November Newsletter from Principal Tam and PTA

Dear Westbriar Families,

Thank you, Amanda Aragon and the Pumpkin Fest committee, for putting together a fun evening for our community. Staff members and students had a great time and they are all looking forward to sharing the raffle prizes together. Please see below the upcoming PTA events, all are welcome to join in the fun!

Congratulations! Our school has been selected to receive the Superintendent’s Excellence in Equity Award. Below is what Region 2 Superintendent, Dr. Zuluaga emailed me about this award.

“Dr. Brabrand and the School Board have created a new and very important recognition to celebrate your school’s progress and achievement as we continue to raise the bar and close student achievement gaps.  After a careful analysis of the Division SOL data, your school has earned a Level 1 performance for each reporting group and all gap group indicators in both English and mathematics for the 2018-19 school year.  We are very proud of this accomplishment.”

Yesterday, at our Region 2 principal meeting, I accepted this award on behalf of the hard-working staff at our school. As you know, we have amazing staff members who show a high level of dedication each day to ensure that all students are getting the best quality of education at our school. Please be sure to recognize our amazing staff on a job well done!

I hope to see you at our Book Fair and Thanksgiving Luncheon next week. If I do not get the opportunity to do so in person, I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving 😊.

Principal Tam

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From the Library

Reminder to visit the Westbriar Book Fair starting next week! We are open Wednesday Nov 13^th and Thursday Nov 14^th until 4:30. We appreciate your support of Westbriar and the library program. A special thanks to Julianna Lieu, our Book Fair chair, and all of the volunteers who helped to make the Book Fair a success!

Here is a list of Pumpkin contest winners. We had close to 150 students participate this year!

The winners are:

                Best Overall Winner: The Falcon by Emma Zorigt

                Best Overall Runner up: Room on the Broom by Caitlin Sember

                Favorite Book Character Winner: Gerald by Mia Georgeadis

                Favorite Book Character Runner up: Harry Potter by Claire Zhang

                Spookiest Winner: Pennywise by Arav Upadhyay

                Spookiest Runner up: Scary Pirate by Anabelle Virnik

                Funniest Winner: Minion by Akshita Sharma

                Funniest Runner up: Captain Underpants by Ella Jaskot

                Most Creative Winner: Brown Dog by Brynn Edwards

                Most Creative Runner up: Bubblegum Machine by Chloe Ko

                Cutest Winner: Porcupine by Evelyn McGuire

                Cutest Runner up: Gumball Machine by Giacomo Banov

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Thanksgiving Luncheon Schedule

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FCPS Outstanding Employee Awards

Nominations are open for the Outstanding Employee Awards! To submit a nomination for a  Westbriar ES Outstanding Employee in one of the categories below, please complete the nomination through this Google form link: https://forms.gle/2zmGTy78yC2rX7Z5A    You may nominate an employee in one or more categories. All that is required for a preliminary nomination is a paragraph or two about how this employee demonstrates exceptional work in the criteria for that category. The google form link has more information regarding the criteria for each of these awards and the eligibility requirements are below.

Outstanding Teacher 

Eligibility: Has at least three years of experience as a teacher (in any school/school district); librarians are included in this category

Outstanding New Teacher

Eligibility: Within their first three years of being a teacher (in any school/school district); librarians are included in this category

Outstanding Leader 

Eligibility: At least one year of experience in their current position as a Schedule-C or School-Based Administrator scale employee (that is not the building principal):

Common positions in this category: Assistant and Associate Principals, Director of Student Activities, Director of Student Services

Outstanding Professional Employee 

Eligibility: At least one year experience in current position as a Schedule-B employee or other non-instructional employee in a school that supports school leadership

Common positions in this category: School-Based Technology Specialist, Technology Support Specialist, Assessment Coach, Career Center Specialist, Instructional Coach, Psychologist, Social Worker, School Counselor, Safety and Security Specialist, Resource Teachers that serve in an administrative role in a school

Outstanding Operational Employee

Eligibility: At least one year of experience in current position as Schedule-A or Classroom Instructional Support Scale employee

Common positions in this category: Administrative and Office Staff, Safety and Security Assistant, Custodial Staff, Food Service Staff, IA, PHA, PHTA, All Parent Liaisons (regardless of how they are paid) 

Note: The deadline to submit a nomination is November 20^th  If you have any questions, please contact Elise Brammer at embrammer@fcps.edu.

From the PTA

Hello Westbriar parents,

Your PTA is hard at work putting together events and volunteering in school.  If you aren't already a member, please JOIN your Westbriar PTA today and help us do more great things at Westbriar!

Hard copies of the Westbriar Directory went out last week.  All PTA members should have received one as a benefit of membership.  If you are a PTA member and you don't have your hard copy directory, please contact Trish Vanstory at wesptaprez@gmail.com.  

