Stilwell Newsletter

In partnership with students, staff, and the community, West Des Moines Community Schools and Stilwell is committed to providing a welcoming and inclusive learning environment where all students and staff can belong and thrive. The district is actively engaged in ongoing equity training and learning opportunities for students and staff. Equity work is supported by equity leads and teams at each of our school buildings. At Stilwell, we continue to focus on student groups that support the many backgrounds of our students. It is important to feel like you belong!

We are looking for students to participate in the first annual Student Voice Symposium will occur on Saturday, March 23, 2024, at Stilwell Jr High in West Des Moines.

This symposium will inspire youth in our community to be and see themselves as equity-centered leaders and visionaries. Students in grades 9-12 will experience a day of leadership and equity learning led by peers and adult leaders, and build community with students from other school districts.

Please note, for all youth-led sessions, you will be assigned an adult coach/ advocate to help you through this process. If you already have a trusted adult, please indicate that in your submission.

We welcome submissions that address and/or include best practices or other successes within the following (though not limited to) themes:

1. Share a passion project that you have worked on at home, in school, or in the community

• Music
  
• Poetry
  
• Writing
  
• Storytelling
  
• Other ideas?
  

• Society
  
• Identity
• Culture
  
• Race
  
• Leadership
• Religion
  
• LGBTQIA+
  
• Other ideas?
  

All details on the process here!

Proposals must be received by February 2, 2024, to be considered.

Decisions will be announced by February 16, 2024

For questions, please reach out to Carrie Jacobs and Gianna Pugliese at jacobsc@wdmcs.org and puglieseg@wdmcs.org

PBIS-

The Stilwell PBIS store is looking for donations to help keep our store up and running! The PBIS store is a place where students spend their PBIS points that they earn for good behavior on fun school supplies, snacks and WDM apparel. Please check out our Amazon wish list if you are interested in helping out! Thank you. https://a.co/epEwzWK

Tier 1-

Spring School is around the corner and we will be identifying students after the first semester is completed on January 12, 2024.

Student and Staff Wellness-

The committee discussed how to continue to improve staff and student relationships and a place of belonging. We reflected on our own learning from the PD day about SEL, zones of regulation, emotions, and what we can(not) control. We will continue to learn about adult resiliency and how that can be modeled for our students. We continued to look at and adjust our SEL lessons for student learning and enriched conversations around topics like managing conflicts.

Student Anouncements:

Parents if you want to see our daily anouncements you can save this link:

Announcement link

Orange/Black

We will be starting 1/16, the first day of the second semester, as an orange day.

Kona Ice

We will have them back during lunch on 1/22. $5 can be prepaid at www.kona-ice.com with the code: F00803821

Spring School

Parents as the 1st semester ended on 1/11, we are preparing for spring school. We will be contacting families that had students that did not pass 1st semester. This will start January 29th-March 7th.

Parent Survey's:

Hello. Recent legislation now requires parent/guardians to give permission for some student surveys. We MUST get your permission ASAP for your [School] student to participate in a district survey starting this month.

1. Log into Infinite Campus

2. On home page, find “Documents Need Attention”

3. Click on link(s) to review survey information and approve or decline.

This is a NEW requirement by law. View a short video tutorial.

Thank you for your help.

Mitchell Kuhnert

Familia Stilwell: La nueva ley requiere su permiso para algunas encuestas. Ver correo electrónico. Necesitamos tu ayuda.

Monday, January 15

No school

Tuesday, January 16

4:30pm Boys Basketball vs Ankeny Centennial @ Stilwell Junior High