregivers can have the same information to remind and encourage student involvement.

In June we are honored to celebrate Pride Month as we begin June. As we kick off Pride month take 5 minutes to learn more about the history of LGBTQIA+ community from the 1800s to today.

One of the beauties and strengths of Pride month is empowering and supporting people to tell their stories. Stories are powerful as they united us within and beyond smaller communities and can inspire and encourage others to discover and tell their own story. Listen to JoJo Siwa's story here:

While this is the last Howl of the year, we encourage you to find ways to celebrate, learn and listen this June as we continue to live out our district's equity statement: We stand by our LGBTQIA+ students, staff and families. We take seriously our responsibility to provide safe, nondiscriminatory, and inclusive environments for people of all orientations and identities, as they reflect our diverse community. In order to create these spaces as a ONE WEST community it is essential for us to listen and learn about each other.

Check out this video on Why Pride matters, that specifically focuses on the intersectionality of identities of people within our community that we need to intentionally lift during Pride and all year long.

As we end Year 2- SP West is TRENDING! While there will always be much work to be done there are INCREDIBLE achievements for us to celebrate in our first two years as a school community. If WE can do ALL THIS in our FIRST TWO years in existence... just imagine what we can do as we continue to build ONE WEST and focus on EVERY student reaching their dreams:

During 2nd Semester we launched Student Senate which is a student based parallel to our School Improvement team of staff: Guiding Coalition. During our time together the students worked on our SP100 school improvement plan, participated in interviews during Spring interviewing season (almost every interview we conducted had at least 1 and up to 10 students involved), listened to each others perspectives and came to agreement, worked on SP30 to get better attendance and helped launch an awesome Teacher Appreciation Week. During our last week together the students participated in a data analysis of data this year compared to last year, many of their insights are celebrated below.

• ATTENDANCE: EVERY demographic subgroup (racial groups, students with disabilities, multilingual students and socioeconomic status) INCREASED the percentage of students who are meeting the goal of 90% or better ATTENDANCE from last year to this year.
• Student with disabilities experiencing the greatest growth with 11% more students meeting the 90% goal. This is GAP closing work with this group (and others) outpacing the overall school growth of 4%.
• Students currently eligible to receive free and reduced lunch also experienced gap closing growth with a 7% increase!

• SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL GROWTH: Students reported growth in regards to EVERY subcategory in our Social-Emotional reporting:
• We surpassed the goal of 80% students reporting often or almost always for 6/7 of the reporting subcategories:
• Emotional Development- 87%
• Self-Concept- 91%
• "I set goals for myself"- 93%
• "I feel I belong at my school"- 84%
• Social Competence- 91%
• Instructional Framework Indicators-83%
• Safety/Security- 79% (we will get this one next year!)
• The highest growth from fall to Spring was in:
• Social competence- 13%
• Self competence- 11%

• ACT SCORES: As reported earlier in the Howl we increased in nearly every test from last year to this year on the number of students meeting benchmark and the average subscores. The groups reporting the MOST growth from last year to this year are:
• Hispanic/Latino students with 13% more reaching benchmark in English, and 7% more reaching benchmark in Math, Science and STEM.
• Asian students with 20% more reaching benchmark in English, 6% more in Math, 18% more in Science and 38% more in STEM!
• Students eligible for Free and Reduced lunch: 8% in English, 4% more in Math, 4% more in Science and 9% more in STEM.

• DISCIPLINE: We are still calculating and receiving our final analysis of behavior data, however, we know:
• Students who identify as Black who have 0-1 behavior incidents increased by 7%.
• Our risk ratio by OSS/ISS for Black students decreased
• Use of Restorative Practices increased for all demographics and the most for students who identify as Black.

• VANDALISM: We have been able to open all of our bathrooms in the academic wing for the last two weeks vandalism free! We have seen an incredible response by students and community talking about the information shared here in the Howl with each other. We have been working together to set the expectation that we take care of this incredible investment by taxpayers for the magnificent building we have. Students can be overheard in the hallway talking to each other about not vaping at school, not fighting at school and taking care of what we have.

