February Update from WBH Principal Andrew Kourt

Dear Families,

I hope you and your families are staying healthy during this difficult cold and flu season. As you know there is a lot of illness around lately. Good school attendance is incredibly important, but if your child is sick with a fever or throwing up it is important that they stay home. Remember to encourage your child to wash their hands often and have them work hard to keep their germs to themselves. I want to thank our wonderful cleaners: Mr. Freeman, Ms. Ames, and Mr. Bass for always working hard to keep our school clean and keeping our students healthy.

As you may have noticed we have a couple teachers out on maternity leave. Please join me in congratulating Ms. Jubie and Ms. Mastin on the birth of their sons. I would like to welcome their replacement teachers to WBH. Ms. Cass is teaching 3rd grade (Ms. Jubie’s replacement teacher), she comes to us with many years of experience teaching multiple different grades throughout our region. Ms. Reardon is teaching 5/6 ELA (Ms. Mastin’s replacement teacher), she recently moved back to the area after teaching 7 /8 English at our Junior/Senior High School. Ms. Heslin is expecting a child any day now. When she goes on leave, her replacement teacher is Ms. Harris, she comes to us from most recently substitute teaching in East Greenbush. We are lucky to have such dedicated teachers join our WBH family.

Our students have recently had several guest speakers visit their classrooms. I want to take this time to briefly describe these different unique experiences: Our very own resource officer, Deputy McMahon, recently visited each grade level to discuss Internet safety with our students. He taught them tips to ensure that they make good choices when using the Internet. Our kitchen manager, Patty Metzler, met with our students to discuss healthy eating habits, how to read food labels, and some insight on what goes into our school lunch program. A staff member from the Columbia County’s REACH Center met with each grade level to discuss healthy boundaries to our students. This program focuses on the importance of our students feeling safe and to ensure that they know what to do if they ever come across an uncomfortable situation. Finally, our 5th and 6th  graders recently completed “Growing to Maturity.” Our staff taught our students about some of the changes they will go through as they mature. I encourage you to talk to your child about some of these recent experiences.

 

Save the Date:

2/15 – 2/23 – February Break 3/2 – Tiger Jam – 8:45am

2/28- PTA Activity Night 6:30 3/10- PTA Meeting

3/13 – PTA School Dance

3/20 – No School Supt. Conf. day

 

Thank you for your continued support. Please remember my door is always open.

Fondly,

Andrew Kourt