Congratulations are in order for Mrs. Caroline Puckett and Mr. Steve Vaughn.  Caroline and Steve were elected by the community to serve on the Willard Board of Education for the next three years.  Caroline has served on the board for 18 years, while this will be Steve’s first term as a board member.  Mrs. Puckett was re-appointed as the President of the Board and Mrs. Karla Shaffer was re-appointed as Vice President.  We have many important issues progressing in our district.  Members of the Board of Education are key factors in the success of our school.  It is our hope to continue the positive efforts of the past into future years. 

I would like to recognize Mr. Joel Adams and his service on the Board of Education during the past three years.  I appreciate Joel’s common sense approach to the school and problem solving.  Joel was instrumental in working to increase salaries for all district personnel.  Joel was a major supporter for the district prior to becoming a member of the board.  I know that we will be able to count on him for continued support in the future.  Joel has a heart for all kids and pushed us to find ways to help kids find success.  Thanks Joel!!! Job Well Done!!!

Have a great weekend!

Kent

Dr. Kent E. Medlin

Superintendent of Schools

Only in Missouri would it snow on our Kindergarten egg hunt! We had over 1,000 eggs and only 60 hunters. You can only imagine the fun they had.

As we gear up for the remainder of the school year we have a few upcoming events you may want to participate in:

• Landscaping April 14 beginning at 9:00AM (Bring your shovels and gloves and be ready to get dirty!) April 21st Rain date
• MAP Testing April 17, 18, 19, 25, and 26!THANK YOU!!! For all of your donations. Our students will be well hydrated and motivated this year.
• Sock Hop – May 5 Come bid on some very elaborately themed baskets!
• K-screening – May 8 & 9 Call our office for an appointment.
• Teacher Appreciation Week – May 7th – 11th Be sure to tell your child’s teacher, a former teacher, a teacher-to-be that you appreciate everything they do for the children in our community. Willard has the best teachers!!!
• Field Day – May 11th Please contact your child’s teacher if you would like to help with this fun-filled event.

This week we celebrated being “On Track for Success” in many ways.  Tuesday night, we recognizedour students’ hard work with nearly 600 WC Family members at Fine Arts Night.  Artwork was displayed by each student and grade level musical performances were shared.  Thank you to Mrs. Bailey and Mrs. Chatman for all of their hard work in making Fine Arts Night such a wonderful event.  I would also like to thank all of the teachers who helped serve refreshments and to Mrs. Roth for hosting a successful book fair in the library.  Today we celebrated the accomplishments of our students with our 3rd quarter Terrific Tiger Celebration.  We also used this opportunity to reinforce the Accelerated Schools Principle of Building on Strengths.  To do this, Bob the Builder (Mr. Nichols) and Wendy (Mrs. Appleby) helped finish building our brick wall of student and staff strengths. 

As we look ahead to next week, please join us for our Test Success Assembly on Friday afternoon at 2:30.  We will relax a little and laugh a lot as we get ready for the upcoming MAP test. 

Happy Good Friday and have a great Easter weekend!

   Today we celebrated our third quarter Tiger Pride Assembly.  Students were recognized for perfect attendance, exceptional behavior, teamwork and more!  We also honored the WHS boy’s basketball team for their exemplary season and a third place finish at state.  Congratulations to Coach Evans, Alex, Travis, Jon, Kyle, Eric, Kevin, Ben, Ronnie and Devin!  I also had the “honor” of becoming a human banana split during our assembly.  Students were challenged to bring in food for our district food pantry this week.  Each bag of groceries that was donated equaled one scoop of ice cream on the principal.  We had 175 bags of groceries donated this week!  Needless to say,  it was a cold and sticky scene today at Willard South.  I would like to thank everyone who donated food throughout the week.  Your generosity is appreciated by many families .  Have a safe holiday weekend! ”

Willard South is ROARING with excitement!”

It’s apparent from the flurry of planning meetings going on around the building that we are looking toward the home stretch of our first school year.  We have many activities in the works, a Library Night, an Art, Writing and Talent Show night, Cardinals baseball, Career Fair and field trips.  All of these things are only possible through the extra efforts of many of our staff who are willing to step up and take on these extra things for our students.  We appreciate their willingness to do these things to give our students some special opportunities to remember Intermediate School by!

On Wednesday, March 28 Dr. Medlin, Dr. Royal and myself had the honor of going to the Distinction in Performance Banquet held at MSU.  The picture shows Dr. Medlin with Stan Johnson, Assistant Commissioner of School Improvement, DESE; Sybl Slaughter, Member, State Board of Education; and Peter Herschend, President of the State Board of Education.  The award recognized our accreditation of Distinction in Improvement.  This is an honor that goes to each and every administrator, teacher, support person, and community member, that has helped us to raise the quality of education in our district to this level.

I would also like to announce that a committee of teachers and administrators interviewed candidates for the Teaching Specialist for Grades 7-12 yesterday and I am pleased to announce that our recommendation is Carolyn Nixon who is currently a teacher at our middle school.  The Teaching Specialist for K-6, Angela Stevens, has really been an asset to instruction for our teachers.  We look forward to providing that same assistance to Middle School and High School teachers.

Have a great Easter weekend.

 Susan Marcum, Director of Curriculum and Instruction

The baseball Tigers are on a roll! After defeating Nixa 3-1 last night, the Tigers are 9-1! They will host Cassville on Monday and Reeds Spring on Tuesday. Both games will start at 4:30. They will then participate in the Red and Blue Classic starting on Thursday. Game times and locations TBA. A special congratulations to Coach Hartley on his 800th career win last night! 347 of these have come as a Willard Tiger!

The track Tigers have gotten off to a great start. The following are results from the last two meets they have competed in:

Reeds Spring Invitational

1st place – K. Hessian, 800m and 1600m; B. Carpenter, triple jump; C. Reeves, 300m hurdles; J. Carpenter, 110m hurdles, long jump, high jump; Z. Thompson, shot put.

2nd place – B. Carpenter, long jump; L. Adams, pole vault; j. Carpenter, triple jump; Z. Thompson, discus

3rd place – S. Slatten, 400m; B. Childers, 400m; C. Dickinson, 300m hurdles; J. Johnson, high jump; D. Harr, pole vault.

Marsfield Relays

1st place – Z. Thompson, shot put and discus; J. Carpenter, triple jump; C. Dickinson, 300m hurdles.

2nd place – J. Carpenter, high jump adn 110m hurdles; C. Dickinson, pole vault; D. Childers, 3200m.

3rd place – K. Hession, 1600m

The soccer Lady Tigers will continue their season next Friday and Saturday in the Nixa/Ozark Invitational. Game times and locations TBA.

Congratulations to the FFA Horse Judging Team on earning a “I” rating at districts and will be competing at the State FFA Convention on April 19th and 20th. Those four students are S. Chittum, K. Brown, A. Hearod, and S. Hendrickson. A. Burdick will also be receiving her State FFA Degree Award.

Jeff Staley

We have been so busy this week!  It is amazing how fast the time goes!  This week we had a special ceremony where we planted a dogwood tree in our Tiger Garden.  The tree was in memory of our custodian, Shane Cook, who passed away last fall.  We were blessed to have Shane’s parents, sister, brother-in-law, and his baby niece with us for the planting.  Our students showed so much respect and kindness for this family.  I was very proud of them. 

We also did Jump Rope For Heart on Thursday!  The students had a great time jumping during their special classes.  The money raised goes to the American Heart Association.  Thanks Coach Bills for organizing this!

We hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend!

Rhonda Bishop,  Willard North Principal