While there is SO MUCH to celebrate. We also have much work to be done. Next year we will continue on the sense of belonging and academic excellence for out Black students as we know that our current systems and structures are not yet serving these students in the ways that they deserve to thrive. Next week our Guiding Coalition, guided by our Student Senate voice will be refining our goals for next year that will be shared out this fall.

Vapes are unsafe whether a nicotine vape or THC vape and all are prohibited from school property (including adults attending events). The possession, consumption and distribution of vapes on school property or at school events comes with a consequence up to and including: in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension and recommendation for expulsion.

Is your student interested in confidential support around vaping? Reach out to your social worker Ms. Sirianni or Ms. Fahey. HERE is our Student Services contact information. Your student can work with West Student Services staff on a quitplan, for more education, and other community resource referrals. You can also call the Wisconsin Tobacco Quit Line at 1-800-QUIT NOW or text "READY" to 200-400. Summer can be a perfect time to start calling it quits.

Did you know 97% of youth who vape, use flavored products? Synthetic Nicotine has been called a “loophole” for recent policies and laws.

Synthetic nicotine, which is created in a laboratory and not derived from tobacco, has become increasingly popular. Stanford University identified six manufacturers of synthetic nicotine and 98 brands claiming to contain synthetic nicotine.

Many e-cigarette makers that used tobacco-derived nicotine have recently switched to synthetic nicotine to avoid regulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For example, Puff Bar, the top vape brand among youth, was told by the FDA in July 2020 to stop selling their flavored, tobacco-derived e-cigarette products. In March 2021, the company returned to the market with synthetic “tobacco-free nicotine.”

In addition, many of the chemical methods through which companies such as Puff Bar make the synthetic nicotine their products contain are unknown…Nicotine use during adolescence can disrupt the formation of brain circuits that control attention, learning, and susceptibility to addiction. Research has shown early age of smoking and pleasurable initial experiences are correlated with daily use and lifetime nicotine dependence.

Synthetic nicotine is still nicotine—a highly addictive substance that research suggests is as addictive as heroin, cocaine or alcohol. Nicotine is especially harmful to adolescents, as it impacts brain development. A young person’s memory, attention levels and ability to learn are all negatively affected by nicotine. Products containing synthetic nicotine will not help you quit smoking like nicotine replacement therapies (NRT) and other quit-smoking products can. (https://www.lung.org/blog/synthetic-nicotine)

Read more in “What is synthetic nicotine and what does it mean for the youth vaping epidemic?” from truthinitiative.org

They're baaaaaaaaack. Gel blasters, aka Orbeeze Guns, SplattRBall Guns were very popular about 3 years ago and have returned to heightened popularity. A few important things for parents/caregivers and students to know:

• They are NOT allowed on school property. Any presence of any type of these toy weapons does constitute a Level 4 infraction which can have consequences up to and including expulsion. Here at West, these type of toy weapons, if they are originally colored and look like a toy have resulted in a 2 day-out of school suspension.

• DON'T PAINT THEM! We have learned that some students are painting them black or gray to look like real fire arms. Please, ensure that you/your student are NOT PAINTING these weapons. If the weapon looks real it can be mistaken by citizens, police and/or school as a real weapon. If a toy gun is at school and has been painted to look like a real gun it will be considered a facsimile weapon and the student will be recommended for expulsion.

• Vocabulary matters. This week we were in a situation where we received a report of students talking about a gun. We worked very quickly to thoroughly investigate the situation and discovered that the young people were talking about Gel Blasters. We encourage all students to use the vocabulary of Gel Blasters if having a conversation at school. Any conversation regarding guns will be taken as a potential safety threat and we will follow-up accordingly.

• Leave the pellets at home. The pellets, whether hydrated or dehydrated should also not be at school, leave them home.

