Welcome to Washington

We are still in need of volunteers for Grandparents Day! Please contact us here at school, or go to the Washington PTO Facebook page to sign up!

The spirit wear link is now up and running, so make sure you order your items for the cold weather!

Spirit Week!

11/15: Decade Day (5th=1960s, 6th=2000s, 7th=1990s, 8th=1970s) Teachers/Staff=1980s

11/16: Class Color Day-Represent with 5th=yellow, 6th=purple, 7th=blue, 8th=red

IB applications are due in to the Richwoods office by Friday, November 16th for 8th grade students applying to IB. Mr. Venegas is collecting them at Washingtonand we will deliver to RHS at end of day on Friday.

We look forward to welcoming grandparents on November 19th, 9-10:30am for a Grandparents Day Brunch.

There is NO SCHOOL for the Thanksgiving Recess, Nov 21-23.

November 26th - 30th current 8th grade students will be registered for high school classes in Skyward by counselors.

Comments (-1)

Headlines & Features

Spirit Wear

The Washington spiritwear store is up and running once again! All orders must be placed by November 25th! Please allow 3 weeks for orders to be processed. This store will close on NOVEMBER 25th. No orders can be accepted after this date due to the strict holiday timeline. ALL SALES ARE FINAL as each item will be personalized. Please pay special attention to the sizing charts. All orders will be handed out at School the week of December 18th.

Comments (-1)
Veterans and Active Duty Military

Thank you once again to the 12 Veterans and active or past service members who came to Washington last Thursday to speak to our classes. We truly appreciate the time you spent with us, and the opportunity to learn from all of you. Thank you so very much….and thank you for your service! On Thursday, November 8th , 2018, we welcomed members of our Armed Services, past & present, to speak to small groups of students about the significance and importance of Veteran's Day. We had a speaker for each of our 12 classes during first period that day. We began with a small welcoming reception at 7:40 in our conference room and then a student escorted the speaker to the classroom. Washington thanks you for your service!

Comments (-1)
Grandparents Day Reservations!

Grandparents Day Reservations are going home with students at Conferences and are available here! We have a breakfast and entertainment for our guests, 9:00-11 a.m. on Monday, November 19th. It is always a wonderful experience to meet grandparents and special people in the children’s lives, so we always look forward to this special day in our school! A student who does not have grandparents to come is free to ask an aunt, uncle, adult neighbor or adult family friend, etc. to be a “Peoria Grandparent” for the event. (We will include parents at other events). Please return the reservation form to the office by Wednesday, October 31st.

Comments (-1)
ISBE School Report Card Results

Students at Washington Gifted Middle School once again performed better than the district and state average on the Illinois PARCC tests. While our results are lower than the previous year, Washington is still proud of our scores, and very excited that many of the other district schools had great gains on their PARCC scores! At Washington, 77% of students are considered Ready for the Next Level according to PARCC scores. Almost 90% of 8th grade students leaving WGMS are considered proficient in Algebra I skills. Let's make sure we are all learning and trying our best all year long!

Comments (-1)
5Essentials Survey Now Available To Students, Staff and Parents

Please take a moment to help us out! We really want to see parents take the survey, because our school needs over 50.0% of our parents to respond in order to learn how parents feel about Washington. Parents, students and teachers: Peoria Public Schools will join the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) in the sixth statewide survey of school climate and learning conditions. The survey provides a unique opportunity for teachers, students, and parents to have a voice in improving their schools. Teachers, students, and parents will be asked to take a 20-minute research-based survey to help identify strengths and weaknesses in their school’s learning environment. This survey will serve as an opportunity for schools to reflect on progress since the last statewide implementation. School-level reports will be generated if at least 50 percent of parents respond to the survey. These reports will display summary information, such as the percent of parents agreeing that they feel comfortable raising concerns to their child’s teacher. It is important that our parents, students and staff from each of our 27 schools participate in this annual survey to make their voices heard and impact change.

Comments (-1)
Application Process for Incoming Students Has Begun

Applications are now being accepted from current Peoria Public School students as well as from those who currently do not attend Peoria Public Schools. The program at Washington Middle School is a full-time academic program designed to support academically gifted students. It offers students an opportunity to engage in learning activities at an accelerated pace, depth, and complexity of on grade-level and above-grade-level curriculum. ALL PARENT REFERRALS FOR CURRENT PEORIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS STUDENTS MUST BE RECEIVED BY THE DISTRICT GIFTED SELECTION COMMITTEE BY FRIDAY, January 11, 2019.Please do not contact Washington Gifted School regarding the application process or the status of your child's application. If you have any questions, please call 672-6536.

