NORTHEAST IOWA HIGH SCHOOL CHARTER 2015 SCHOOL INFORMATION

Seniors (28 students) 28 of 28 took college credit totaling a 1141.5 credits (Avg.40.8) 24 earned over 15 hours of credit 17 earned over 30 hours of credit 13 earned over 48 hours of credit 10 earned over 60 hours of credit 8 earned their AA degree

Juniors—15 of 20 took college credit Sophomores - 11 of 18 took college level classes Freshmen - 15 of 19 took college level classes Forty three of forty eight (43/48) seniors and juniors took college level courses in 15-16, for a 89.5% participation rate. They took a total of 799.5 college credits. An average of 16.5 credits were taken by all juniors and seniors in the charter for 2015-16.

A big thank you to all the parents that visited with their child’s teacher(s) during parent—teacher conferences. It is a vitally important time to ensure your child is receiving the best education possible and share information with the teacher that will help with your child’s academic success. Remember you may contact the school or teacher at anytime with any concerns or questions. Our staff will always be open to meeting with you for scheduled appointments.

December Newsletter by Mrs. Timmerman, PK-8 Principal

Happy Holidays from the Students, Teachers, and Staff N.I.C.E. Our N.I.C.E. skill for November/December is giving. Our K-6 project was to entertain the Senior Citizens before the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. The students decorated the lunchroom and sang festive songs to entertain our guests. AR We will award AR certificates on December 7th at 8:30 AM in the gymnasium. Please come and join us. The PK-4 Christmas Concert will be held on Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 7:00 PM in the gymnasium. CONFERENCES Thank you to everyone who attended parent-teacher conferences. The elementary had 90% attendance for parent-teacher conferences this fall. The middle school had 95% attendance for parent-teacher conferences this fall. We appreciate your support as we work to do our best for the students at West Central. WINTER CLOTHING Winter is here. Please see that your child is dressed appropriately for outside recess. Winter coats, hats, mittens, and snow boots are necessary on these cold days. Snow pants are encouraged, especially if your child will play in the snow. Thank you for your cooperation. THANK YOU A HUGE THANK YOU to the wonderful people who donated cans to our CAN DRIVE. This money is used for special field trips, and activities at the elementary level. THANKS We would like to say “THANKS” to the people who support West Central. You support our activities, our fund-raisers, and our students. Thank you to the wonderful patrons who continue to support West Central. WE APPRECIATE IT!

GIVING West Central Necessities In Character Education The theme for N.I.C.E. for the months of November and December is GIVING. During these two months we celebrate two of the most meaningful holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. As part of your family celebration of Thanksgiving, you might want to discuss with your child the things for which your family is thankful. As you prepare for the Christmas holiday, you may want to emphasize the “giving” rather than the “getting” part of Christmas. Please remember the opportunities at school and in the community for “giving” at this time of the year. We have a “giving tree” at school and a collection of food and paper products for those less fortunate. Encourage your child to participate. Have a family discussion of giving without having an object involved. Perhaps a gift of time spent with someone, or a particular kindness shown, or an offer to do a particular job would be more welcome than something that comes in a box. Please join us for the N.I.C.E. assembly on Wednesday, December 7th, at 8:30 a.m. in the gym.

In America, Homeless Children are Never School-less Children Do you know of any Homeless Children living in the West Central Community School District? Iowa law provides a free public education to all qualifying children, including those who might be temporarily homeless. West Central Community School stands ready to provide education services to all qualifying children currently residing in our district. If you have any information regarding qualified children currently not enrolled, please contact Catherine A. Timmerman, Elementary/MS Principal at 563.637.2283. If you are the parent/guardian of a homeless child, please contact our school. We are committed to providing a quality education to all children. Homeless child or youth is defined as a child or youth from age of 3 years through 21 years who lacks a fixed, regular, and an adequate nighttime residence and includes the following: 1.

A child or youth who is sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; is living in a motel, hotel, trailer park, or camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations; is living in an emergency or transitional shelter; is abandoned in a hospital; or is waiting foster care placement.

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A child or youth who has a primary nighttime residence that is a public or a private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings..

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A migratory child or youth who qualifies as Homeless because the child or youth is living in circumstances described in paragraphs “1” through “3” above.