• Responsible for Anything on you. As in any circumstance if you are search for a reasonable suspicion of having something on you that you shouldn't at school (example: a gel blaster) you are responsible for ANY thing found on you that is in violation of the SPASD behavior matrix.

Example of a toy looking Gel Blaster

Example of a painted Gel Blaster (actually the same model as above). We can not stress enough the importance of students NOT painting these blasters as it causes a huge safety risk for all involved.

The ammo is also not allowed on school property whether hydrated or dehydrated- both states shown above.

Our courtyard is arguable the most awesome part of this incredible building. Now that it has gotten nice out there are hundreds of people using it every day during lunch and class. Students, make sure to do YOUR PART to keep it CLEAN so that we can keep it open the rest of the year. If it is dirty this week after lunch, it will be closed. We had been doing great and slipped up last week, time to finish strong.

As part of our commitment to building and sustaining relationships at Sun Prairie West High School, we are spending time together as a school community on the afternoon of June 6th to celebrate the hard work our students have demonstrated this year. Students will be given the opportunity to participate in various outdoor activities overseen by West staff and spend time together before we head into the summer break. Some of the activities will include opportunities to play yard games, participate in outdoor physical activities, and enjoy summertime foods. To create this opportunity for our students, we will be running an alternative bell schedule and students will be given the chance to sign up for some team tournaments. Students who do not sign up for activities will be able to enjoy the afternoon at their own leisure– with adult supervision. Lunch will be provided for students and regular transportation will be running as scheduled.

If you would like to support this opportunity for our students, we would gladly accept financial donations or materials and/or snacks for the celebration. Donations can be dropped off at the front office during regular school hours from May 29th through June 5th. If you plan to donate, please complete this form to help us in planning what we will need to purchase for this event. Here is a list of requests for supplies needed to prepare for this event. Any financial contributions and/or materials not utilized during this celebration will be used to support future community-building activities for our students.

SP West Schedule for June 6th and 7th

Next year we will put on the FALL musical for SPASD (we rotate between East and West, who has Spring and who has Fall). This Fall's Musical is SEUSSICAL! Have you ever thought about being involved in theater? Join us! There are many off and behind the scenes opportunities for students who have stage fright. If it's your 10th musical or your 1st... come join us!

Graduation Walkthroughs to West HS feeder Elementary and Middle Schools will happen Wednesday morning, June 5. Please check your email for more information. Please turn in permission slips for the Senior Walk to the Front Office by the end of day on Monday

Graduation is quickly approaching. Wondering: Where is graduation? What time does it start? Do I need tickets? More questions about graduation can be answered using the FAQ document below (Spanish Version). Any additional questions about the graduation ceremony can be directed to John Barth (jebarth@sunprairieschools.org) or Tess Reimer (tareime@sunprairieschools.org).

Congratulations to the Sun Prairie West FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) Team who placed 10th out of the 165 chapters represented at the 2024 WI FBLA State Leadership Conference on April 8th-9th in Green Bay at the KI Convention Center. There were 2,300 contestants at State. Sam Ebersole earned 1st place in Sports and Entertainment, Pragnya Vella earned 1st place in Help Desk, Sourya Prabaharan, Sholk Shah, and Mouneeth Venigalla earned 1st place in Computer Game Development, Tea Schmoldt earned 3rd place in Future Business Educator, Rishab Kotte earned 4th place in Supply Chain Management, Alanna Johnson earned 4th place in Human Resource Management, and Saanvi Gandhari earned 5th place in Computer Applications. Pragnya Vella was also elected as State Vice President! Many other students achieved top finishes and significantly contributed to our team’s overall score.

The FBLA team will advance to the National Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida from June 29th - July 2nd, 2024! Congratulations SPWH FBLA Team!

STATE CHAMPIONS! Congratulations to our Sun Prairie United Esports Team! Our League of Legends team competed at Fox Valley Lutheran High School in the WIHSEA State Championships and brought home the victory!

