Washington County Public Schools

Fan of the Month: Let's give a special shoutout to our WCPS Fan of the Month, Mujtaba M. of Abingdon High School, who is always positive & encouraging! He stays up to date with WCPS, commenting on our social media posts & tuning into the livestream of our School Board meetings.

Thank You: We are sending a big shoutout and thank you to all of our amazing WCPS principals in recognition of Virginia School Principals Appreciation Week. Our team is phenomenal, and we couldn't be prouder of each of our principals!

Reminder: We wanted to remind you of a couple upcoming alterations to the WCPS Calendar. During the Board Meeting on Thursday, January 9, 2025, Board Members voted to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day and President’s Day regular school days. If you recall, these days were previously built into the school calendar as make-up days in the event of inclement weather and the use of snow days. *Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Monday, January 20, 2025) – SCHOOLS OPEN – NOW A REGULAR SCHEDULED SCHOOL DAY *President’s Day (Monday, February 17, 2025) – SCHOOLS OPEN – NOW A REGULAR SCHEDULED SCHOOL DAY With students now scheduled to be in the classrooms during these two important days, teachers will use that time to educate students on the importance of honoring and recognizing Martin Luther King Jr. Day and President’s Day.

Washington County Public Schools will operate on a REGULAR SCHEDULE on Friday, January 17, 2025. However, buses will only travel on clear routes. There are a few roads in the county still impacted by snow and ice. The roads that will not be used tomorrow, can be found here: https://www.wcs.k12.va.us/documents/transportation%2Fbus-routes/743711. Principals will be happy to work with students impacted by the use of clear routes only to make further arrangements. While we are excited to be on a regular schedule tomorrow, the forecast is calling for the possibility of snow in some areas this evening. Please be mindful this could result in schedule changes/alternations, if necessary.

WCPS Alumni Spotlight: Are you a graduate of Washington County Public Schools? If so, we'd love to hear from you! We're excited to learn about your accomplishments and share your story and advice with our current students, families, and community. Please click here, to fill out a submission form: https://forms.gle/7qzqxJCpCjryVsfW8 OR Do you know a graduate from Washington County Public Schools who has made a positive impact in their community? Nominate them to be featured in our Alumni Spotlight Series! Click here, to nominate a WCPS graduate: https://forms.gle/LFV1PwdpHnLfYRhn8

Special Delivery: Students in Ms. Rotton's Civics class at Glade Spring Middle School recently wrote persuasive Christmas letters. Students learned how to address an envelope and work on persuasive arguments. Spencer B. wrote to his favorite celebrity and just received an autographed picture of Adam Sandler in the mail!

Want to be a teacher? Ready to make a difference for students? The RTR Teacher Residency Program at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in partnership with Washington County Public Schools offers a hands-on, school-based teacher preparation experience. Through the RTR program, residents gain the knowledge, skills, and real-world experience needed to be effective educators by learning alongside a mentor teacher for an entire year or two. If you already have your associate degree or bachelor's degree and want to be a highly trained teacher, our program could be right for you! This program also offers: *A stipend to cover the cost of your degree or certificate in education, leading to teacher licensure eligibility in elementary, secondary, or special education *Online classes with VCU professors Apply today at https://teachrtr.org/! Applications close February 1, 2025.

SOL Banners: Mrs. Haderer's 6th graders at Wallace Middle School recently created banners of an SOL topic that was randomly drawn. Students were tasked with filling their banners full of vocabulary, strategies learned, example problems, and most importantly, a list of careers that use or involve their specific SOL topic. Students were surprised to see all of the different careers that fell within different SOL topics! Dr. Perrigan also stopped by to talk to classes about the way he uses math in his role as superintendent -- sharing with students about calculating percentages and managing data.

