Grade 3 Spreads Rays of Kindness

Washington Episcopal School’s Grade 3 STEM and Entrepreneurship Class started the Kindness Core with the goal of spreading acts of kindness throughout the school and the larger community and INSPIRING others to join in their effort to spread kindness.

Goal: 2020 ACTS of KINDNESS done by the WES community by November 2, 2020

In a year that has been shadowed with hardship, Grade 3 students’ goal is to inspire 2020 acts of kindness in our community reflecting that the number and year 2020 can be connected with kindness.

Steps:

  1. Do 10 or more acts of kindness
  2. Record acts of kindness at: www.w-e-s.org/KindnessActs
  3. Encourage others to take part in Kindess Core’s effort to spread kindness

Filling out the Google form takes under 1 minute and is important to reaching the Kindness Core Goal. There are 3 questions.    Name, Class, and Number of Acts of Kindness. Non-WES students: Please also log your acts of kindness, too, and the class of the person you know at WES. The class with the most recorded acts of kindness will receive a prize and the title as the winner of Kindness Core’s Acts of Kindness Contest. Contest will close by November 2, but spreading acts of kindness should never end. Prize: Fun Dip and a make your own Fuzzball Creature Kit!

Please take part in spreading acts of kindness and shine your rays of kindness out into the world because every person can make a difference.

Your actions will make others happy (and you too!)

*The Kindness Core is part of Grade 3’s Entrepreneurship Project: Students are challenged to design a service business based on social responsibility that encourages others to make positive change in their lives. Students must use communication strategies to clearly and effectively achieve their goal. Through this experience students will foster 21st century skills of collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication to achieve their mission. Please help support their efforts.

Remembering the Life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A couple of years ago, I came upon a student who was dressed as Ruth Bader Ginsburg for our Grade 3 Global Trailblazers Project. During this annual event, our students research and present about leaders who have inspired them. As our student told the story of Justice Ginsburg’s life, I was struck by the impact Ms. Ginsburg had on this young person. 

We lost both a legal and cultural icon last week in the passing of Justice Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. She dedicated her career to slowly and systematically dismantling laws that allowed discrimination on the basis of sex and was a leading force in securing women’s rights to:

  • Obtain a mortgage without a male co-signer
  • Open a checking account without a male co-signer
  • Start a business without a male co-signer
  • Get a credit card without a male co-signer
  • Obtain a job without gender-based discrimination
  • Obtain/retain employment while pregnant
  • Not be forced to provide proof of sterilization to obtain/retain employment
  • Receive pension benefits equal to male coworkers
  • Receive consideration to be executors of their children’s estates

Justice Ginsburg herself faced much discrimination during the course of her career. Newly married, she settled with her husband in Oklahoma for two years. She was initially offered a position as a claims examiner at the Civil Service Rank of GS-5. However, the offer was withdrawn when they discovered her pregnancy, and she had to accept a clerk/typist position at the rank of GS-2 instead. Later, as one of only nine women out of 550 people in her class at Harvard Law, she had to defend her right to be there to the then-dean, who wanted to know why each woman in the class deserved to take a spot that could have gone to a man. Upon law school graduation, she received no offers from firms and was able to secure employment clerking for federal district judge Edmund L. Palmieri only because one of her professors threatened never to send the judge another law clerk if he did not. 

Justice Ginsburg’s life embodies the theme of our year, resilience. While she handled these indiginities with grace and good manners, she devoted her life’s work to trying to build a society in which others would not have to face them. She was also known for being incredibly strategic. As a litigator and director of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, she carefully selected her cases as she persuaded an all-male Supreme Court, one case at a time, to start recognizing the constitutional barrier against discrimination on the basis of sex. 

In the latter years of her career, it was her pointed and powerful dissents on high-profile cases that made her a legend in the eyes of a new generation. Whether she was winning cases or voicing dissent, she was committed to pursuing justice, and her life and career remind us of the change that can be effected when we choose this path. She will be sorely missed, but I know that her legacy will carry on with others who fight for equal rights for all.

Danny Vogelman

Head of School

WES Kicks Off First Fridays With a Casserole Drive

WES’s commitment to community service continues this year with First Fridays!

While we cannot have our students gather for service projects as we have in previous years, on the First Friday of each month, WES will keep to our tradition of coming together to support the community through service projects.

Each month we will designate a project that families are invited to participate in. When needed, supplies for projects will be provided and either sent home with students or made available for contactless pick-up. Families can engage in the project at their convenience, and for projects that need to be returned, drop them off at WES in a designated timeframe.

We will kick off our First Fridays this year with a casserole drive, in partnership with Small Things Matter, an organization founded on the idea that small acts of kindness can have a big impact. Small Things Matter will pick up casseroles from WES and distribute them to local families in need.

Your family is invited to make your favorite casserole to share! Be sure to label the casserole with the name of the dish, all ingredients, and directions on how to heat or cook. You can also add a personal note to the casserole. Please freeze the casserole and deliver to the WES colonnade on Monday, October 5, or Tuesday, October 6, between 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. We’ll keep your casserole frozen until Small Things Matter picks all donations up on Tuesday afternoon.

If you plan to participate, please email Mrs. Brockway (tbrockway@w-e-s.org) with an approximate delivery day and time, so we can be sure to bring your casserole in quickly!

We’d love to see photos, too! Please snap a picture of your family–either in the mess of the process or with your finished product–and share with us by emailing photos to communications@w-e-s.org or by sharing on your own social media and tagging @goWESdragons.

Questions? Email Community Service Committee Co-Chairs Tiffney Brockway (tbrockway@w-e-s.org) and Chaplain Kristen (kpitts@w-e-s.org). 

Face Masks That Will Keep You Safe

It was so wonderful to see everyone’s faces—and many cool and creative masks—at Orientation last week! WES policy states that face coverings must be CDC-compliant, so we wanted to review what type of face coverings the CDC recommends.

CDC-compliant masks must:
•  Have two or more layers of cotton fabric
•  Cover your nose and mouth and fit securely under your chin
•  Fit well with as few gaps as possible
•  PM 2.5 filters are optional in some masks and offer additional protection

The CDC does NOT recommend:
•  The use of gaiters or face shields when not used in conjunction with a mask. Their effectiveness is unknown at this time.
•  Masks with valves or vents, as they allow respiratory droplets to be expelled through the vent.

Library Continues to Offer Curbside Check-Out

WES will continue to offer students access to its library collection even when students are learning at home. We will use a curbside checkout program, as we did during the summer.

Students or parents can request up to 3 books and will be allowed to keep the books for three weeks. Pick-up will be on Wednesday afternoons on the colonnade, and each division will have an assigned week for pick-up:
Middle School: September 16
Early Childhood: September 23
Elementary School: September 30
(Nursery and Pre-K students learning on site will get books at school.)

On Wednesday, October 7, the rotation will begin again and Middle School students can pick up books.

Reserving Books:

Grades 4 and up: Students will use the catalog to put books on hold.
Grades K-3 and virtual NP students: Students or parents will use a Google form to request books. (Grades 2-3 Form; NPK1 Form)
NP: Students will choose books in person using a cart.