Back Pocket

Jan 6 - WKMS Spirit Day - 1980's Retro Day

Jan 10 - Term 2 Ends

Jan 11 - School Closed for Students - Teacher Work Day

Jan 12 - Term 3 Begins

Jan 13 - WKMS WKMS Spirit Day - Flannel Day

Jan 16 - School Closed - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Jan 18 - PTSA Meeting (7:00pm)

Jan 20 - WKMS Spirit Day - Summer Dreaming Day

Jan 20 - PTSA Movie Night (7:00pm)

Jan 24 - Report Cards Issued

Jan 27 - WKMS Spirit Day - Heart Health Awareness Day - Wear Red

At our first set of parent focus group meetings, the suggestion was made that we share school concerns with you, so you can reinforce our messages and talk about these issues with your children. For this Back Pocket issue, we focus on how words matter!

Issue: It is not new that sometimes students say hurtful things - even adults do as well. Words are said out of frustration, to elicit laughter from others, for retaliation, and out of ignorance of not understanding the meanings of those words and/or the impact to those around them.

Our Response: Teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators spend time addressing these words. As a school, we are working on being consistent in responding with an equity lens grounded in empathy to provide education, communicating with parents, consequences when needed, and/or restorative conversations. In addition, students all participated in an advisory lesson focusing on connectedness at WKMS with regards to building relationships and how hurtful words impact others. We also talked about the definition of harassment from FCPS Board Reg. No. 400-48:

“Harassment – includes actual or perceived negative actions that offend, ridicule, or

demean another student with regard to race, which may also include acts of racism,

ethnicity, national origin, immigration status, family/parental or marital status, sex,

sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, religion,

ancestry, physical attributes, health condition, socioeconomic status, physical or

mental ability, or disability.”

You Can Help: Please have a conversation with your child about how words matter. Our students hear so much from social media, games, videos, movies, and music that sometimes it is hard for them to determine what is acceptable. Please remind your child that it is never okay to joke using these words, and if they are not sure of what a word means, then do not use it. Please encourage your child to reach out to teachers, guidance counselors and/or administrators to report hurtful words being used. Thank you in advance for helping us with this. We appreciate the collaboration with our families!

We are committed to making sure that our students and families are aware of the many resources available if your child is struggling with a mental health challenge. Please check out this RESOURCES link on the WKMS Counseling website for support services as well as information on the Mental Health Association’s walk-in clinic in downtown Frederick.

Are you looking for something to do during the winter that does not involve screens? Try a few of these ideas pulled from https://pinna.fm/blog/32-screen-free-ways-to-entertain-your-kids-this-winter-break-1-by-amy-thetford

1. Crank up the tunes and have a dance party.

2. Paint a picture.

3. Build a fort and hide out inside with flashlights, snacks, and a good book.

4. Head outside, play with friends, take a walk, or head to the park.

5. Bake some healthy treats.

6. Make cards and deliver them to nursing homes to cheer up lonely residents.

7. Set up an indoor obstacle course.

8. Let the kids help you meal plan, shop, and cook. Finicky eaters are much more likely to try something they had a hand in making.

9. Find a worthy cause and volunteer your time.

10. Let your kids write letters to faraway family and friends.

11. Learn a new handicraft - sewing, cross-stitch, crochet, knot tying, and whittling are all fun options (and pair well with podcast or audiobook listening).

12. Get kids involved in cleaning and decluttering. Take everyone out for hot cocoa and pastries when you're done.

13. Break out the board games and make an evening of it.

14. Start a new habit of journaling. This is something even little ones can do by drawing pictures or having a parent write down what they want to say. Fun journal prompts can be found in many places online.

Important Information and Upcoming Dates for 8th Graders

Ms. Meyer will be going into history classes during the second and third week of January to go over high school planning. During this time students will go over high school graduation requirements and work on sample class schedules through Naviance in preparation for the high school registration process.

For 8th graders going to Urbana High School

January 25 - Student registration presentation at WKMS by UHS counselors in the morning

For 8th graders going to Linganore High School

January 19 - Parent/student registration information night from 6 - 7:30 p.m.at Linganore High (snow date January 24)

January 23 - Student registration presentation at WKMS by LHS counselors in the morning

January 24 - LHS course registration opens (using Google forms)

January 28 - LHS course registration closes

Thank you to everyone who participated in our WKMS Giving Tree this year! We had over 60 items received and these went to support families in our area through the Greater Urbana Area Food Bank. We are grateful for your support!

The WKMS Archery Team extends a thank you to Jeremy Poling from NFM Lending. Mr. Poling purchased archery shirts for our team. We are very excited to have our first WKMS team shirts. The shirts were designed by Zack Barry. Zack is a 9th grader at Urbana High School and will also serve as a junior coach this year for the team.

Hello families and Happy New Year. As we look forward into 2023, we hope that your students are returning to schooling refreshed from their winter break. We have just six days until the end of term two and the start to term three. As a reminder, please encourage your students to review their Schoology grade progress to make sure that nothing is outstanding. If they have any questions or concerns please have them reach out to their teachers at once. Ask your student to also show you their ALEKS pie progress as we approach this midyear checkpoint. Students should be able to show you how many topics they are completing each week, how many sections of their pie they have completed, and how far into completing their full ALEKS pie they are progressing. As a reminder, ALEKS is assigned homework for every math class, every week of the school year that students should be completing outside of school if they are not finishing it during ELT time.

Math Workshop students will be taking their winter Math Inventory series in class with their Math Workshop teachers in the first few days back from back. We are looking forward to seeing the student’s progress and growth from their last ability showing. All students will be completing the iReady Math winter session in the coming weeks as well. These sessions are progress check points along the way for students and staff to watch our students demonstrate their growth. We appreciate your support in making sure that your student has completed the winter session and that you have discussed the importance of trying their best on these assessments. If students have questions about their iReady results please have them reach out to their math teacher or Mrs. Wurster for complete details of their trend data.

Greetings from the English Language Arts Department. Believe it or not, the end of term two is quickly approaching! January 10th is the last day of both term two and semester one, and January 12th marks the first day of the new term and semester. All students recently took the first FCPS English Language Arts Benchmark in their ELA classes. The window for the second FCPS English Language Arts Benchmark opens on January 23rd. Specific details and dates will be shared with students as the testing window approaches. Students in Mrs. Buckner's Read180 classes are continuing their work in small group, independent reading, and software rotations. Read180 students will take their next Reading Inventory once schools reopen after Winter Break in January. Additionally, all students will take the next administration of the iReady Reading Assessment on January 13th. As always, please reach out to your student's ELA teacher, Read180 teacher, or to the WKMS Literacy Specialist, Ginny Hines, with any questions or concerns.

Email: WKMS.Attendance@fcps.org
Website: edu.fcps.org/wkms/
Location: 11150 Windsor Road, Ijamsville, MD, USA
Phone: 240-236-5000
Facebook: facebook.com/FCPSWKMS