Our amazing student-athletes worked incredibly hard to prepare for their opponents. In the first round, they won against HAPA Academy, advancing Sun Prairie to the championship round against Sheboygan South High School—our only loss in the regular season.

Our team showed their growth, skill, and determination, winning the first two games and securing Sun Prairie United’s FIRST State Championship in Esports! This is an amazing result for our Esports team for their first year in existence! Way to go, team!

Please join us in congratulating the team members on their win!

• Matthew Traub (East)
• Tristan Dega (East)
• Zakariah Idrissi (West)
• Ethan Lea (West)
• Shrom Tripathi (East)
• Krish Tripathi (East)

And thank you to the coaches for supporting our student-athletes all year!

• Coach Jim Halvorson
• Coach Kyle Bliefernicht
• Coach Albert Chen

This weekend we sent 13 Wolves to the STATE Track Meet in La Crosse. We are proud of ALL of our WOLVES who competed and a SPECIAL SHOUT OUT to our DANIEL WILSON who got THIRD PLACE in the STATE in 300m Hurdles

Congratulations to our SP UNITED Boys Tennis athletes that qualified for STATE. We sent one INDIVIDUAL, Nikko (SP East) and one DOUBLES, Quinton and Mouneeth team to the STATE TOURNAMENT.

Did you know that SP West has an incredible Una Voce class? This United Music class partners students with all abilities together for an incredible learning experience. At the end of the semester they put on one of the highlights of the year, a concert for their families, friends and staff. Thanks Una Voce for an incredible semester.

A little rain didn't stop the Hmong Community end of year and Senior Celebration picnic from happening this weekend, a little mud didn't hurt anyone!

Earlier this month we celebrated Senior Celebration Night celebrating over 200 seniors! Here are a few highlight pictures- for all of the pictures follow us at Sun Prairie West High School on Facebook.

West High School’s Multilingual ESL class hosted a student panel for the incoming 9th grade Multilingual students. This, along with ongoing student-leadership opportunities, contributed to our Multilingual students’ excellent growth this year, not only in their classes, but also on their annual English language test.

The Sun Prairie West Forensics Team had eight students who qualified to attend the NCFL National Forensics Tournament in Chicago this weekend. Kara Bekkedal finished 18th in the nation in Oral Interpretation. John Kudrle earned 21st place in Oratorical Declamation, and Pragnya Vella earned 23rd in Original Oratory. Asha Sundaram and Shlock Shah also placed in the top 48. Yogitha Rajkumar, Mrinank Panda, and Suhani Pandey also qualified for the tournament. They did a great job representing our school and community at the national level!

Mrs. Holm, Mrs. Hahn & Mr. Wersland took their Statistics and AP Statistics classes to a Brewers game for Math Day. At this event students learned basic statistical principles through the game of baseball. In advance of the game, teachers received a Brewers Math Day workbook to incorporate into their lesson plans leading up to the event. At the game, students will put their math skills to the test by completing the workbook using elements of the game against the Pirates.

Checkout the magical pictures taken by our Yearbook Team at this year's Prom: Enchanted Forest.

Thanks to all of our staff who chaperoned!

Remember the incredible TEDx Event that we had earlier this year? Check-out the videos here:

• Shreya Bhargava: The importance of failure

• Eric Piotrowski: How I found hope & myself by resisting genocide
  

• Suhani Pandey: the importance of passion
• Marcus Porter: Hip-Hop Performance

Last week SPW celebrated Mental Health Awareness week! Did you know 1 in 5 teenagers experience at least one diagnosable mental health disorder? And 100% of us have emotions, thoughts, and experiences that have positive and difficult moments on our mental health.

Students Services at SPW has 3 school Counselors, 2 advance practice Social Workers, 1.5 School Psychologists. Staff are available to all students & families to reduce barriers to education which often can be connecting to resources, talking through stressors, mental health supports, well-being skills, or providing support in educational skills and plans.

