Message from Mr. W ing

Fo res t Ca l e nda r o f Even ts

FOREST FANFARE FOREST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL January 2017

JANUARY

Jan 3 Grade 1 to Planetarium

Jan 9 PTA Meeting—6:30 pm

Jan 16 Martin Luther King Jr. Day - No School

Jan 17 Grade 1 to Planetarium

Jan 25 Grade 4 Concert -

9 am & 12:45 pm for school;

7 pm for parents

FEBRUARY

Feb 2 Kindergarten to Planetarium

Feb 9 Gr 4 (Bommer/Priset) to Planetarium

Feb 10 Gr 4 (Brinkerhoff/Kuebler) to Planetarium

Feb 15 Gr 2 (Demer/Terranova) to Planetarium

Feb 16 Gr 2 (Ziroli/Grimm/Koeppen) to Planetarium

Feb 20-24 Mid Winter Recess - No School

Feb 27 Gr 1 to Planetarium

Feb 27 PTA Meeting - 6:30 pm

December was filled with holiday spirit at Forest

Elementary. As many of you are aware, our

music teacher Mrs. McDowell is out on parental

leave. While we are excited for Mrs. McDowell,

as they say, “The show must go on!”. Mrs.

McDowell’s substitute, Mr. Miller, coordinated

and ran a magnificent third grade Winter chorus

concert. The students worked exceptionally hard

on this performance and the results were an

incredible show. Kudos to Mr. Miller and our

third graders!

December also featured and outstanding perfor-

mance by PTA sponsored entertainer Nels

Ross. Mr. Ross used his skills as a magician and

juggler to entertain our students with a message

about exhibiting excellent character.

Along that same theme, our Shared Decision

Making Team has instituted a new character

incentive program. Students who are caught

going above and beyond with their character will

have their names placed in a character jar in our

main office. All students who get their name in

our character jar will get their name in our

monthly Forest Fanfare. A small handful of

students each month will get their name drawn

with the opportunity to choose from our

character treasure box.

Progress on the outdoor playing surface is going

well. Our hope is to begin installation in the

Spring. Again, I want to thank our PTA and their

forward thinking for making this a reality.

I want to wish everyone a Happy Holiday season

and a Happy New Year!

Main Office 626-9800 Nurse 626-9805

Transportation 626-8390 Cafeteria 626-9811

Attendance 626-9818 School Fax 626-9819

District Office 626-8000 Soc. Worker 626-9802

Important Phone Numbers

Forest Elementary School Rules

DISMISSAL/ PICKUPS

Dismissal for all students is at 2:15 pm. Your child will be placed on a

bus unless a WRITTEN NOTE has been provided to the child’s

teacher indicating they will be picked up or have been enrolled in the

Just For Kids afterschool program in our building. If you are picking up

your child, please go to the auditorium to sign out your child with our

monitor by 2:25 pm. Please do not go to the classroom to pick up your

child. If you are going to be picking your child up early, a note is also

required and you will pick your child up at the Main Office. Please do

not email the teachers any dismissal changes.

MORNING DROP OFF

If dropping off your child in the morning, please use the N. Forest side

entrance door. Children should not be dropped off earlier than 8 am.

ABSENCES

If your child is going to be absent from school, please call our

Attendance Clerk, Mary Grygier, at 626-9818 to report this absence.

We must account for all students every day and your help with this will

save us further follow up. You may leave a message at this number the

night before or early morning if that is more convenient for you.

VISITORS

All volunteers/visitors need to sign in at the Main Office and wear a

visitor sticker. All doors of the school are locked. Anyone entering the

building needs to use the Main Entrance doors. We ask that you do

not let anyone in behind you or when you are leaving. All visitors must

state their name and purpose of visit to the Main Office staff. Please do

not visit a teacher’s classroom unless it has been prearranged.

December Artists of the Month

The following students have had their artwork

chosen to be on display near the gym.

James Vaillancourt

Priyanshi Paluri

Savannah Abeler

Payton Weinstein

Thomas Bryska-Palle

Avyutha Billikanti

Maia Fineberg

Lola Fineberg

Lailey Romano

Cecelia Ballard

Phillippe Mangweji

Congratulations Artists!

District Poetry Contest

The following were the student finalists

chosen from Forest Elementary for the annual

Williamsville Poetry, Music, Art and Dance

Celebration. Congratulations to the following:

Lila Fiegl ”Our Spirits Will Soar”

Ethan Wing ”The Gem Poem”

Matthew Harrington ”The Bravest Boy”

Portia Snyder “Ice Cream”

Mia Marczak “White”

Elizabeth Brown “The Man in the Moon”

Only 6 poems were chosen from each of the

Williamsville schools. Their poems will be pub-

lished in the Williamsville Poetry, Music, Art and

Dance Celebration anthology and they will be

invited to the celebration held on April 23,

2017. In addition, some poems may be chosen

to be read at the celebration and others may

be put to music by the high school students.

