WESD e-news: September 8, 2023
A Message from WESD Superintendent Dr. Paul Stanton
Greetings WESD Families and Staff,
I hope you are having a wonderful school year. My team and I have been meeting with many of our school leaders. I can share that they are working on building relationships with you, our WESD Families. Based on your feedback, they are also working on partnerships that support our students and families. Finally, they are working on growing your child academically based on their individual needs.
In today’s update, you will find an exciting teacher award, our continued attendance matters campaign and our first school highlights feature at the recent Board meeting.
Acacia Music Teacher Receives Fulton Homes’ School Salute Program Award
Congratulations to Acacia Elementary School Music Teacher Alyssa Weed who was recognized as the first winner of Fulton Homes’ School Salute program for the 2023-2024 school year! In partnership with BIG 94.5, Fulton Homes honors music instructors across the valley who go above and beyond in teaching the arts to students. Ms. Weed was selected to receive the special award after being nominated by friend Ty Bauer, who is also the husband of Acacia fifth-grade teacher Stacy Bauer. She was surprised in front of Cheryl Gedney’s first-grade class on Tuesday, August 29th, with a $1,000 check from radio personality Niko to benefit her school's music program. As part of the award, a performance from the Acacia music program will also be played on 94.5 BIG all month long! Click here to check out the full story on 12News. The WESD is very proud of you, Mrs. Weed!
WESD Continues Attendance Campaign for 2023-2024 School Year
September is Attendance Awareness Month! To celebrate, we are proud to share the continuation of our #AttendanceMattersWESD campaign! The theme for the month and the school year is Showing Up Together. We initiated the campaign last school year with a focus on emphasizing the importance of being in school each day and improving student attendance across the district. We are excited to share that the attendance rate for the 2022-2023 school year was 91.95%, which was an increase of 3.95% from the previous year. Additionally, the WESD reduced chronic absenteeism by more than 11%!
This year, our goal is to increase daily attendance by 2% and decrease chronic absenteeism by 8%. Please help us achieve these new goals by ensuring your child(ren) attends school each day. Remember, every day a student is absent is a lost opportunity for learning.
Be sure to check out the WESD on social media as we will be sharing important tips and resources this month and all school year long. Let's show up together and make attendance a priority!
Governing Board Introduces New School Highlights Feature
The WESD Governing Board recently introduced a new feature that will take place before Governing Board meetings - school highlights! Before regularly scheduled Board meetings, three WESD schools will each give 10-minute highlights to share great things happening at their campuses. On Thursday, August 31st, the first school highlights feature took place which included Manzanita Elementary School, Mountain Sky Junior High School and Palo Verde Middle School. To learn more about their shared highlights, click here to check it out on YouTube.
And Finally,
We highly encourage our families, staff and community to provide us with feedback. To that effort, we offer our new We’re Listening tool where you can do just that! Please click here to take a moment to share any comments, questions or compliments with us. To stay informed of all things WESD, please follow the district on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter) and LinkedIn. You can also click here to view a complete list of all our schools’ social media pages. The WESD website is a great resource to gain other important news and information, as well.
We are truly grateful for you. Thank you for choosing WESD to educate your child(ren).