The Wonderful Windsor Hills Elementary/Middle School

The “Wonderful” Windsor Hills Elementary/Middle School “Achieving Excellence, Together!”

Corey Basmajian, Principal 4001 Alto Rd Baltimore, MD 21216 410-396-0595 (P) 410-545-7843 (Fax)

Dear Windsor Hills Parents and Guardians,

I hope that everyone has been enjoying the warm summer months and starting to get prepared as we approach the start of the 2016-2017 School-Year! Over the past couple of months, we have been working hard to prepare to launch the upcoming SY.

We are very excited about all of the positive changes taking place at our school. Here are some highlights of our partnerships and opportunities:  Business Volunteers Advisory  Arts Everyday (expanding our  Middle School Choice (7th and 8th Board efforts) graders) that get to select their  Movement Toward Community  Restorative Practices-Year 3 resource 2 days a week School Initiatives  The Incredible Years  Opening of a student ran School  Maryland Green School!  The Partners Program in Early Store  DARE and GREAT Learning  Access to two 3-D Printers for Programming for grades 4/5  Bi-weekly Maryland Food Bank student exploration and  Departmentalization in Grades 2 give-away that now expands into entrepreneurship through 5 the summer months.  Kaiser Permanente Healthy  Parks and People/Baltimore  Raising a Reader Living and Bullying Initiatives Orchard Project (Greening)  Year 4 of Success for All  Two summer programs that  Great Kids Farm (Greening)  Full-time Tutor and Support of include Super Kids and Summer Reads  Sports offerings for boys and girls Student Reading  6th Grade Residency and across the entire SY  3 Hope Health Counselors to Partnership with Mr. Miles  November 12th Day of Service support students and families  American Reading Company grant with CSX to Beautify the  Fully operating Student Support Reading implementation for School Team that includes a robust initial grades 5-8  BMore Fit meeting schedule  PlayWorks  Sequential Middle School Outward  Youthworks Bound Experiences that include  Healthier Generation Canoeing and Hiking for 5 days!  Rosetta Stone Spanish instruction  Girl Scouts-Year 3 for grade 7  Launching of The WHEMS School  Off-Site Field Trips: 80 Off-Site Store or On-Site  PBIS Gold School with an emphasis Experiences/Workshops on promoting positive behavior.  Aftercare Program through Fitness, Fun, and Games  Movement toward a Free Afterschool Program

As a result of our hard work last SY, we made some wonderful gains at WHEMS. Here are some important data points: 15-16 Data Points  Pre-K Through 2: 44% of students on  Increased Enrollment-Slated for 320 for or above grade level with reading 15-16 SY comprehension (higher than our  24 total suspensionsDown by 39 network and district averages!) from 3 years ago!  30 more students scoring on or above  Projected Enrollment growth for the 4th level on I-Ready Assessment on the consecutive years. End of Year Assessment.  70 Initial Student Support Team  64% of students in grades 3-8 making 1 meetings to offers supports to students year or more gain in ELA I-Ready. in need.  78% of students in grades 5-8 made at  72% of our 8th graders got into a criteria least 1 year gains in reading with 48% based High School! making 2 or more year’s gains!  Decreased Chronic Absent Rate from  48% of students in grades 3-8 made 1 24.1% to 22.4% (1.7% decrease) year or more growth in I-Ready Math.  Increased overall attendance % by 1.2%  Grades 3,4,5, and 8 are above the to 92% Network Average on I-Ready Math  Gold Status for PBIS  Maryland Green School!

Attendance: It is the expectation that students will be at WHEMs on a daily basis from 7:45am and here until dismissal at 2:25pm. Last year, 1 in every 5 of our students missed 20 or more days of school! Research shows that students that are frequently absent/chronically absent (miss more than 20 days per school-year) are less likely to be successful in school and far less likely to graduate high school. There is no question that attendance has a direct correlation/impact on student achievement. We have several initiatives to increase attendance this SY and we are asking for YOUR HELP to ensure that your child is in school, on-time, and here all day on a daily basis. We will be sending out frequent attendance checks to students who are not meeting the expectations and we will be following the Attendance and Truancy Court Referral Process to ensure that our children are in school.

If your child is going to be out for any reason, please contact the school and/or send a letter in with them upon their return. Our goal is to increase our overall attendance percentage from 92% to at least 94% and to decrease our Chronic Absence rate to fewer than 20%. The only way we can make this happen is for parents/families to hold-up their end of the bargain by sending students to school daily!

Here is a list of some important early 16-17 SY Dates: August 25th: Open House/New Parent Orientation 4-7pm-->New Parent Orientation, Raffles/Give Away’s, Cook-out, Moon Bounce, and Games on our back field! August 29th: Opening Day for Students (Students enter the building at 7:30am for breakfast) September 5th: No School-Labor Day September 8th: Title I Parent Breakfast and Feedback Session (8-9am in the café) September 15th: Back to School Night-5-8pm

Uniform Policy and Dress Down Day Schedule:  Black, Gold, and Burgundy Tops (shirts available at WHEMS with the logo for $10)  Khaki or Blue Bottom  Hoodies are acceptable, but the hood must be tucked-in  Black, Gold, Burgundy Sweatshirts/Cardigans over the top of the Uniform Shirt are acceptable  Loaner uniforms will be available and expected to be used when students come to school out of uniform.

Please review the dress down day dates below:

16-17 Dress Down Days September 30 February 24 October 28 March 31 November 23 April 28 December 22 May 26 January 26 June TBD

New Breakfast Procedures: If you are a returning parent, you should have received information in May regarding the breakfast changes. We will NO LONGER have Breakfast in the Classroom. Here is the updated breakfast procedures below:

7:30-7:40am-Students allowed to enter the building and go into the Café, only!  Students can come to the café for a hot breakfast (all ELE must come in; MS optional)

7:40am  Cut off from Hot Breakfast to “Grab and Go” (students will not be able to get hot breakfast after 7:40am. Pre-K /K/K-1/Life Skills are the exception. They must eat the Grab and Go in the café (no food out of the café)

7:45am  All students come into the café where teachers will pick up the students.  We will allow grades 7-8 to go up to the 3rd floor on their own, and maybe eventually 6th grade once they are “ready”.  The Cafe is the teacher pick-up point

7:45-8am  Pre-K, K, K/1 split, Life Skills will eat breakfast in the café before going to the classroom.

7:50am-Teachers bring students to classrooms.  This is the time that Grades 1-6 will bring the students up to the classroom, but teachers need to report to the café by 7:45am.

Here are some ways to stay connected:  Facebook: https://m/facebook.com/WindsorHillsEM: Please like us on Facebook-Great way to stay connected!

 Website: http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/Page/5154: We will be positing important information

We look forward to seeing everyone in August!

Thank you for your support and dedication,

Corey Basmajian Principal