Originally delivered on 6/13/2025 5:42 pm

SUBJECT: June 2025 PA Newsletter

WESS PA logo
June 2025 Newsletter

June PA Meeting - Wednesday, June 18th, 9:00am @ WESS

8th Grade Dance - Wednesday, June 18th, 5:00 - 6:00pm

NO SCHOOL - Juneteenth, Thursday, June 19th

Last Day of School - Thursday, June 26th

Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. -Martin Luther King Jr.

PA Message

As our 2024-25 year comes to a close, we can look back now and see how far we have come! Our year at WESS has been marked by many changes in administration, but thanks to our amazing core of teachers and staff, we have upheld our standards and expectations for our students’ educational experience. They deserve an enormous round of applause for their dedication to our kids and the core values of WESS! As we say goodbye to the Class of 2025 we wish them well as they launch out of the safe harbor of our school and enter the wider world! As a PA, we thank you for your support in so many ways, volunteering within the school as well attendance at our events, fundraisers, and general meetings. We hope you have a wonderful and restful summer, and look forward to seeing you ready for school again in September!

 

Moving forward together,

WESS PA

PA Business

Next PA Meeting Wednesday, June 18th, 9:15 AM

 

We hope you can join us in the WESS Cafeteria for the last PA meeting of the year! We will be highlighting our accomplishments and welcoming the new Executive Board into their leadership positions for the coming school year. Andrew and Karyn will be able to join for their end of the year updates, and we will be holding a vote to approve the 2025-26 WESS PA Budget which was presented at the May General Meeting. We hope you’ll be able to make it – coffee and pastries will be served!

New WESS PA Executive Board


We held elections on May 22, 2025 and we would like to formally announce the WESS PA EB for the coming school year! We are still looking for an amazing person for Booster Representative! If you would be interested in helping support the sports and arts programming within WESS, please reach out to papresidents@westendsecondary.com. Elections for 6th grade and High School representatives will be held in October.

 

Co-Presidents: Carolina Correa-Quatela and Justin Fromm

Co-Treasurers: Jason Benowitz and Rebecca Weel

Co-VPs at Large: Theresa Ching and Elizabeth Stewart

VP of High School: Trish Bechard

VP of Middle School: Meryl Ravitz

VP of DEI: Max Alvarez

Co-Recording Secretaries: Laetitia Ducrox and Mia Pavlov

Communications Secretary: Liz Sorem

We would like to recognize and honor our wonderful teachers, administrators and support staff who worked tirelessly to ensure our children thrived throughout this year. Every member of the WESS staff went above and beyond to create a community for our students. 

We would like to acknowledge their efforts with a collective, school-wide end of year gift. This appreciation gift drive is voluntary and all cards will be signed by “The Families of WESS” regardless of whether or not you are able, or choose, to contribute. 

WESS has a policy whereby there are no individual or crew parent collections of cash gifts for individual teachers. Instead, the PA has specific PayPal and Venmo accounts for families to contribute to these e-gift cards. The funds collected through this gift drive will be distributed among the entire school staff as the success of this past year at WESS is the result of every member of the team. We are not providing a suggested dollar amount, but as a reference point in previous years we set a per child contribution of $25. 

We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued support of the PA and WESS!

VENMO (Free, no fee - click icon below)

PA Treasurer Account: @wess-pa

Please indicate “End of Year Gift Fund” in the Note

If prompted for a code, use: 5058

PAYPAL(This method of donating includes an automatic monthly payment option; WESS pays a small fee per each credit card donation. Click PayPal icon below)

Wonder  Compassion  Resilience  Creativity

Membership Toolkit and How to Use It

When a family joins the WESS community, they are automatically added to the PA Membership Toolkit database. Membership Toolkit (MT) is the program that the WESS Parent Association uses to stay in touch with WESS parents and provide you with important information via emails and newsletters like the one you're reading right now. The fact that you have received this newsletter means that you are in the MT database.

The MT database is based on but separate from the official contact information that you provided to WESS via the blue card when your student(s) enrolled. That information is for the WESS administration only and is NOT accessible to parents. So, in order to make it possible and easy for WESS parents (and students) to find and keep in touch with each other, the PA created a user-friendly directory at Membership Toolkit.

To access Membership Toolkit and, therefore, the directory, click here, click on "login," and follow the prompts based on whether you are a returning user or a new user. If you've never logged on to MT before, you are a new user. Simply create an account and then you will find your contact information already available. Once you have created an account, you can edit your contact information and customize your profile including what, if any, information is made public in the directory.

MT is available as both a desktop and app option. It’s a great idea to have both for your convenience.

Note: If ever your contact information should change, it’s most important to change it on the official DOE blue card through WESS but it’s equally smart to also update it at Membership Toolkit if you want WESS folks to be able to reach you. 

If you have any questions or challenges using Membership Toolkit, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Liz Sorem and Mary-Elizabeth Vachon, WESS PA Co-Communications Team.

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