Jump Right In

The first three days of school are behind us and we are jumping right in to our first full week of classes. A big thank you to our students, staff and parents for such a smooth first week. There are a lot of moving parts and all of us, regardless of our role, are an important piece in making for a successful school year. Whether they are a Bus Driver, Food Service Worker, Teaching Assistant, Aide, Teacher, Administrator, Custodian, Maintenance Worker, etc. every Wildcat plays a vital role and nobody is more important than anyone else. We all have the incredible responsibility to positively impact the lives of our students.

The first week of school saw a lot of engaging activities in classrooms throughout the building and a lot of time spent on building relationships. At no time during a human’s life, other than infancy, do we develop more physically, psychologically, socially, and cognitively, that during the ages of ten to fourteen. Often referred to as “The Wonder Years”, Middle School is a unique and important period of time in a student’s development. Those relationships that we build with students are critical as they maneuver these three years.

In addition to our efforts to build relationships with students, we have three overarching expectations for our students that we talk about and celebrate each and every day:

Be Nice. Work Hard. Think Big.

1.     BE NICE: If you are nice to people you quickly realize that people will be nice back to you. We can’t control how others act or what they say, but we have total control over how we treat other people. Hit them with kindness! At WGMS we hold doors for others, we say good morning, we smile, we help people when they need help, we invite new students to eat lunch with us, and we apologize and take ownership for our mistakes when we need to. It's pretty simple: be nice!

2.     WORK HARD: Working hard is about doing your best. Your best doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does involve you working, trying, struggling, learning by making mistakes and sometimes dealing with things not going well for you. It’s not giving up just because things get difficult. Learn to work through struggle and learn to persevere. You’ll find that the harder you work, the harder it is to quit. We don’t say “I can’t”, we say “I’m struggling with…”. “Can’t” implies you’ll never be able to do it, “I’m struggling” implies that it isn’t easy, but I’m working and I’m going to get this! 

3.     THINK BIG: Have big dreams about what you want to do with this life. Hold onto those dreams and do everything in your power to make them come true. Take some risks, take some chances, and get out of your comfort zone. You’ve got one shot - don’t settle for mediocrity!

If our students and all of us as the adults in their lives hold ourselves to those three big ideas our school and community in general would be a much better place. Let's step up and expect all of those things from our kids and from one another.

We are excited about the year ahead of us and look forward to seeing everyone at different events throughout the year. Here are some important dates to make sure you are aware of over the next few weeks:

WGMS Picture Day: Wednesday, September 11th

6th Grade “Welcome to Middle School” Dance/Open Gym: Friday, September 13th, 2:30-4:00 PM

WGMS Open House/Title I Night: Thursday, September 26th, 6:30-8:30 PM

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please give me a call or email me.

Continued Success,

Steve Dunham

sdunham@westgenesee.org

Twitter: @Sdunhamwgms

Here We Go

On Saturday morning the reality of summer coming to an end hit me: there was a chill in the air, College GameDay was on previewing the first weekend of College Football and we were talking about what we wanted to do for Labor Day Weekend. Where did the summer go?! As much as I LOVE summer, there is nothing like the excitement and energy associated with the start of a new school year. We are really looking forward to having this building come back to life with the arrival of our students next week.

Students and families are encouraged to stop in for Locker Night this Wednesday, August 28^th from 3:00 to 6:00 PM. This is a great opportunity to practice opening your locker, put away school supplies and walk around the building.

In addition to stopping by Locker Night, here are our Top 5 suggestions for helping to prepare our kids for Back to School:

1. Get back into a school sleep routine: To function best, adolescents need 8 to 10 hours of sleep. Most of them don’t even come close to that! With homeroom starting at 7:40 AM, there is no way our kids are getting the sleep they need if they are up after 10:00 or 11:00 PM night after night. Part of our job as parents is to stay on them and encourage, push and coerce them into going to bed at a reasonable hour.
2. Establish School Routines: Start having conversations now about the morning routine. What are you going to eat for breakfast? Who is getting in the shower first? Is your backpack ready for the morning? Are you bringing or buying lunch? Do you know what you’re going to wear? Getting back into school mode is hard enough, but the lack of a plan for the morning can make it that much more stressful. Getting as much done the night before (not at 11:00 PM) will make the morning that much easier.
3. Have an established place to work: Whether it is homework or reading for pleasure, we all need a spot that is comfortable, somewhat quiet and well-lit for us to work as efficiently and effectively as possible. Also, pick a time that works for you based on your afternoon and evening schedule. Again, don’t wait until 11:00 PM to think about what you need done for the next day!
4. Turn off the TV and put away the device: For a lot of students summertime is filled with endless hours of TV, video games and screen time. A large percentage of them are addicted and will have an incredibly hard time going 6 hours a day without watching YouTube videos and snapchatting every 30 seconds. With that said, as parents we need to help them by putting limits on their use and absolutely not letting them have their devices in their rooms when it’s time to go to bed. Our expectation at school is that their devices are off and in their lockers throughout the day. Some limits at home isn’t a bad thing!
5. Make school attendance a priority: Attendance is so important for success now in school and later in life for whatever job our kids have. Our expectation is that our students show up to school every day and that they show up on time. As parents we need to reinforce that expectation and only let our kids stay home if they are truly sick.

I am looking forward to seeing many of you at Locker Night on Wednesday and all of our students next Wednesday morning for the first day of school. As always, if you have any questions or concerns please give me a call or email me.

Continued Success,

Steve Dunham

sdunham@westgenesee.org

Twitter: @Sdunhamwgms

Getting Them Ready For Middle School

One of our favorite days of the year is when we have the incoming 5^th graders come over to WGMS for part of the morning to start getting them ready for the transition to middle school. Yesterday we had just under 200 students visiting us for about an hour, becoming familiar with the building, meeting staff and talking to current 6^th graders about what middle school is really like. This group of students were polite, respectful and they asked great questions! We are looking forward to officially welcome them as 6^th graders next school year.

In addition to having the students visit with us yesterday, last night we had our 5^th Grade Parent Night to help the parents with the transition from elementary school to middle school. Like a lot of things in life, our kids often handle change better than we do. We had a packed cafeteria of some veteran parents, but a significant number of parents who are sending their first child to the middle school. Hopefully after our presentation we settled some nerves and parents are confident that their kids will be in good hands. The presentation focused on what middle school is all about and the structures that we have in place to help support students and their parents. Some of the major areas we discussed were communication, the daily schedule, Team structure, Interaction Time, Clubs & Activities, and preparing our students for their future. You can view the presentation by clicking on the link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XQYm1MKa0NZgNvM4JDXvysNmVEmkm5sc/view?usp=sharing

Another key piece of getting our 5^th graders ready for the transition is having our 6^th grade School Counselor visiting each of the 5^th grade classrooms to meet with students in a more intimate, comfortable setting on their turf to answer questions and provide an overview of 6^th grade. We also have a Locker Night in August for students to come into the building, walk around and put supplies into their locker if they would like. This year our Locker Night is on Wednesday, August 28^th from 3:00 to 6:00 PM.

We are so excited to welcome the Class of 2026 to West Genesee Middle School!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please give me a call or send me an email.

Continued Success,
Steve Dunham
sdunham@westgenesee.org
Twitter: @Sdunhamwgms