Call for Volunteers -- Book Fair and Thanksgiving Luncheons

We schedule our Book Fair the same week as our Thanksgiving Luncheons on purpose, so that parents and kids can come and enjoy shopping after they eat their lunches together.  That means lots of time together, but it also means LOTS of volunteers needed!!  Please volunteer for the Book Fair by clicking here and/or for Thanksgiving Luncheons but clicking here. 

Call for Donations -- Books needed!

If you have gently used books that your children no longer read, please send them in to the front office for our Book Donation Program -- they go straight to our teachers to use.  The more variety we have in our classrooms, the more interest for our students.  So clean off your shelves and send in your used books today!

Call for Donations -- Games, puzzles, Legos needed!

Fairfax Friends Forever is a Westbriar tradition.  On Friday mornings, our older Westbriar students spend time with younger students, and they build friendship and rapport by spending time together.  As our FFF program is expanding, we need more board games, card games, Legos, puzzles -- anything for our students to play together.  If you have new or gently used items, please send these in to FFF today.

PTA Dates At-A-Glance

11/11-14 -- Westbriar Book Fair daytime (evening hours 11/12) 

Come out and get your kiddos some old-fashioned, no-tech books!  Teacher Wish Lists are there so you can pick out a book for your child's classroom.  Proceeds go to our wonderful Westbriar library!  Click here to volunteer for the Book Fair -- we can't pull off this epic week-long event without our great Westbriar volunteers!

11/12 -- 529 Presentation, 7PM Westbriar cafeteria

Come to our cafeteria to learn more about college savings and how things work with a 529 plan.  Get started early -- college comes a lot quicker than you might think!

11/13 -- Foster's Grille and Ben & Jerry's -- Dining for Dollar$

Join us for dinner at Foster's Grille and bring or show this flyer so 20% of your proceeds will come back to Westbriar PTA!  Then head to Ben & Jerry's, just down the way, for dessert -- another 20% of the proceeds will come back to your PTA!!  Just don't forget to show the flyers and tell the folks at the cash registers that YOU'RE THERE FOR WESTBRIAR PTA!!!

11/13-14 -- Thanksgiving Luncheons -- Join your student for this annual tradition!  Click HERE to see the schedule and click HERE to volunteer to serve lunches to others.

12/4 -- Walk to School Wednesday

Instead of waiting in the carpool line, get out there, breathe some fresh hour, and get some movement!  Students will receive a special token for walking to school, rain or shine!

12/5 -- December PTA meeting, 9:30 AM, Westbriar Cafeteria -- Voting on proposed changes to bylaws and contributions to Westbriar! Join us to get to know other parents and stay informed about all the happenings in our school.  Special presentation by Tina Eid, Westbriar's Speech Therapist.  Plus, we will be voting on bylaws changes and capital expenditures for Westbriar!

12/12 -- Panera Bread Dining for Dollar$

12/13 -- Skate Night @ SkateQuest, Reston, VA

Come out for this annual night of fun on the ice!  Tickets include skate rental and skating for the evening ...

As the holidays near, please use Amazon Smile for Westbriar whenever you're ordering from Amazon!

Thank You Notes

Thank you to Amanda Aragon, who put together an amazing new event for our school, Pumpkin Fest!  We had a great crowd of students and parents come out to enjoy dinner, buy pumpkins, take family portraits, enjoy an art maze, go trunk or treating in the gym, and especially -- unmistakably -- they enjoyed the raffles donated by our amazing Westbriar staff!!  This event, with all of its ambitious undertakings, was Amanda's creation, and we so enjoyed ourselves!  Thank you for your amazing organizational skills and hard work, Amanda!!

Thank you to Gulcin Ross, a member of our Copy Crew upon whom we've relied for several weeks to make copies for the Wednesday Folder of every Westbriar student.

Thank you to Julianna Lieu, for putting together tables, umbrellas, storage for our new outdoor classroom in the school courtyard.

Thank you to our intrepid Jennifer Sellers for putting together our Westbriar Book Donation Program.  Clean off your shelves and send in your gently used children's books for our teachers to use in our classrooms!  This program was Jennifer's brainchild, with the goal of providing additional materials for new classroom teachers at no cost to those teachers.

Thank you to Gulcin Ross for verifying, editing, and submitting our Westbriar Directory for printing.  Thank you to Suneeta Rana, Trish Vanstory, and Crystal Petersen distributing the printed directories.  Didn't get one?  Join the PTA and we'll send one home with your student!

Thank you to Jenny White for organizing Stock the Staff Room for the 6th grade in October and the 5th grade in November.

Thank you to Jesse Holtslander and Nisha Thakker for taking over on our Dining for Dollar$ bookings.  Each time we dine out together, we improve our Westbriar camaraderie and help out the PTA at the same time!

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Trish Vanstory

Westbriar PTA President

wesptaprez@gmail.com 

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