Finish Line In Sight

The majority of our communication this school year has been related to evolving health guidelines and the impact those guidelines have on how we do everything from transporting students, feeding them and providing them with the best possible experience while at school. Everyone has had to be flexible and make adjustments on the fly. This blog isn’t going to be about any changes or updated guidelines, but rather, just a pure celebration of our students (with lots of pictures).

5th Grade Wax Museum
On Thursday of last week, all of our 5th grade students participated in the annual Wax Museum. Each student literally became a character in history! We had every industry and part of history represented, including some of the great influencers and advocates for social justice and human rights. Research, literacy, creativity and FUN all came together for a really special morning. The pictures speak for themselves:

    

     

  

  

Schoolhouse Rock Live! Jr.

We had over 80 students involved as part of the cast and crew in three amazing performances last week of the musical Schoolhouse Rock Live! Jr. which is based on the animated musical educational series of short videos that aired during the commercials while I ate Cap'n Crunch cereal watching Saturday morning cartoons. The singing, acting, timing and organization feels more like an off-Broadway production than that of a musical put on by 5th and 6th graders. It was AWESOME!

   

What you don’t see as an audience member at Showtime is the amount of work that went into this on the part of our students and director Christy Knowlton. It’s practice, practice, and more practice. It is at times a series of rehearsals that can look like a mess of poor timing, self-doubt, and bits & pieces that surely will never be connected into anything meaningful. Yet, students continue to work. Students continue to grind, to practice, to persevere. And in time, self-doubt fades into great confidence, and what once seemed impossible to pull off becomes this amazing experience that we see as members of the audience. We should all be impressed with their performance, but we should be even more impressed by what took place to get to that point. 

In many ways, the evolution of this musical is a microcosm of what this school year has been. An evolving work of art on the backs of everyone involved who demonstrated incredible perseverance, flexibility, teamwork and dedication. You can just about see the finish line in the distance!

Steve Dunham

sdunham@westgenesee.org

Twitter: @Sdunhamwgms

Transportation Changes

Starting Monday, April 26th  WGMS will welcome back our students five days per week. With many fully remote students now joining our Group A and Group B students in-person, this will more than double the student population in the building. As a result, the amount of traffic for morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up will drastically increase. Arrival will remain relatively the same, but because of a doubling of the number of buses, our dismissal requires some adjustments. 

Arrival: Student Drop-Off

From 7:35 to 7:55 AM is student drop-off on the front circle for families transporting students. Our homeroom starts promptly at 8:00 AM. We appreciate families getting our students to school on time.

Buses will continue to drop-off students in the back of the building.

Stay single file as you drive through the circle to drop students off.

Make sure student(s) is ready to get out when you come to a stop. (backpack, screening sheet, mask, instrument, etc.)

Pull up as far as possible on the circle to drop students off. 

If you need to stop and help students unload things from your vehicle, please pull up all the way to the front so you don’t hold up the entire line.

Dismissal: Student Pick-Up

1:30 PM     Dismissal of all students riding buses home. Buses will need complete access to the front circle due to the number of buses. The majority of the circle will be blocked off to cars until the buses have left.

1:45 PM     Dismissal of all 6th Grade students getting picked up out front. Do not start arriving prior to 1:35PM.

2:00 PM    Dismissal of all 5th Grade students getting picked up out front. Do not start arriving prior to 1:50 PM.

We hope to be as close to these dismissal times as possible. It is important that people picking up students do not arrive significantly early as it will just slow the dismissal process up for everyone. Given the increase in number of vehicles please understand that dismissal is going to take longer than it currently does. Fifth grade students that need to get picked up earlier with 6th grade students may leave at the 1:45 PM dismissal time as they have throughout the entire school year. Our goal is to have everyone picked up and on their way by 2:10 PM. 

For students who are riding buses, the Ride 360 App has been updated with new route information. If you have any questions about transportation please call the Transportation Department directly at 315-487-4576.

As we work through this new process over the first few weeks we will tighten it up and make adjustments as needed just as we did this fall. We are excited to have our students with us five days per week. Patience and some flexibility on the part of all of us are going to be needed as we work through this transition. Thank you for your cooperation.

