~ View the FULL District Calendar for 2024-2025 here ~

September 6, 2024

Go Wolfpack!

Jill Hunt, Principal
Ben Keller, Assistant Principal

~ Student schedules are now available for viewing
in ParentVUE and/or StudentVUE ~

We appreciate your patience as we have welcomed some of our team members back and they have been helping adjust schedules.  We look forward to seeing our Scholars back on campus next week!  Class schedules are now viewable through ParentVUE and StudentVUE.

Keep in mind, some classes are Quarter-long classes, some classes are for a Semester, and others are for the full school year.  Before you or your Scholars reach out with questions, we want to share some clarifying items here. 

We are not adjusting schedules for the following requests below.  Calling and emailing about the following items will not initiate a change:

• I don’t like my teacher and want a different teacher.

• I want to be with my friend in X class instead of Y class.

• I want X class at a certain time of the day.

• I don’t want to try that elective.  (Middle school is a time of growth and exploration.  Trying new things is age-appropriate in school, especially with regard to electives).

• I have too much PE in my schedule (the minutes for PE have increased for the state, so the goal is to have 3 quarters total of PE in each schedule each year).

• I should not have Study Skills.  Students with IEPs have a Study Skills class in their schedule in Middle School as part of their IEP minutes for services.  Once school begins, if you believe that the IEP needs to be discontinued or adjusted, you can speak with your student’s case manager.

• I should not have a Math support or an English support class.  Students are placed in these classes due to test scores below the 20th percentile, indicating that they need added instructional support in their school day.  

The following types of schedule errors will be worked on for corrections by our team:

• I am in the wrong level of Math (acceleration was through data on tests and confirmed last year.  (If there was no confirmation of an accelerated Math pathway, then the current Math course is correct).

• I have two periods of PE in a single day.

• I don’t have a World Language anywhere in my schedule (all year).

• I have an IEP and am missing the Study Skills class in my schedule for added support.

ONLY if one of these schedule errors mentioned above impacts your student,
please complete this online form.  

  DO NOT EMAIL OR PHONE THE SCHOOL FOR COURSE CHANGES
(you will be directed to the online form)

If you are not able to log in to the ParentVUE and/or StudentVUE applications, please refer to the information on the PPS website at this link and then contact the West Sylvan Main Office at westsylvanoffice@pps.net. 

Thank you and welcome to the 2024-2025 school year!
Dr. Jill Hunt and Mr. Ben Keller

As our WSMS families prepare for the new school year,
please review this list of suggested supplies from our Educator team.
Some items are grade or subject specific.

Families who need assistance with supplies can contact
their Scholar's School Counselor, by grade level:

6th Grade: Kandice Abney kaabney@pps.net
7th Grade: Rebecca Cohen rcohen@pps.net
8th Grade: Ricky Almeida ralmeida@pps.net

Help your Scholar prepare for the start of school by practicing using a padlock so that opening their locker will be easier and more familiar!

 Quick Reference:

When Beckham Weatherby picks up his tuba, the rest of the world falls away. 

“I don’t get that nervous and I don’t get stage fright at all,” he said. “I guess I got lucky with how my body reacts to performing in front of crowds.”

Which is something the McDaniel High School junior has done quite a bit of lately. Not only is he a member of the prestigious Portland Youth Philharmonic (PYP) and the PYP conservatory orchestra, but he recently earned first prize in the tuba solo performance category at the Oregon State Solo Music Championships.

The first things you notice when you walk into Ellie Jensen’s classroom at Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary School are peace and warmth. Then you hear the laughter of children. Then you just might see two posters hanging on the walls that tell you a great deal about the kind of teacher she has been for the past 50 years. The posters simply say, “Leave a little sparkle wherever you go” and “Be a friend.”

Jensen, known as “Miss Ellie” to the hundreds of students she has taught in her half a century as a Portland Public Schools educator, can’t help but light up a room. And she is a friend to all children. 

We dare you to drive by the Mainspring Food Pantry on the corner of 82nd Avenue and Fremont and not do a double take. Or a triple take. 

Students from McDaniel High School’s art-focused Career Technical Education (CTE) class have spent the last four weeks turning the exterior walls of the pantry into one, huge, joyful mural as part of the course’s exploration of climate justice and community engagement.

A little over 30 years ago, a Madison High School student named Joseph Janson had a simple wish. He wanted to go to a dance. But nothing was simple for Joseph, who was born with Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy and was confined to a wheelchair. 

He confided his wish to Tony Nitz, who at that time was an educational assistant at Madison (now Leodis V. McDaniel High School). Tony had been working one-on-one with Joseph for months and he immediately went about making the young man’s dream come true.

“The truth is, I would have done anything for Joseph,” Nitz said. “He was a unique person, and we had a very special bond.”

For families with students entering 6th Grade in the 2024-25 school year

Please complete the survey at this link 
to share some of your course preferences with us
as we plan for next year's schedules.

This next year, all PPS Middle Schools will be using a SEVEN course/day model. Depending on course designs, they will be offered as full year, semester, or quarter-long classes. The following courses will be required, in order to meet our district and Middle Years Programs.

• Language Arts (If DLI, there will be an added ELA course taken in English ) (yr)
• Social Science (yr)
• Science (yr)
• Math  (yr)
• Physical Education (3 qrts) & Health (1 qtr)
• World Language (French and Spanish, 1 quarter each) 

In addition, all electives need to fall under the MYP descriptions for "DESIGN" and "ART". All students will be expected to take at least one elective from each category, which will automatically be included in schedules, excluding BAND, CHOIR, or AVID. 

• MYP "Art" Elective (1 semester) 
• MYP "Design" Elective (1 Semester)
• 'Open' Elective Period ( 1 Semester) 

MYP Elective courses will include ART, S.T.E.A.M., MUSIC, and possibly one or two others that are yet to be determined, based on staffing.  Band or Choir will be taken as a full year elective and count for 2 semesters, leaving one semester of another elective available.