The first community planning meeting for the facilities Master Planning process will take place on Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. at the West Geauga Middle School cafeteria.
Community Dialogue Meeting
The first community planning meeting for the facilities Master Planning process will take place on Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. at the West Geauga Middle School cafeteria. The evening will include a review of the district profile and an overview of the facility information that has already been gathered. There will be a time for questions and a time for community members to offer input.
All residents in the West Geauga School District are welcome to attend. For more information, visit www.westg.org.
West G Celebrates Homecoming
Homecoming was a spirit-filled occasion at West Geauga last week. Special events hosted by the Student Council were enjoyed by the students and staff.
Homecoming queen was Lindsey Kulp. She was accompanied by the first-recorded homecoming king in recent memory – Kevin Petransky.
During the weekend, more than 550 students attended the homecoming dance.
Staff members were key to making the week a success. Key members included Stephanie Meyer, Molly Brunner, Chris Rader and Keli Sessler along with Principal Jay Bishop and Assistant Principal Ron Dahlhofer.
Students Attend Leadership Camp
West Geauga Middle School seventh- and eighth-grade students attended an overnight event hosted by the Geauga Youth-Led Prevention (YLP) program at Camp Burton. The camp was designed to build leadership skills and relationships between middle school students from different Geauga County schools.
During the overnight trip, the students took part in leadership activities, participated in discussions and got to know middle school students from other districts. As part of the Geauga YLP program, the students have the opportunity to participate in the Youth Advisory Council.
The overall goal of the camp was to equip students with prevention and communication skills they can take back to WGMS to support their peers.
Chromebook Rollout at WGHS
A new Chromebook program was rolled out to ninth-grade students at West Geauga High School.
“This program is a great way for us to incorporate 1:1 devices into the classroom seamlessly,” said Sean Whelan, director of technology and operations. “With access to their Chromebook, students can complete homework and assignments and check in with their teachers no matter the day or time. Having computers available to all students provides additional access to education for our students.”
Parents of ninth-grade students came into the school after hours to get their child’s Chromebooks. With the rollout almost complete, teachers are now using them in the classroom as a supportive device in teaching.
“Our students will have an advantage as they move through the high school curriculum. Teachers can count on this for instructional planning because each student will have the same device,” said Whelan.
The new Chromebooks also make integrating new curriculum and teaching methods faster and less costly for the district.
Spy Theme Increases Engagement
At Westwood Elementary, teachers Anna Laubscher and Jileen Urbanek are going to great lengths to help their students engage in learning.
Said Laubscher, “Our goal is to increase student engagement by using classroom transformations and mission challenges. With student engagement, we can up the rigor and expectations for our students. This is a national trend in education right now.”
One of the classroom transformations includes a spy theme to help fifth-graders learn about the scientific method. A classroom was set up as spy training headquarters, complete with black lights and string to look like lasers and black hats for each student.
The lesson included decoding a secret message as a password and learning the secret handshake to enter the room.
According to Laubscher, “They have seven missions to complete in order to graduate from spy school. The first was observation (quantitative and qualitative), inferences and classification.”
During the project, students used technology such as the FBI shoe tread database and made models of plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets to reinforce the scientific method.
