News & Notes

At the February 21 board meeting, our Board of Education authorized our school district to pursue "Phase II" of our bond issue program that was first established in 2013.

• Please click the link below to access all attachments we are sharing with our community.
• There will be numerous school tours and informational sessions, also included in the link below.
  
• We have dropped our tax levy by 9.9 cents in the past three years and are going to ask for a maximum of 4.9 of those cents back to give us $121 million to work with.
  
• The tax impact of Phase II, if passed by our voters, will be much less than what Phase I was. Phase II would increase a homeowner's annual taxes by $49 for every $100,000 of property value. An owner of a $300,000 home would see an increase of property taxes of no more than $147 per year, or $12.25 per month.
  
• We are asking for new schools at Westgate, Loveland, and Hillside because the cost to renovate those comes to between 80-93% of what it costs to build new.
  
• We would be adding new gyms and early childhood centers at Rockbrook and Paddock Road. We would address important needs at Westbrook. We would expand the cafeteria at WMS. We would expand the cafeteria and address numerous other issues at WHS. We would like to add handicap accessibility at ABC and make some enhancements at Underwood Hills as well.
  

This will be decided by our voters on May 9th through a MAIL-IN election. Please review more information through the link below and forward on to others as you see fit.

The RBP South Omaha Scholastic Teacher Grant Program provides an expanding source of funds for small, yet vital teacher-based projects. These are “hands-on” projects designed to involve students and encourage innovations and development of teachers’ ideas in the classroom. These projects are not typically funded through regular curriculum school district budgets.

This program is a major goal for promoting education and has left a lasting impression on the selection committee and its volunteers. These grants are available to teachers in the Metropolitan Omaha area, both public and private. Grants have been awarded for the following teacher projects: starting book stores, sponsoring special games such as spelling bees scored as bowling scores, shooting rockets into the sky as a science project, publishing a small weekly newspaper, butterfly flower gardens, testing water contamination in city lagoons then giving the results to the city parks department, providing hygiene kits for special education students, and taking autistic students to a restaurant to teach them how to order from a menu; classroom art projects, creating educational aids to help special education classes with new teaching guides-the list is endless, and the grants have a tremendous impact on thousands of students and teachers alike throughout the Metro schools.

This year we will again be awarding ten teacher grants up to $1000.00. Since we started this program, over 750 grants totaling $365,000 have been awarded for teachers’ special projects. Please review the attached application guidelines (below) and consider applying for this excellent grant program.

Connie Cavlovic Monastero

Board Member

Ccm10005@yahoo.com

402.320.7246

February 27 through March 3 is Inclusion Week for Westside Community Schools! We will hold a district spirit week to celebrate Inclusion Week which is tied to Read Across America.

Book titles are included in the attached PDF below. You can also CLICK HERE for additional Spirit Week details

Please spread the word and thank you!

Just a reminder - if you have earned an advanced degree since the fall of 2022 and have not requested that your official transcripts be sent to HR, please do as soon as possible. The official transcripts are required to be received in HR before any salary adjustment can be made. Please have the transcripts submitted by March 1, 2023, in order for the adjustment to be made for the March payroll.

Our condolences are with family and loved ones of Ron Kirby, who died January 23. Ron was our Day Custodian at Westside High School, serving the district for more than 25 years. Services for Ron have not yet been determined.

Thank you for keeping the Kirby family and their loved ones in your thoughts.

As part of our annual communications survey, our staff members were asked about best practices regarding obituary notices. Most indicated they would prefer condolences as part of this staff newsletter rather than individual emails. We will share most obituary information related to staff in our monthly News & Notes e-newsletter, while also sending details about services via email to that staff member's building. In the event of a death in which a staff member works/worked in multiple buildings, we may also send out an email via district announcements.