Washington County Public Schools will operate on a two-hour delayed schedule on Thursday, January 16, 2025. However, buses will only travel on clear roads. Students who live on roads that are snow and/or ice covered will have multiple options: 1. Parents can choose to keep their child at home and the building principal will work with that family to make up assignments and missed instruction. Students who live on these roads and do not attend school will be given a weather-related approved absence and it will not adversely affect their school record. 2. Parents who can safely navigate these roads may take their child directly to school. 3. Parents may also drop their child off at the school closest to their home in the morning. A bus will then transport their child to their school of attendance. Use the car rider line at the school by 9:30 a.m. A staff member will take your child to a designated transfer area. Afternoon pickup will be at the child’s home school. Again, parents who choose not to send their child to school because of road conditions in their area, will have the support of their principal and the School Division. If you are a parent of a teen driver, we completely understand and support you if you decide not to allow your child to drive to school. The roads that will not be used tomorrow, can be found here: https://www.wcs.k12.va.us/documents/transportation%2Fbus-routes/743711 Childcare will be provided at elementary schools for working parents who need it. Be on the lookout for specific details from your child's school.

Superintendent's Cup: It was an exciting and fun day as our Scholastic Bowl teams representing Abingdon High School, John S. Battle High School, Patrick Henry High School, and Holston High School gathered to compete in the Superintendent's Cup! The teams were tested in knowledge of English, math, science, social studies and miscellaneous areas. Our administrators and dignitaries also took part in the fun, having a friendly competition. The following schools/students were recognized for their achievements and scores: *Superintendent's Cup Champion: Patrick Henry High School *Superintendent's Cup Player of the Year: Carter S. (Patrick Henry High School) *Clint W. (John S. Battle High School) *Carter W. (Patrick Henry High School) *Nathaniel M. (Patrick Henry High School) *Sage B. (Holston High School) *Joey T. (Abingdon High School) Congratulations to all students that participated in the Superintendent's Cup. We are so proud of you!

Washington County Public Schools will operate on a two-hour delayed schedule on Wednesday, January 15, 2025. However, buses will only travel on clear roads. As a reminder, students who live on roads that are snow and/or ice covered will have multiple options: 1. Parents can choose to keep their child at home and the building principal will work with that family to make up assignments and missed instruction. Students who live on these roads and do not attend school will be given a weather-related approved absence and it will not adversely affect their school record. 2. Parents who can safely navigate these roads may take their child directly to school. 3. Parents may also drop their child off at the school closest to their home in the morning. A bus will then transport their child to their school of attendance. Use the car rider line at the school by 9:30 a.m. A staff member will take your child to a designated transfer area. Afternoon pickup will be at the child’s home school. Again, parents who choose not to send their child to school because of road conditions in their area, will have the support of their principal and the School Division. If you are a parent of a teen driver, we completely understand and support you if you decide not to allow your child to drive to school. The roads that will not be used tomorrow, can be found here: https://www.wcs.k12.va.us/documents/transportation%2Fbus-routes/743711 Childcare will be provided at elementary schools for working parents who need it. Be on the lookout for specific details from your child's school.

Student Recognition: Congratulations to Colt T. of the Holston High School FFA. He traveled to Denver, Colorado where he competed in the Western National Roundup Livestock Judging Contest. Colt placed 8th overall individual in the nation and represented Virginia well as they brought home 3rd place overall team!

We are excited to announce that after several weather-related closures coming out of Christmas break, the second semester is officially underway in Washington County Public Schools! It’s great seeing all our students and staff back in their classrooms. We want to give a huge shoutout and big THANK YOU to Mr. Andrew Hockett (Operational Supervisor of Transportation), Ms. Dawn Crosswhite (Transportation Secretary), Ms. Peggy Hughes (Transportation Dispatcher), our bus drivers, mechanics, and entire transportation department, for ensuring that all students were delivered safely to school this morning. We are so grateful for such a hardworking and awesome team! While we did have one bus get stuck this morning, the issue was quickly resolved thanks to this crew. We also want to thank our families for their continued patience as we navigated these weather challenges. We know that schedule changes can be inconvenient – but appreciate your understanding when it comes to making safety a top priority. We can’t wait to see what our students accomplish this semester, and we are also happy to report that attendance for today is better than expected. Thank you again to everyone for helping ensure we started this semester off strong.