Preschool News Hello from Preschool! We have been so busy this fall learning all about pumpkins, fall weather, the five senses and Thanksgiving. During our study on pumpkins we learned all about how they grow and the different kinds of pumpkins. While talking about the fall weather we did a study on day and night. With the time change we thought it would be a perfect time to talk about the changes we see and compare day and night time activities. The students all had a blast with our many five senses activities. They loved using all of our five senses to make air pop popcorn the best of all. Our Thanksgiving study was fun and we created a lot of fun projects and worked on a lot of our preschool skills. We made some fun shape turkeys, paper plate turkeys and a native American pattern headband. We also worked on rhyming, positional words, and number writing. Along with our studies we have been working on our letters and letter sounds, number recognition, writing our names, and many other math and literacy skills. Like I said we are always busy in preschool and we love it! The students are getting excited for Christmas. They talk about Santa and his elves. We are all excited to start our Christmas/Winter study in December! We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!

November has been busy in the Kindergarten classroom! We have had many fun activities along with all of our daily work! We completed another set of sounds in Jolly Phonics! We are now on our 5 th set of sounds and will be reading before you know it!! In Reading, we have been learning more new sight words. We have learned about characters, setting, problems and solutions, story recall, rhyming words, sequencing and main ideas. Some of our stories this month included: Amelia’s Show-and-Tell Fiesta, Mice Squeak, We Speak,

Jonathon and his Mommy, MOVE!, Listen, Listen, and My 5 Senses. We also read stories about Thanksgiving. In Math, we have been working on reading and writing our numbers 0-10 and comparing numbers 0-10. We also have been learning about ordinal numbers. We have been learning about plants in Science. Finally, we enjoyed making fun Thanksgiving crafts to decorate our room and the bulletin boards. We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving…now the countdown begins for Christmas!

The excitement of the holidays is upon us! We will give our classmates the “Gift of Friendship.” As a writing project, we go around the room and write the things we like about our friends on a piece of paper which will be wrapped up like a gift. It is so much fun! Our reading skills are improving all the time. We are spending a lot of our free time with our noses in books. Practice, practice, practice. Be sure to read at home, too, especially over Christmas break. If your first grader is still struggling with reading a bit be sure to practice all the sight words. We will be doing a unit on geometry in Math, but continue to practice those addition/ subtraction facts! Flash cards would make a great stocking stuffer. We are also studying animals in Science. How interesting! Happy Holidays from the First Grade!

Second Grade News by Mrs. Anderson Wow! Where has the month of November gone? The second graders have been learning about our government in social studies. We’ve talked about laws, taxes, voting to elect good leaders, what makes a good leader, patriotism and symbols for our country, and what makes someone a good citizen. We even held a mock presidential election in the classroom on November 8th . It was a lot of fun. In math, we are beginning to learn how to count money. The coin values can be difficult for children, so practice is important. You can help your child practice at home by giving him/ her a handful of coins to organize. Begin by having your child group the coins of the greatest value first on down to the coins of the least value. Then, count to get the total value. During literacy, our phonics work has included contractions and –ed, -s, and –es endings. During grammar, we have been focusing on proper nouns, verbs, verb tenses, prefixes and suffixes. When we read nonfiction stories, we find the main idea of each section and the details to support the topic. During fiction stories, we talk about different things a character does or says to help us to understand the character in better detail. The school’s Thanksgiving dinner was delicious! The students did a wonderful job singing and dancing for the senior citizens that came to enjoy the school’s Thanksgiving dinner. The fire department hosted a pizza party for the classes that had 100% participation in the fire prevention posters and met the assignment deadline. The students always enjoy going to the fire house for pizza, but most important they have learned what to do in case of a fire. Enjoy the fall, and be thankful for the many joys it brings.

Fall has finally fallen here in third grade. We decorated for the Senior Citizen Thanksgiving Lunch with colorful maple and oak leaves. We also made pumpkins for centerpieces which listed all the things we are thankful for. Our final centerpieces were pinecone turkeys with tail feathers made from our handprints. Today we enjoyed our pizza party at the fire station. Thanks to everyone at the fire station for a very anticipated tradition. In the classroom we have jumped head first into cursive writing, we have learned how to test our knowledge on a Kahoot, and have started an exciting math game online called Prodigy Math. We are working hard at reading to meet our goal. We decided we would try to get an AR certificate for every third-grade student. Today was our first day of Type to Learn, a program which teaches keyboarding. With this being Thanksgiving month, I would like to express how thankful I am for all the new people I’ve met here at West Central.