Steve Dunham

sdunham@westgenesee.org

Twitter: @Sdunhamwgms

We Keep Moving Forward

We are excited to announce that our students in both Grade 5 and Grade 6 will return to school five days per week starting on Monday, April 26th. Thank you so much for your patience while we have been working through all of the logistics with scheduling, staffing, transportation and lunch. Regardless of your role - parent, student, teacher, teaching assistant, nurse, bus driver, secretary, aide, Resource Officer, anyone reading this - this year has been a grind with a lot of ups and downs along the way. We are grateful for the support, flexibility and effort on the part of everyone to be at this point. 

I want to give a special THANK YOU to our WGMS Custodial Crew who has worked incredibly hard at moving desks, chairs, tables, cabinets, textbooks, boxes, and working to set up barriers in the cafeteria, all while doing their typical workload of cleaning and disinfecting the building. There are a lot of unsung heroes that have helped to get us to this point in time, but our custodians have been absolutely incredible. They show up and get it done each and every day! Thank you.

Schedule

As we bring both groups of students back we are making necessary changes to the schedule to balance out classes and ensure that students continue to have the same opportunities that they had previously. School for 5th and 6th graders has felt and looked like school for quite some time and we intend to keep it that way! Our school counselors will be reaching out to families in situations where a teacher or schedule change is necessary. 

Cafeteria

Our cafeteria is just about ready for students to eat lunch in. Half of each class of students will eat in the cafeteria while the other half continue to eat in the classroom. We will rotate this on a weekly basis so that all students have the opportunity to eat in the cafeteria. Splitting each class in half for lunch will allow us to adhere to distancing guidelines. In classrooms students will continue to eat six feet apart without barriers and in the cafeteria our students will be eating three feet apart with barriers between them. We cannot physically get all students in the cafeteria for lunch at the same time with the three foot distance requirement. 

Transportation

The Transportation Department is finalizing bus routes. With almost double the number of buses and the large number of families transporting students to and from school, there is going to be a significant increase in traffic both in the morning and afternoon. As a result, we are anticipating some potential minor adjustments to our dismissal time and procedures for both arrival and dismissal. Stay tuned for another update as soon as we have that information locked in place. Transportation will share specific busing information with all families that requested school transportation.

New York State Assessments 

The New York State Assessments in ELA and Mathematics for grades 5 and 6 will be given in one session and consist of only multiple choice questions. The assessments are computer-based and will be administered in your child’s regular homeroom class. Any student who is not taking the assessment should still attend school and will be able to read during the administration of the assessment. Fully remote students will not be taking the assessments unless parents choose to send their students into the building on the day of the assessments. Please mark your calendars for the assessment dates: 

April 20th (Tuesday) ELA MON/TUE Group A

April 23rd (Friday) ELA THU/FRI Group B

May 5th (Wednesday) Math All Students

Fine Arts Update

The Fine Arts Department, including our music ensemble teachers, are discussing how best to provide a performance experience for students and their families. We recently learned that New York State has a new Executive Order regarding small and medium scale performing arts venues. We may now host up to 100 attendees indoors and up to 200 attendees outdoors, which may allow our family members of our student performers to attend live performances. We will update you once we know what we can safely accomplish at WGMS. Our school musical has the green light to take place this year which is awesome! We are proud to present Schoolhouse Rock Live! Jr. on June 10th, 11th and 12th. We will send ticketing information and procedures once we have worked out the details.

As we transition to five days of instruction with all of our students there are going to be some challenges. Our 5th and 6th graders haven't been in school for more than 3 days per week in over a year. Stamina is going to be an issue for some students, as will being in a classroom with double the number of students that they have been used to. These changes are going to be very hard for some of our students. But this amazing staff at WGMS will continue to give everything that they have to take care of our kids and help them with this transition. We appreciate your support and our students and staff will continue to need it during this final stretch of the school year. If you have any questions or concerns please reach out to me. Take care and stay healthy!

Continued Success,

Steve Dunham

sdunham@westgenesee.org

Twitter: @Sdunhamwgms