WCPS Alumni Spotlight: Are you a graduate of Washington County Public Schools? If so, we'd love to hear from you! We're excited to learn about your accomplishments and share your story and advice with our current students, families, and community. Please click here, to fill out a submission form: https://forms.gle/7qzqxJCpCjryVsfW8 OR Do you know a graduate from Washington County Public Schools who has made a positive impact in their community? Nominate them to be featured in our Alumni Spotlight Series! Click here, to nominate a WCPS graduate: https://forms.gle/LFV1PwdpHnLfYRhn8

Mental Health Supports: Do you have burning questions about parenting, relationships, or your child's well-being? Join our partners at Parent Guidance for Ask a Therapist Live with renowned family therapist, Dr. Kevin Skinner. Participants anonymously submit questions to receive thoughtful, personalized answers. This event will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, January 15, 2025. Click here to register: https://shorturl.at/IM1eZ

As you may know, Washington County covers more than 500 mi.², and is serviced by more than 2,000 miles of primary and secondary roads. VDOT has done an excellent job of clearing the vast majority of these roads. However, there are still several roads in the county that are snow and/or ice covered. Based on the current forecast for the upcoming days, it doesn’t appear that there will be much change in the condition of those particular roads. Since we are able to safely travel a majority of county roads, Washington County Public Schools will operate on a two hour delayed schedule on Tuesday, January 14, 2025. However, buses will only travel on clear roads. Students who live on roads that are snow and/or ice covered will have multiple options: 1. Parents can choose to keep their child at home and the building principal will work with that family to make up assignments and missed instruction. Students who live on these roads and do not attend school will be given a weather-related approved absence and it will not adversely affect their school record. 2. Parents who can safely navigate these roads may take their child directly to school. 3. Parents may also drop their child off at the school closest to their home in the morning. A bus will then transport their child to their school of attendance. Use the car rider line at the school by 9:30 a.m. A staff member will take your child to a designated transfer area. Afternoon pickup will be at the child’s home school. Again, parents who choose not to send their child to school because of road conditions in their area, will have the support of their principal and the School Division. If you are a parent of a teen driver, we completely understand and support you if you decide not to allow your child to drive to school. We are providing a list of the roads that won’t be used tomorrow. Those roads can be found here: https://www.wcs.k12.va.us/documents/transportation%2Fbus-routes/743711 We are also giving bus drivers the discretion to avoid other roads if they have a concern. Please be patient as altered routes and longer car rider lines will cause delays to our typical routines. Melting that occurred today may ice over and there is potential for additional snow overnight. We will reevaluate in the morning. If a change needs to be made, that decision will be made by 7:00 a.m. We will be sending laptops and other instructional materials home with students for the foreseeable future. Due to the number of days we have missed already, we will consider using remote instruction should we have adverse weather in the future. We appreciate your patience as we navigate the snow, ice, and temperatures. Childcare will be provided at elementary schools for working parents who need it. Be on the lookout for specific details from your child’s school.

Winter Weather Excitement: It was a snowy and fun weekend for our WCPS students. We loved seeing our students enjoying their time in the snow! Take a look at some of their activities. A big thank you to everyone that shared photos with us!

It has been another busy day for our road checkers across Washington County. While crews have worked hard this weekend to clear main roads and secondary roads, there are still many backroads across the area that remain snow and ice covered, with the possibility of a refreeze as temperatures drop again tonight. As a result, WCPS will be CLOSED tomorrow, Monday, January 13, 2025. Childcare will be provided at elementary schools. Please be on the lookout for additional information from your child's principal. Looking ahead at the weather for this week, we are hopeful we will be able to have students and staff return to their classrooms on Tuesday, as conditions are expected to improve and temperatures rise. In the meantime, if you know the name of any of these roads, put it in the comments.

We would like to send out a huge thank you to Mr. Johnny Baldwin and the whole maintenance crew for giving up their Saturday to get all of our parking lots scraped! That will prevent the snow being packed to ice before the upcoming decrease in temperatures. Great job guys!

Check out this Snow Angel Challenge from Dr. Perrigan! https://www.facebook.com/share/v/15ZdtXP1Kk/ Remember to send photos of the fun you’re having in the snow to ahoak@wcs.k12.va.us to share on social media!