Way to go!

2017-18 Open Enrollment deadline is February 1 Open enrollment is the opportunity for students who live in the Williamsville Central School District to attend a school within the District that is outside of the student’s residential attendance area. Each school year, the Board of Education decides which schools will be available for open enrollment in the following school year, based primarily on anticipated enrollments. If a school is expected to be near or at capacity, the school may be “closed” to any students who reside outside of its designated at-tendance area. The Office of Student Services must receive written requests for open enrollment for the 2017-18 school year by February 1, 2017 for all school levels. Parents must submit a letter requesting open enrollment, including parents of eighth graders who, in the past, simply submitted a district form. They too will need to submit the form and write a letter of request before the February 1st deadline. Please contact your child’s current school of attendance for more information, or call the Office of Student Services at 716-626-8007. For the 2017-18 school year, the following schools are available for open enrollment:

Forest Elementary Heim Middle Dodge Elementary Casey Middle East High North High South High

All other schools are closed and not available for open enrollment.

E-Alert

E-Alert is a service that allows parents, students, faculty, staff and community members to receive

emails and/or text messages about school related emergency information. In the event there is

need to communicate regarding a school emergency or school closing, the system enables our

District to rapidly communicate to all subscribers. You can register online through the District’s

website.

E-Alert is an opt-in service; you may opt out at any time by revising your information on the web-

site.

http://www.williamsvillek12.org/emailSignup.cfm

When inclement weather or any other emergency situation forces the closing of district schools,

the information will be communicated by E-Alert, radio and television broadcast. Please do not

call the school or District Office.

From the PTA

Happy New Year from the Forest Elementary PTA!

Thanks so much to all of you who helped with and supported PTA initiatives during the month of December.

Specific thanks to Kristin Kolt for organizing the Gingerbread Shop/Merry Moose Shop for the children. Thanks to

Nicole Miller and Meaghan Zloty for running a great BoxTop contest (and see this Fanfare for information on

another exciting contest). Finally, thanks to Kim Schofield and Jodi Sackel for organizing a beautiful luncheon for

our teachers and staff.

Our second annual Bowling bash is on Sunday January 15th. You can register until the 6th (see form in this issue of

Fanfare). Lanes include pizza, fries, soda and two full hours of bowling fun!! Come have fun with our Forest family!

Sometime soon, the PTA will also be looking to develop a slate of folks who will want to be officers for the 2017-18

school year. There will be openings for Co-President and Treasurer. The term for each position is two years.

Please email Shira at shiraklaiman@gmail.com if you are interested in either of these opportunities.

Please join us for our next PTA meeting on Monday January 9 at 6:30 pm. As always, child care will be available.

PTA Box Tops Raffle Winners The following received a Clayton’s gift

card for their entries in the November

Box Tops contest:

Tyler Butch

Mrs. Goodlander’s Class

Claire Robbins

Ethan Wing

Benny Keller

Jack Gangi

Vivian Wagner

Philip Gangi

Gianna Aldama

Jonah Gillette

Our November contest earned

$266.60 for our school. Great job,

everyone! Please see the following

page for next month’s contest.

LUNCH PRE-PAYMENT SYSTEM

Williamsville School District's Food Service Depart-

ment is excited to provide parents a convenient,

easy and secure online prepayment service to de-

posit money into your child's school meal account

at any time. This service also provides parents the

ability to view your child's account balance through

a web site called myschoolbucks.com. By having

money in each child's account we find the lunch

lines move along much faster . A $1.95 transaction

fee is charged but the District offers a free lunch to

offset this. For more information, please see the

District Child Nutrition page: http://

www.williamsvillek12.org/departments.cfm?

subpage=1345

You will need your child’s student ID number to set

up an account. This number is on your WITS Par-

ent Portal. The website for student meal pre-

payment is: www.myschoolbucks.com

You also always have the option to send cash or

check with your child or stop in to our cafeteria and

pre-pay for lunches.

Morning Drop Off

Students may be dropped off beginning at

8 am at the Custodial Canopy Door. With

winter weather, we need to keep safety

our first priority. If you have to walk into

school, check your phone messages, get

out of your car for any reason, etc.

please park in a designated parking

spot. We need the morning drop off ve-

hicles to keep flowing so that there are no

unnecessary traffic issues. There should

be no vehicles parked alongside the side of

the building. Thank you.

WITS Parent Portal

The WITS parent account creation

process has been updated. For par-

ents to create a WITS Parent Portal

you may now go to:

https://wits/williamsvillek12.org/

register

We recommend all parents have a

WITS parent account as it is used for

scheduling teacher conferences,

emailing teachers and viewing report

cards at the elementary level.

If you experience any difficulties with

your Wits parent portal, you may call

our District Parent Help Desk at

(716) 626-8058.

