Calendar Web-Site:The monthly school calendar can be accessed by

logging into midstatenebraska.org. Log-in and click on the Wayne Jr/Sr High link. You can select the monthly calendar for the day, week,

or month. You can also print off the calendar to have. Check out the “Notify Me!” option to receive

texts or email notifications for any activity you check off. Just follow the instructions on the page. You may also “Subscribe” by following the directions posted on the page. All of the instructions work on your smart phone, too!

From the Desk of Superintendent, Dr. Mark LenihanDear Parents, Patrons, and Supporters of Wayne Community Schools: We are already in the midst of the 3rd quarter of the 2019-20 school year! The 3rd quarter can of-ten times feel like the longest of the school year. We are all looking forward to winter’s end, and yet have many things to look forward to as we head toward the home stretch of the school year. While we are working hard at school to provide the highest qual-ity education we can for the students, this time of year is a time to begin looking ahead and planning for next school year as well. One area that we work on in spring is our stu-dent and staff handbook policies. Our handbooks have grown quite a bit over the years in terms of content and pages. It seems each year, new man-dates and policies are added to school districts, and must be referred to in policy. While I believe it is important to have good, sound policies in place, I also feel it becomes overwhelming to communicate expectations to students and staff due to the num-ber of requirements we must follow. At school we utilize three fairly simple expectations that cover just about every “rule” we have in our handbooks. I believe in taking every situation and making it a positive learning experience. As I think we all could admit, even as adults, we often times learn from our mistakes. I believe it is important for us to keep that in mind as we are dealing with students who are developing their character and discipline as young adults. That being said, the following are three fairly simple expectations that I believe are important for our students to understand. Be Prepared. This includes being responsible, on time, and ready to learn. It also could include making sure we are mentally prepared to teach and learn with a positive attitude. Being prepared will help our students achieve success, and will help our teachers do their very best to educate the students. Be Respectful. I also like to include being kind with this expectation. This includes being respect-ful to self, others, and property. I think it is very important to be kind and remember the power of words. Words can build up a person, or break down a person. It is best to refrain from making negative comments toward people as we keep in mind how

a person might feel if we say something to them or about them. Being respectful is one of the most im-portant character traits we can teach our kids, and model as adults. Do the Right Thing. This can be difficult to de-scribe. In some circumstances, we aren’t always pre-pared when the opportunity arises to choose be-tween right or wrong. I often think of doing the right thing as having integrity. Being a person of integrity might mean we have to make choices or sacrifices that aren’t popular. I also think it is important to do the right thing no matter what the circumstances, and no matter who is, or who is not watching. One question I often receive as we near spring is “What day is the last day of school?” Knowing March and April can still bring winter storms, we will an-nounce the final day of school at the April 13, 2020 school board meeting. Doing this allows us the flex-ibility we need to assure we meet our instructional hour requirement, and hopefully provide families enough advance notice as you begin to plan your summer. Ultimately, our goal is to have classes fin-ish prior to Memorial Day weekend, and we are on track for that to occur. Let’s hope for a nice warm and early spring, with plenty of sunshine and rain as

moisture! As winter ends and spring draws near, we are excited to continue the learning process in the classrooms and at our extra-curricular activities and events. The 4th quarter of the school year is always full of fun and engaging opportunities for students, staff and parents to attend and celebrate the many accomplishments that happen at school. I hope all of you have time to attend our athletic events, con-certs, plays, and the many other activities we have during the spring months! We have many talented students, and great teachers who guide and instruct them to achieve their best! Thank you for your con-tinued support of Wayne Community Schools!

www.wayneschools.org. It will be posted on Friday

before the Board Meetings, which is the second Monday

of each month.

The current Wayne Community Schools Board Agenda can

be found at:

Wayne Community SchoolsWayne Elementary School | 312 North Douglas Street | 402-375-3854

Wayne Jr./Sr. High School | 611 West 7th Street | 402-375-3150Early Learning Center | 803 Providence Road | 402-833-1450

www.wayneschools.org

March, 2020

Phone MessagesIf you are not receiving phone messages or texts from the school, please contact the school. We will get your number on the list!

Wellness Newsletter

Screen Time and Technology: How Much is Too Much?

