FEBRUARY NEWS
Thank you very much for your diligence with the daily COVID screening. Please continue to complete the COVID 19 School Screening and keep your children home when they are sick.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
February is Black History Month – There will be many learning opportunities this month and throughout the school year
February 2 – Winter Walk Day
February 3 – National Sweater Day
February 4 – Red and White Day
February 14 – Valentine’s Day – Valentine’s Day – Red and Pink Day (students may bring cards for their classmates, but please do not bring food for the class)
February 16 – Report Cards Uploaded, I Read Canada Day 
February 21 – Family Day – No School
February 23 – Pink Shirt Day
WINEGARD WEDNESDAYS
Continue to wear black, white and grey on Wednesdays!
PINK SHIRT DAY
We take all incidents of bullying seriously. If your child is the victim of bullying or sees bullying behavior at school, please encourage him/her to speak with someone at school or use our board’s online reporting tool. Report Bullying gives students and parents 24/7 access for reporting bullying. You don’t have to identify yourself – just your school – and your message gets sent directly to the school principal for follow-up. You’ll find the Report Bullying button on our school’s website: https://webapps.ugdsb.on.ca/reportbullying/
MESSAGE FROM SCHOOL COUNCIL
The next school council meeting will take place virtually on Tuesday, March 1st at 7:00 p.m. Please check the school calendar for a link to the meeting.
Fundraising Update
Following the most recent School Council meeting on January 25th, 2022, we thought it might be a good time for an update on our fundraising goals here at William C Winegard.
- Water Refill Station for the Upper Level
We have hosted three ‘Raising the Dough’ pizza nights with Dominos Pizza towards this purchase. Our school community and their friends & family have turned out for this event in a great show of support. The event totals from our 3 nights were:
- December 2021 $852
- April 2021 $600 ($560 raised + $40 donated by Dominos)
- March 2021 $1000 ($905 raised + $95 donated by Dominos)
To date we have raised $2452.00 from pizza sales towards our water refill station for the upper level. The board has apologized for a bit of a delay on their end regarding our refill station. They have now been in and surveyed the location as well as the existing plumbing. The school is working with the board to obtain current pricing and product availability.
We are also looking into possible funding that may be available from the board through the “Covid-19 Resilience Infrastructure Stream (CVRIS) Funding” (https://www.ugdsb.ca/cvris/). If there is board funding available, we may be in the position of having extra funds available for the improvement of our school.
Other Items where Funds May be Allocated:
- Maintenance of our playground & structures
Following the inspection of our playground last year, there were several areas noted that required maintenance. The school has been working with the board for clarification to create a maintenance plan. Some repairs have been made from the Playground fund, but it is possible extra fundraising dollars could be allocated to this project.
- Support for technology in our classrooms
We strive to get technology into the hands of all our students, even the smallest of hands. Our school administration has noted that some of our oldest Chromebooks are not eligible for repair by the board. We would like to keep our school in a routine of regular replacement/expansion of our tech supports so available fundraising dollars may also be directed to purchasing technology such as Chromebooks for the school.
LEARNING COMMONS NEWS
We are excited to start our Forest of Reading program at our school/library and we wanted to give you some information about the program your child will be participating in.
WHAT IS THE FOREST OF READING®?
The Forest of Reading is Canada’s largest recreational reading program with over 270,000 participants every year. The goal: to develop a lifelong love of reading. The Forest has programs for all ages, and connects young people with stellar Canadian literature, as well as giving them the opportunity to vote for their favorite book. The Forest of Reading offers 10 reading programs for young people in English and French.
HOW DO THE PROGRAMS WORK?
Older readers ( grade 3 and up) participate by reading five out of the ten nominated titles and then vote during April for their favorite book. In order to vote they need to participate in mini-activities to prove that they have read each. All of the post-reading activities are assigned virtually in their homeroom Google classroom. Hard copies of the nominated books are available to sign out during your weekly or bi-weekly library period. *Please be mindful that others who have signed up for the program will be looking forward to reading the books that you sign out, so be sure to return them as soon as you are done reading them! There will be virtual ways to access the books as well.
Younger readers will participate in the picture book programs called Blue Spruce. This is for grades K-2 .Blue Spruce requires the reader to read 10 books, but also can have them read aloud to them in order to be eligible to vote. The teacher librarian will meet & read with these groups. * These books will not be able to be signed out until after voting in April.
I READ CANADIAN DAY
On February 16th, our school is helping to celebrate “I Read Canadian Day”. This is a national day of celebration of Canadian books for young people wherein our entire nation has been challenged to “Read Canadian” for 15 minutes and to share their experience at their library, in their school, with their families and friends, or on social media. This will not be hard to do as it is happening at the same time as The Forest of Reading program.
Categories: News • Newsletter