Here are some ways our students focused on their mental health this week with our Social Workers, Ms. Sirianni & Ms. Fahey!

Students and staff participated in Mental Health Affirmations on the windows on Student Services on the 3rd floor.

Students and staff enjoyed a visit from THERAPY DOGS!

We are so thankful to our partners at Sunshine Place, SP Wellness Coalition, Go Team Therapy Dogs, & our SP SSM Employee Wellness Clinic!

Many of our young people participated in a steps to stability renting class in which they learned the ins and outs of preparing to support themselves as they rent their first apartment.

Spanish 3 students are ending the year strong by practicing the subjunctive mood in a variety of ways!

Individual sports had opportunities to learn about golf and demonstrate the skills needed to play the game. During a rainy day our students made mini golf courses.

If you don't already, please follow SP West on Facebook!

STATEMENT OF NONDISCRIMINATION

No student may be unlawfully discriminated against in any school programs, activities or in facilities usage because of the student’s sex (gender identity, gender expressions, and non-conformity to gender role stereotypes), color, religion, profession, or demonstration of belief or non-belief, race, national origin (including limited English proficiency), ancestry, creed, pregnancy, marital or parental status, homelessness status, sexual orientation, age, or physical, mental, emotional or learning disability. Harassment is a form of discrimination and shall not be tolerated in the District. It is the responsibility of administrators, staff members and all students to ensure that student discrimination or harassment does not occur.

(SPASD District Policy JB)

If a student or parent/guardian would prefer to have this information translated into Spanish, please contact us at 608-834-6620. Si un estudiante, padre ó guardian prefiere tener esta información traducida en Español, por favor contactenos en el 608-834-6620.

If a student or parent/guardian would prefer to have this information translated into Hmong, please contact us at 608-834-6630. Yog tus me nyuam lub xiv los yog niam thiab txiv/tus neeg muaj cai saib xyuas tus me nyuam xav tau qhov ntawv ntawm no ua lus Hmoob, thov hais rau peb paub rau ntawm 608-834-6630.

Information from previous Howls that's too important to miss!

This letter is to provide information about your student’s chromebook as we approach the end of the year. Students in grades 9, 10 and 11 will keep their school-issued device over the summer unless they are leaving the district, in which case the device should be returned by June 7th, 2024. Students can still access school applications and use their device. Filtering software will still be active throughout the summer. Students are expected to care for their device over the summer just as they would during the school year.

Seniors must return their devices before graduation on June 7th, 2024.

Device Collection for Seniors will begin on June 5, 2024 in the LMC. Students will be called to the library by last name. If you no longer need your device, feel free to turn it in earlier. Devices and chargers will be collected. If you have lost your charger, there will be a charger sale on Thursday, May 16th in the cafeteria. Chargers will be $15 - cash or card will be accepted. The regular price for a missing charger is $30.

Google Takeout Instructions (transferring student account data to a personal account) were posted in the senior class Google Classroom and are linked below. Seniors will lose access to their district accounts on June 30, 2024 and should begin transferring their data as soon as possible to avoid loss of files. Since your personal Google account is not considered the “owner” of your school account’s data, you may lose access to those files once your student account is deactivated, unless you go in from your personal account and “MAKE A COPY”.

Fines for overdue library materials, missing Chromebooks and chargers will be assessed on June 7th. Any materials needing to be returned after this date should be brought to the District Service Center at 501 S. Bird St.

Link Here for Google Takeout Slideshow

Link Here for One Pager Instructions for Google Takeout

Congratulations! Best Wishes!

Ms. Walters & Mrs. Dahl

MS and HS students who receive from and reduced lunch qualify for a FREE SPORTS PHYSICAL! Please call the clinic at 608-834-6977 to schedule an appointment for June 25th or July 23rd.

Reach out to Ms. Beaver and Ms. Ripp in the Athletic Office for more information.