What is your LAP? Physical activity is an important aspect of our lives that we may tend to overlook. We all come from different backgrounds, lifestyles, and abilities, but movement is essential to all walks of life! Those of us who spend more time sitting, whether it is at our jobs, school, or on our own, should get up and move around more than those whose job allows them to be physically active, or they are physically active on their own. We all have different amounts of time to move, and it is up to us to decide if we take that opportunity to take care of our health! The wellness committee came up with the idea of “I Did a Lap!”. The best part about this wellness challenge is that you create your own lap, and you can try to increase the number of laps each day. Some ideas for a lap include:•Walking around the block•Going up and down a flight of stairs (examples: basement steps, stair climber)•Walking around the school hallways•Walking a lap on the track -Available locations in Wayne include: Wayne Com-munity Activity Center, Wayne Community Schools, Wayne State College, or Providence Wellness Center•Walking the fitness trails Instead of walking a lap(s), you can also count your steps. You can count 1,000 steps as a lap, or you can also create a lap by walking for a certain number of minutes. Your story matters to us! Let us know by April 30 how you did. We encourage you to contact us with the improvements you’ve seen, whether it is a decrease in the amount of time it took to complete a lap, feeling less winded, or completing more laps, we want to know! By completing this challenge with your family, not only will you be able to spend quality family time together, but you’ll be creating healthy habits along the way!

Youth today are immersed in a digital world. Smartphones, the internet, social networks and gaming draw youth of all ages into the ever-grow-ing online world of communication and entertain-ment. Additionally, many of our schools are tap-ping into the technology of electronic devises for educational tools. The internet has opened doors to avenues of learning that include online research, as-signments, tests and digital presentations and proj-ects. There is no doubt that technology comes with many benefits but it also comes with risks. Knowing how much screen time is too much can be challenging for parents and educators. Adults can help prevent excessive screen time and over use of technology by guiding children and teens to find a healthy balance. Just as we spend time teaching our kids how to ride a bike or drive a car, we also need to teach them the rules of safe so-cial media, internet use, electronic communication and gaming. A healthy allotment of screen time is one that doesn’t disrupt developmentally important parts of a child/adolescent’s life including:•Seeing friends and interacting with them in real life•Participating in extracurricular activities they are excited about•Keeping up with academic classes and doing homework•Building positive relationships with family mem-bers•Getting enough sleep Without adult guidance, it can be easy for kids and teens to let their electronic use get out of con-trol. Parents can positively influence children by

educating youth about healthy screen time and technology use. Strategies include:•Creating “technology free zones” – the dining room/kitchen can be a great place to establish a technol-ogy free zone, reserved for meals and family conver-sation. Keeping electronics out of the bedrooms is also recommended to improve sleep habits.•Establish time to unplug – meal times, an hour be-fore bed, during family activities, etc.•Role model healthy habits – youth often learn more by what you do than what you say. Parents

can teach youth to create healthy habits by moni-toring their own use and screen-time behaviors.•Encourage physical activity – Help your children/teens find physical activities that they enjoy that en-force time away from their screens. For additional tips on developing healthy tech-nology use, tap into the resources below:•https://www.commonsensemedia.org/•http://www.connectsafely.org/•http://www.cyberwise.org/•https://cyberbullying.org

2 — Wayne Community Schools Newsletter — March, 2020

I Public Schools Day was celebrated by the teachers in each school building on January 29.This is the link to the film made here at Wayne Community Schools Spring Sprints last year. It is a very heart-warming film to watch! https://iloveps.org/films/spring-sprints

Educator of the YearCongratulations to Ms. Toni Rasmussen, Wayne's Educator of the year. "Work hard, be nice."

Make Breakfast Time Your Favorite Time!

