The last blog in February is here and our school year is coming down to the last 3 months. I am very pleased with the positive energy our students have been bringing to school. Although we have our brief moments of poor decision making, things have been moving along very smoothly this year. Each of the grade levels is doing a great job and personally, I am just going to enjoy the rest of this school year with this group of students. In the blog this week I have a couple of fun items happening here at Woodlawn and a couple of important repeat items.
Access your KCSD96 student’s progress report online next Friday, March 3, after 3 p.m.
Need assistance? CLICK HERE for instructions to view your student’s progress report, to switch between more than one student’s progress reports, and more.
Quad Blogging
6th Grade Language Arts classes have shared their blogs around the world. Some students have completed their first Quadblog (4 schools across the world take turns responding to the blogs of others weekly and engage in eye opening conversations). Mrs. Aussem's classes even had a Skype session with a school in the UK. They discovered that even though they live so far apart, they are so much alike. Two more classes are beginning their Quad blogging experience sharing their writing with students in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Texas.
Heritage Language Students
Tammy Franks and Ryan Zak worked together to earn an IEA SCORE grant for service learning field trips connected to a recent Unit on Food/Health in Heritage Language classes. After studying a variety of problems and solutions in the domains of food and health, students excitedly engaged in this service learning project to prepare approximately 10,000 pounds of food rations that will result in 10,000 meals for people in need. It was so inspiring to see them work together and find happiness in service. Click here to see a video of our students in action.
Band Concert
Last night, we had an awesome band concert. Our 6th, 7th & 8th graders played beautifully for parents, grandparents and friends. Mr. Craw did a great job of getting the Concert, Jazz and Symphonic Band ready for this performance. Our band members have been practicing exceptionally hard and the results of their hard work was clearly seen last night. Way to go Woodlawn Band! 
Conference dates are coming up soon. Conferences begin Thursday, March 9th from 5-8:30p.m. and Friday, March 10th from 10a.m. until 1:30p.m. All conferences are student led, meaning your student must be here with you, and that it is set up to be with the homeroom teacher of your child. If you would like to set up a time to have your student led conference, call the Woodlawn main office at 847-353-8500.
Supply Kits
The Woodlawn PTO is selling custom-made school supply kits for your student(s) for use in the 2017-18 school year. Skip the last minute shopping and support your the PTO by purchasing a supply kit! School supply kits will be conveniently available for pick-up at "Locker Set-Up Day" in August. Last year, the Woodlawn PTO was the pilot school for the data management system, taking orders and processing credit card payments through Membership Toolkit. If you haven’t used this system yet, you CREATE AN ACCOUNT (link below). Parents can continue to use the toolkit throughout the 2017-18 school year to sign-up for PTO volunteer opportunities, register and pay for PTO events, activities and fundraisers. If you have an incoming 6th grader and a 7th or 8th grader, you can update your account and add students to the Woodlawn database.
Link
Middle School Schedule
Earlier this month, the School Board approved a new schedule for Woodlawn and Twin Groves, beginning at the start of the 2017-18 school year. This schedule is the culmination of work that has been happening for the past 3 years, gathering input from multiple stakeholders. More information will be shared in the March 8th Superintendent Message and in future Principal Blog’s. We will also be hosting informational sessions and a parent coffee at each middle school after Spring Break.
Finally, I am a part of the D96 Guiding Coalition of Interculturalism Committee. This group of parents, teachers and administrators from around the district are working to make all of our D96 schools more inviting to parents of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. For the longest time, I have been trying to figure out a way to get our parent community to be more active in school events. It is tough...as the parent of a middle school student myself, the only time I enter the building is for a musical, sporting event or curriculum night. Currently, our elementary schools have things like Bingo Bash, Family Read Night and the Family Picnic just to name a few. The middle school pretty much has the musical, sporting events, band/orchestra/chorus and PTO sponsored events for the students. Personally, I would love to expand our parent outreach for all families and build upon the similarities and differences that make our community great. One thing that I found interesting at our meeting on Wednesday night was the number of families that speak multiple languages in the home. Here is a list of the Woodlawn families alone (These are what we have listed in our computer system):
Russian - Mandarin - Spanish - Korean - Telugu - Hindi - Polish - Tamil - Cantonese - Filipino - Japanese - Gujarati - Urdu - Malayalam - Bengali - Mongolian - Arabic - Ukrainian - Lithuanian - Portuguese - Vietnamese - Danish - Dutch/Flemish
Have a great weekend.