Comments (-1)
Hult Health Education Schedule

Parents, please click here to see the Health Education schedule. Note as well when students will be visiting Hult versus students viewing a presentation at Washington. If parents choose to opt their student(s) out of a particular lesson, or out of all lessons, please let the Nurse know as soon as possible, so that we can make arrangements for that student.

Comments (-1)
Student Pick-up and Drop-off Guidelines

7:05-7:30am and 1:00-1:40pm, CARS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE FRONT PARKING LOT and students may only be picked up and dropped off in the North Parking Lot located near the ball fields. For student safety, only buses may drive in the Main Parking Lot during these times. Thank you for your cooperation in helping keep our students safe.

Comments (-1)
Student Technology Information

Click this article to learn more about laptops, iPads, Streams, and student email accounts.

Comments (-1)
Study Skills

Knowing how to study is an important skill to have. Students who use strategies to understand and remember what they read, such as underlining important parts of the texts or discussing what they read with other people, perform better in class and on tests. One of the biggest differences between top students and everyone else was that when they study, they take practice tests. Only 11 percent of students do this, but they perform better because they are studying in a way that goes beyond memorizing material. Also helpful is to create a study timetable & stick to it-- first include things you like/need to do on your schedule and then work study time in after. This method naturally ensures that you are doing things you like to do every day in addition to studying, so you don’t burn out and give up. These kind of balanced schedules are easier follow. Here are some ideas and strategies to help students learn more:

Comments (-1)
Dress Code Update

We have reviewed our code, investigated other equivalent schools, received feedback, and assembled a panel of students, parents, staff, and teachers to update the Dress Code. Parents and students, please review the updated Dress Code from the handbook. The updated Dress Code will be effective beginning November 2017. Any violation of the code results in a referral to the principal. Repeated violations will warrant parent contact and loss of privilege/referrals. We have had a lot of confusion and questions about the jean policy at Washington and want to make the policy straightforward. Policy on jeans is as follow: - Jeans are not allowed to be worn at school with the following exceptions: individual picture days in fall and spring, spirit week and designated-free dress days. If in doubt, always clear with home room teacher or principal before jeans are worn. - On the days jeans are acceptable, absolutely no ripped jeans are to be worn. - If jeans are worn on a day that is not listed in exceptions above, students’ parents will be called to bring uniform pants, shorts, or skirt to school for student to change into. - If ripped jeans are worn any school day, parents will be called to bring uniform pants, shorts, or skirts to school for student to change into.

Comments (-1)
Renaissance Home Connect for Parents

Parents- We are hoping that you will soon begin using Renaissance Home Connect as a way of monitoring and encouraging your child’s reading practice. It can be a valuable tool for monitoring your child’s progress. Research confirms that parental involvement in a child’s education is a strong predictor of student achievement. Thank you for your involvement in your child’s education. What is Renaissance Home Connect? Renaissance Home Connect is a tool that connects the school and home to keep parents informed of their child’s progress in Accelerated Reader, and encourages the child to practice reading at home. How does Renaissance Home Connect help me improve my child’s reading progress? • You can view your child’s progress toward reading goals and view all books that your child has read and quizzes your child has taken. • You can access an online search tool, AR BookFinder, to search for books using various criteria, including author, subject, or reading level. • You can receive emails that reveal results for Reading Practice Quizzes and provide links to the website where you can check progress. The same login and password that your child uses at school will work at home with Renaissance Home Connect.

Comments (-1)
Jumpstart Washington: What it means to be a Wildcat

Advocate for yourself! Organization will save your life! Social Skills for Success are Important! Remember you are awesome! Have fun, dream big and make good choices!

Comments (-1)
The role of productive struggle-from the Remarkable Times

Preparing students for their future isn’t about helping them to earn A’s or getting high GPAs. It is really about making sure that students are prepared for the workforce. The phrase “productive struggle” is used to describe the process of learning and the work that goes into it. To give an example that most people relate to is when one is learning to ride a bike. This is hard work and takes practice. There is often a little bit of help initially and support along the way but at some point, the bike rider needs to do all of the pumping of the pedals and maintaining of balance.

Comments (-1)
Washington HELP-A-THON 2018

This past Saturday featured the Washington Help a thon! What a great day as we kicked off here at Washington and then went out into the community to partner with several organizations. A HUGE Wildcat thank you to Andrea Tortorra and Amanda Campbell, this year’s co –chairs, for their organization, as well as the numerous parents who helped and supervised. It was truly an inspiration seeing our Wildcats out at various sites making a difference in our community!

Comments (-1)