Foundation Alumni Tournament is scheduled

How we start our day is so important. We all have a morning routine. A very important part of that routine should be refueling your body with breakfast. The morning can be a whirl wind of activity leaving little time for breakfast. The School Break-fast program gives students the opportunity to sit down and have a nutritious breakfast with friends. The school breakfast offers milk, fruit and or vegeta-ble and 2 whole grain bread servings. A serving of meat is not mandatory on a daily basis but, can be part of the school breakfast. Some families find their day is easier by getting

It is that time of year again....TOUR-NEY TIME! If you could submit your rosters to me for the Alumni Basket-ball and Volleyball Tournament, that would be great! Please email them to me at brfoote1@waynebluedevils.org and for the basketball tournament please indicate if you would rather play in the more competitive division. It will be Eas-ter weekend which is April 10th and 11th this year. For payment purposes you can pay via cash, check or Venmo and the day of the tournament we will also be accepting debit/credit card payments as well. To pay with Venmo you can Venmo it to me and I will take care of getting it to the bank. My Ven-mo username is Brandon-Foote-84 and my email on the account is brfoote1@waynebluedevils.org. Remember if you pay early (before March 31st) it is $25 instead of $30. If paying by check in advance, the mailing address can be found below. If anyone is interested in officiating the bas-ketball games please let me know that as well. Of-ficials get paid $20 per game.

their students to school early, allowing them to get to work by 8 and we feed the student breakfast. Stu-dents seem to enjoy the opportunity to socialize. At the High School we have some stop by after the ear-ly morning practices and meetings. My staff enjoys seeing the students and having the opportunity to tell the them Good Morning. No matter where your student eats breakfast, just remember to take time for breakfast! Thanks for letting us feed your student school meals.

Judy Poehlman

More info about the tourna-ment can be found below. The 11th Annual Wayne High Alumni Tournament Infor-mation: When: Friday, April 10th and Saturday, April 11th (Easter weekend)

Cost: 1. $30 per person - After April 1st. 2. $25 per person - Before March 31st Payment options: Delivering or Sending a check to: Wayne Community Schools Foundation, PO Box 23, Wayne, NE 68787 No player will be allowed to play until pay-ment is received and waiver is signed (signed at check-in). Registration: Please submit team rosters to Brandon Foote (brfoote1@waynebluedevils.org) before March 13th, 2020. Set-up: Each team is guaranteed two pool play games and entry into a single elimination tourna-ment. Pool play games on Friday night and Satur-day morning, followed by the tournament.

Festivities: A post-tournament party will be held Saturday night at The Max after the conclusion of the championship game. Rules: 1. Each team may only consist of players that graduated together from Wayne High. 2. Anybody from your class may play on your team. 3. If your class does not have enough players you can move up or down one class and combine grades as long as that class does not already have a team. 4. If your class has a team you are not allowed to play for another class. 5. Games consist of two 20 minute halves with running clock until the final two minutes of the sec-ond half. Other notes: Pool Play games will be deter-mined by a drawing after all teams have been sub-mitted.VOLLEYBALL — Entry fees and deadlines apply the same as above. All volleyball games will be played at the activity center on Saturday.

Wayne Community Schools Newsletter — March, 2020 — 3

Future CityThe Jr. High Future City team won first place in the Nebraska Regionals competition in Omaha. They are now going to be competing in Washington, D.C. in February for the Future City National Competition.

Just a reminder to please pay any

outstanding lunch bills or

fees. Thank you!

With winter weather still here, PLEASE listen to KTCH or watch TV news for any postponements and cancellations. If you are not receiving phone calls or texts from the school on these things, please contact the school and we will make sure you phone number is in the system. If your number has changed, PLEASE make sure the school has your new number. Early Learning Center WILL HAVE school on 10:00 weather late start days.There will also be NO BREAKFAST served on any 10:00 late starts.

Yearbooks are still on sale. They are $50.00. Please contact Mrs. Davis or any yearbook mem-ber for a form: Kortney Aschoff, Ethan Bohnert, Stephanie Casarru-bias Gonzalez, Lusi Garcia Lopez, Haley Harrell, Jaden Jenkins, Gra-cie Jepsen, Maryann Magana, Ashlyn Milligan, Angelica Sarmiento Barreto, Leanne Westphal, Abby Wieseler

Please be mindful of the buses carrying our students!!

Please be mindful of the buses carrying our students!!