Greetings from fourth grade! In our reading series, we have been reading stories about natural disasters. Students are creating informative lap books on the topic of hurricanes. We will display these in the hallway when we are finished. In science, we will begin discussing Earth science. In social studies, we will be moving on to states in the southern region of the United States. The fourth graders have completed their third lesson in coding. We plan to participate in the Hour of Code event, which will take place the week of December 5-11. Please make sure that your child is reading a minimum of twenty minutes each night.

December is a fun and exciting time in 5th grade. In reading we are finishing up our Point of View unit using the book “Old Yeller.” Math we are working hard to divide larger numbers and decimals. The kids have made up some mnemonic devices to help our division skills. Science we’re doing multiple different activities to learn about biomes, habitats, ecosystems, food chains, and food webs. In social studies we will be researching an explorer and writing a research paper on the person we research. We have a lot of fun activities coming up, with Christmas just around the corner!

The sixth graders are very excited about the upcoming holidays and new year. The students continue to work very hard on fractions and mixed numbers in math. “Emergencies” have been the unit theme in reading. We’ll end the month with a story called “Team Moon”. The Greek Empire will be our focus in social studies. Next up will be the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar, along with many other historical figures will be discussed flowing Christmas break. We’ll also be switching gears from science to health. Our first chapter will deal with the four aspects of health, and our overall wellness. The sixth graders are looking forward to the second half of the school year, and of course snow!

OCTOBER READING CERTIFICATES

2ND GRADE Brody Wolff Shadow White Jax Tommasin—2 Cert. Paige Thompson Sydney Teague Samantha Steinbronn Anthony Spratt Jakob Kohlmeyer Daimiaon Gyuro Lilli Eitel Jocelyn Buehler Cale Baker 3RD GRADE Justice Lauer—2 Cert. Raeleigh Hepker Karlie Hepker Eva Gyuro Rogelio Gonzalez Clara Cosgriff Hailee Cannon

4TH GRADE Kelly Donat Grace Recker Ava Rochford Trenton Rodas Abby Sieck Nevaeh Solheim Jase Tommasin Sandler Brehme—3 Cert. Jed Tyler—7 Cert. 5TH GRADE Kaydence Martin Kassidy Bantz Shannon Wilson—2 Cert. Megan Lampe—4 Cert. Halle Hanaway Elizabeth Streif—2 Cert. Daryon Allwood

6TH GRADE Brooklyn Teague Bryce Tellin Jocelyn Clay Izzy Devore Isaac George Creighton Houge Brooks Ingels Michael McDonough Seth Brehme Abby Squires Willem Child—2 Cert. Alan Streittmatter—2 Cert. Amyah Bender—3 Cert. Maria Streif—3 Cert.

Senior Spotlight

Taten Michal Spies aka Zombie Taten Birthday: July 4 Parents: Ben Welch and Jean Spies Siblings: Noah, Jennelle, Jeremy Greatest Influence: Uncle Justin Hobbies: Hanging out with friends Likes: Video games, movies and wrestling (WWE) Dislikes: Cheesy potatoes, work, family movie night Favorite Song: In the End Favorite TV Show/Movie: South Park, Deadpool, Walking Dead Favorite Actor/Actress: none Prized Possession: My PS4 Memorable Moments: Winning the Frisbee golf tournament Secret Ambition: To be a video game designer Future Plans: I don’t know yet

Directions to Sign Up to Work Concession 

1st you will need to have a gmail account.

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If you do not have a gmail account, it is easy to create one.

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To do this, go to google.com

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Click on the letter in the circle in the upper right corner.

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It will then ask you to enter your gmail if you have one already.

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If not, click on “create an account” and follow the directions.

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While logged on, open another tab and go to the school website www.w-central.k12.ia.us

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On the school website, along the left-hand column, you will see WC Booster Club

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Underneath that is Concession Volunteering. Click on this.

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On the calendar, will be grey boxes for the different days/shifts available.

