WCMS Principal: Gerald Tidwell
October 2017
Principal’s Newsletter
WCMS Principal: Gerald Tidwell
The Principal’s Newsletter will be delivered electronically the 15th of each month
Chronic Student Attendance – Thank you for your help in getting your child to school each day that they are able. We are required to monitor student attendance more closely this year and will be contacting parents when their child gets close to missing 10% of the days we are in school. 10% is considered chronic absenteeism by the state of Tennessee. I have asked our teachers to make phone calls home to check on their students that have missed 10% of school.
PTO Club– PTO President, Jason Riley, has announced that the October PTO meeting will be next Thursday (26th) in the WCMS library conference room. We look forward to working with our parents of WCMS students and we are thankful for those that are able to participate. Our PTO raises funds through a variety of projects including the Christmas Dance in December. Future PTO plans & projects will be discussed at this meeting. Mr. Riley has set two different meeting times and those that are able to participate are asked to attend 1 of the 2 meetings. The meeting times will be at 7:30 am & 4:00 pm.
Mega Party & BMX Bicycle Show – Our student body did a great job with our fall cookie dough fundraiser last month. The anticipated profits from the cookie dough sales are projected to be around $10,000! As one of the rewards for doing so well, we will have a Mega Party day for all grade levels this Friday, October 20th. A Mega Party consists of approximately 8 inflatables, DJ music, snow cones, & other games. The weather forecast looks good for Friday so we anticipate being able to have the Mega Party outside. Our school day will be broken into 3 blocks on this day: a 2 hour Mega Party slot, a 2 hour instruction slot, and a 2 hour movie slot. I will attach the full day’s agenda to this email. If any parents would like to come and supervise the Mega Party during their child’s time, please let us know. We would be happy to have you join us. The fundraising company that we use is also providing a free BMX bicycle stunt show to the students free of charge. The BMX show is scheduled for Tuesday, October 24th.
Halloween Dance – The inaugural WCMS Halloween dance will be this Friday, October 27th. This will be a dance where the students can and are encouraged to wear their favorite Halloween costumes. The sponsors of this dance will be our boys & girls basketball teams. The profit from our dances is usually at least $1500 which goes to support the sponsoring club. We want our students to enjoy our Halloween Dance but we have set some dress guidelines to make sure all students have a fun and enjoyable experience which including maintaining a safe and non-threatening atmosphere. The dress guidelines include: no masks, no fake weapons, no clown costumes, no provocative, violent, or gory clothing. The school dress code will still be enforced as it is written in the student handbook.
TNReady Scores –We now have more complete information on our TNReady results from last spring that I would like to share. Each school and school district gets assigned a number/grade in the following areas: Overall, Literacy, Numeracy, Literacy & Numeracy combined, and Science. The state of Tennessee has not yet developed a TNReady Social Studies test but that is coming in the near future. The number scale is from 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest performance. The WCMS overall score was a (3). Other scores include: Literacy (3), Science (5), Algebra I (5), Numeracy (1), & Literacy/Numeracy combined (1). A score of a 3 represents expected growth for the year which is the minimum goal for our school. Our numeracy score of a 1 is a concern and we will work to improve that score. However, I will state that we have the same great math teachers that have given the same great effort in years past where our numeracy score was a 5. We will figure out the disconnect from teacher performance and test score and then make the necessary corrections in order to get our numeracy score back to a 5.
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Student Remediation /ICU/RTI: We have some highly effective programs in place to help students who may be struggling in any content area. Our ICU program is available to students during their p.e. or lunch time and students are assigned to the ICU program by a classroom teacher. The purpose of ICU is for students who need extra time and assistance to complete their work with a teacher assistant. Once class work is completed to the satisfaction of the classroom teacher, the student is released from ICU. ICU may also be used as a quite location for students to take a test or retest. Our RTI program serves those students who are behind in comprehending the skills that they need to be successful in ELA and/or Math at their current grade level. Instruction in RTI focuses on the student’s individual deficit and instruction is tailored for that student’s needs. Lastly, student remediation is when our classroom teachers pull students from p.e./related arts classes, during their planning periods, to catch them up if they have fallen a little behind with their class work. These are 3 of the programs that we have in place to provide students who may need extra time and assistance comprehending their curriculum.
Book Character Day – Our school will have “book character day” on Tuesday, October 31st to celebrate Halloween. Last year our ELA teachers came up this the idea of having a book character day and it was a huge success. We look forward to having it again this year. Some of the guidelines that must be followed include: the costume must represent a character from an A.R. book (and approved by the ELA teacher), no fake weapons of any kind, no masks, students must follow the school dress code, & characters should not be too violent or scary.
Parent email list – If you know of someone who would like to sign up to receive the principal newsletter each month, please have them submit to me their email address to