4 — Wayne Community Schools Newsletter — March, 2020

— Wayne Elementary News — It doesn’t seem possible, but we are already in the middle of the 3rd quarter! Hopefully, warmer spring weather is on the way! It would certainly be nice to get the kids outside for recess on a daily ba-sis. I wanted to take the chance to update you on a few items we are working on at Wayne Elementary. First, we are in the planning stages to create a sum-mer reading program for our kids. Our hope is to provide a program that helps students build their reading skills over the summer. At this point we have applied for grants and we are waiting on these grants to communicate the format of the program. This information should be available to you some-time during the first week of April. I am excited to

get this going for our kids! Another exciting development is that we have been working on implementing a program called DIBS at our building. DIBS stands for Delivering In-finite Book Shelves. This is a program that will sup-port our staff to have a systematic way to get books home every night to every student in grades K-3. They will be sent home with books at their level that they can read independently or with a family mem-ber. We are going to pilot this program in 3rd grade this semester and we are looking to add one more grade level next year. The hope is to eventually implement this program in grades K-3. A big thank

you to WEB for supporting this initiative! This group is always willing to support positive programs such as DIBS. Finally, we will have a Family Literacy/Art Night this semester. Wayne State College and Wayne El-ementary have collaborated to create a night where our students are able to come to our building to participate in literacy and art learning activities di-rected by Wayne State College students and profes-sors. We hope to have a big crowd on March 3rd. Thank you for all you do and we look forward to see-ing all of our families in the building!

Sincerely, Mr. Plager

Be sure and “LIKE” our school’s

FaceBook page! www.facebook.com/

Wayne-Community-SchoolsYou can also follow us on

Twitter! Wayne Blue Devils @WayneSchools.

Upcoming events, current happenings,

fun things can be found there!

Kindergarten Penguin Parade

Souper Bowl of CaringThe Elementary donated 1,907 food items and $244.28 and the Jr/Sr High School donated 475 food items to the Wayne Food Pantry as part of the Souper Bowl of Caring initiative. Great job!

Scholarship Opportunity

Camp Invention

Library update

Wayne Rotary provides 2 - $500 scholarships for Wayne students to attend the World Affairs Seminar in Waukesha Wisconsin at Carroll University June 20-26. Below is the link for more information or reach out to Mrs. Knutson as soon as possible if you are interested:https://worldaffairsseminar.org/was2020/

Teacher: Class, we will have only half a day of school this morning.Class: Hooray!Teacher: We will have the other half this afternoon.

Imaginations will soar this summer in the all-new Camp Invention® program, Elevate! Campers going into grades 1-6 will team up to play hybrid hover ball games, tackle environmental challenges and become confi-dent entrepreneurs designing the next great invention! Local educators will lead fun, hands-on STEM activi-ties building collaboration and creative problem-solving skills. Visit invent.org/camp or call 800-968-4332 to register. Camp Invention will be hosted at the Wayne Junior-Senior High School June 8-12 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each day. The cost is $235, minus early discounts. Partial scholarships are available. Please contact Jenn Thomas at jethoma1@waynebluedevils.org if you have questions. Register today!

Wayne Elementary Library has had some empty shelves lately. That is great, because students are reading all copies available of the twenty Nebraska Golden Sower Award Nominee Books. Our book battle started March 4, with 40 teams and the tour-nament continues through the month of March. Teams compete in comprehension-based tic-tac-toe games to move up to the finals after several games. The champion game is at the assembly on March 27th. In April, students across Nebraska vote for their favorite book to earn the award. During the week of March 2nd, our school cel-ebrated, Dr. Seuss with “Read Across America.” Mon-day, we wore red in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday and Nebraska’s birthday. Wacky Wednesday was for crazy socks and shoes. And Friday was “wear a shirt from somewhere in USA.” Classrooms focused on the many Seuss books that were read aloud, trivia about his life, and various fun activities. Finally, our One School, One Book for Spring is Frindle, by Andrew Clements. Each family received a book and a chapter a day is assigned. Families are encouraged to read together and discuss it. At school we do activities, daily trivia with prizes, and of course discussions. Frindle has received 48 nota-ble awards and is one of Andrew Clements 80 books he’s written for kids. And so, here at Wayne Elementary Library, there is never a dull moment instilling a love of reading.

Teacher: Class, we will have only half a day of school this morning. Class: Hooray! Teacher: We will have the other half this afternoon.