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Click on a day/shift that you would like to sign up for.

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A box will come up. Click on the SAVE button to sign up for it.

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You will receive an email to your gmail account confirming this appointment made

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Choose another day/shift. Click SAVE. Repeat.

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If you would like more information about the game, go back to the WC home page

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Under Concession Volunteering, is Booster Club Calendar

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On the left-hand column, you will see “Add a friend’s calendar”, or click on “Other calendars.”

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Your friend is [email protected]

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Your calendar will need to be in week view, not month view

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Above or before each game is an info box

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Click on the info box for more details about that nights game. -for example: Game start times Which gym the game is in If it is Pack the Gym Night If it is Senior Night etc.

Any Questions-text 563-920-4991 (Sarah Michels WC Booster Club Vice President) for help with your name and phone number & she will call you when able.

‘Tis the Season for Giving!

Engraved brick forms are available online and in the main office. Consider ordering for yourself, as a family, in memory of, for children/ grandchildren, as a businesses, and so on. If you have questions please contact Mrs. Buehler at the school. Thank you in advance for your support of our playground!

Educational Equality It is the policy of the West Central Community School District not to illegally discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, disability, religion, creed, age (employment only), marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity and socioeconomic status (students/programs only) in its educational programs and its employment practices. There is a grievance procedure for processing complaints of discrimination. If you have questions or a grievance related to this policy please contact the district's Equality Coordinator. Catherine A. Timmerman, PK-8 Principal 305 Pember St., 563-637-2283 [email protected]

West Central will be serving its Holiday Dinner on Tuesday, December 13th, 2016. If you are a senior citizen and would like to enjoy the holiday meal, please call the school to make your reservation. Please call by Wednesday, December 7th, 563-637-2283. If you are eating at the school, the elementary students will entertain at 12:00 in the gym. Dinner will follow.

School Store Gift Cards The West Central School Store has a great gift idea! A $5.00 West Central School Gift Card. A great idea for birthdays, Christmas or just a thank-you to someone. Gift Cards are available in the Art Room.

Music Notes—December 2016 Stacy Fink—PreK-12 Vocal

Kayla Fleming—5-12 Instrumental

As the first semester is starting to wind down, the music department is busy, busy, busy in preparations for the many winter concerts and performances! Holiday concerts, pep band, and honor bands are getting ready to showcase our musicians’ talents over the next few weeks. Here is a list of what is to come from the WC Music Department: **2016 Fruit Sale Update: Thank you to all who ordered fruit, nuts, meats, and cheese! Once again, we are humbled by the generosity of the community! Fundraiser proceeds will go toward honor band/choir fees and instrument repairs and upgrades for our ensembles! Orders will arrive during the week of December 12-16. As of this publication date, the exact delivery date is yet to be determined. Orders will likely be able to be picked up anytime after noon. NEIBA Honor Band: Saturday, December 3 8th graders Erin Hamlett and Bryleigh Rouse will represent the WC Band Department at the district NEIBA (North Eastern Iowa Band Association) honor band festival. The festival will be held at Oelwein High School. The Junior High concert will begin at 5:00 PM in the high school gym. Admission is $5 for adults and $4 for students. High School Winter Concert: Thursday, December 8 The High School Concert Choir and High School Concert Band will perform at 7:00 PM in the auditorium. Mark your calendars and plan to attend this fantastic concert! Sr. Citizens Christmas Meal: Tuesday, December 13 K-6 students will sing for the senior citizens in the big gymnasium prior to the Christmas meal on

December 13. The entertainment will begin at 12:00pm (noon), with the meal to follow. PreK-4 Winter Concert “Twas The Night Before Christmas": Thursday, December 15 All PreK-4 students will perform in the Winter Concert "Twas The Night Before Christmas" directed by Mrs. Fink. The concert will begin at 7:00 PM in the gym. The concert will begin with the preschool students, who will then be invited to sit with their parents to watch the rest of the concert. Students should have brought home a note regarding concert attire. If you have questions, please contact your child’s classroom teacher for further details. Pep Band With the beginning of basketball season upon us, the Blue Devil Pep Band will begin pep band performances at home basketball games. HS students are expected to be in attendance. For questions about exact performance dates, please contact Ms. Fleming.