Shared Decision Marking Team

Our SDM Committee has started a new program to recognize students who are showing good

character. If a students is witnessed by any staff member showing exception character, they are giv-

en a yellow slip to put in our character jar. Winners will be chosen from the character jar each

month for a chance to win a prize.

The students recognized during the month of December for good character are:

Cole Alexander Amani Abad Baariah Athar

Brynn Bacak Annabelle Berke Jackson Boone

Gemma Brugnolotti Cameron Brucato Miles Calos

Katie Cassidy J Jayden Chaplin Ethan Colaneri-Cueves

Michael Dagostino Chase Danner Joey DeGeorge

Finn Dufrene David Gervasi Tessa Gianadda

Madelyn Goldberg Autumn Grasso Lauren Gilano

Sebastian Hagen William Hapeman Noah Hershey

Katie Henderson Natalie Hornung Dominik Huber

Ryan Hussey Duncan Jorgenson Oscar Jorgenson

Solana Keaveny Selene Kinney Sean Krause

Zachary Kulpa Keyan LeadingFox Henry Lester

Joey Lipski Mia Marczak Mila Mazur

Collin McQueen Xavier Mendoza Sean O’Connor

Grayson Overton Chloe Reid Jaylen Rochez

Anna Rogers Alexandria Sandburg AJ Santoro

Adam Seivert Matty Short Lia Sperrazzo

Marra Sperrazzo Teagan Taite Jeffrey Tredo

Logan Trillizio Lyra Ward Trey Ward

Charlie Weed Gavin Weinstein Ethan Wing

Alyshia Witt Beckett Wroblewski Atticus York

Cameron Young

January Contest—Heat Up Your School Spirit with Box Tops! Submit Box Tops in Jan & Feb to earn money for our school! The classroom with the most Box Tops submitted

by Feb 17 will win a Pizza Lunch! Students can submit Box Tops with the attached flyer or on any paper or enve-

lope. Be sure to label your submission with the student's name, grade and teacher. The winning classroom will be announced after Mid-Winter Recess. Good Luck!

Curriculum Extension Day Schedule January 2017

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 No

School

3

Day 3

4

Day 4

5

Day 5

6

Day 1

7

8 9

Day 2

10

Day 3

11

Day 4

12

Day 5

13

Day 1

14

15 16 No

School

17

Day 2

18

Day 3

19

Day 4

20

Day 5

21

22 23

Day 1

24

Day 2

25

Day 3

26

Day 4

27

Day 5

28

29 30

Day 1

31

Day 2

CURRICULUM EXTENSION

SCHEDULE

8:20 – 8:50 am - Band/Orchestra

8:30 – 9:20 am - Grade 3

9:20 - 10:10 am - CE Planning

10:10 – 11:00 am - Kindergarten

11:05 – 11:55 am - Grade 1

11:55 – 12:25 pm - CE Lunch

12:25 – 1:15 pm - Grade 2

1:20 – 2:10 pm - Grade 4

Gr. PE ART MUSIC LIB

K Monile/Fiegl Shantler Goodlander Losi

1 Albuez/Karlinski Vecchio Freitag Corrigan

2 Demer/Ziroli Koeppen Grimm Terranova

3 Collins/Morrison Becker Celeste Stawicki

4 Priset/Bommer Brinkerhoff X Group Kuebler

Gr. PE ART MUSIC LIB

K Goodlander/Monile Losi Shantler Fiegl

1 Albuez/Corrigan Freitag Karlinski Vecchio

2 Demer/Terranova Ziroli Koeppen Grimm

3 Collins/Becker Celeste Stawicki Morrison

4 Priset/Kuebler X Group Bommer Brinkerhoff

Day 1

Day 5

Day 2

Day 4

Gr. PE ART MUSIC LIB

K Shantler/Losi Monile Fiegl Goodlander

1 Freitag/Vecchio Karlinski Corrigan Albuez

2 Koeppen/Grimm Demer Terranova Ziroli

3 Celeste/Stawicki Collins Morrison Becker

4 Brinkerhoff/X Group Priset Kuebler Bommer

Gr. PE ART MUSIC LIB

K Losi/Fiegl Goodlander Monile Shantler

1 Karlinski/Vecchio Corrigan Albuez Freitag

2 Grimm/Ziroli Terranova Demer Koeppen

3 Celeste/Morrison Stawicki Becker Collins

4 Bommer/Brinkerhoff Kuebler Priset X Group

Gr. PE ART MUSIC LIB

K Goodlander/Shantler Fiegl Losi Monile

1 Corrigan/Freitag Albuez Vecchio Karlinski

2 Terranova/Koeppen Grimm Ziroli Demer

3 Becker/Stawicki Morrison Collins Celeste

4 Kuebler/X Group Bommer Brinkerhoff Priset

Day 3

** K—Mrs. Kraatz’s class will be divided and attend with other K classes for Curriculum Extension