West Liberty-Salem Local School District

The West Liberty-Salem Show Choir is preparing for a weekend show case of their fall show, 'Earth, Wind, Fire and Water'. Performances are Friday at 6:30, Saturday at 3:00 and 6:30. Tickets are $5.00 at the door.

The West Liberty-Salem girls cross country team wrapped up its season with a fourth place finish at the OHSAA DIII State Championships Saturday in Obetz. This is the fifth top five state meet finish for the Big Orange is as many years and ninth overall top 10 state meet finish. Team Scores: 1st Minster 63, 2nd Fort Loramie 119, 3rd Colonel Crawford 165, 4th WLS 183, 5th Liberty Center 184, 6th Maderia 227, 9th Mogadore 231, 10th Patrick Henry 232, 9th Norwayne 255, 10th Ottawa Hills 284, 11th Huron 285, 12th McDonald 290, 13th Ft. Recovery 312, 14th Fredericktown 316, 15th Sandy Valley 388, 16th Dalton 297, 17th Fort Frye 4-6, 18th Grandview Heights 415, 19th Garway 417, 20th Tuscarwaras Valley 438 Big Orange placers: Malia Miller 34th (19:48), Ashley Yoder 44th (20:03), Addison McAuley 58th (20:20), Breece Gullet 62nd (20:23), Claire Longshore 109th (21:35), Taylor Kennedy 112th (21:37), and Gwen McCullough 134th (22:13). "We have 18 girls on the team this year and all season we talked about the importance of everyone's role on the team, and how when everyone does her part, we'll have a successful season," said WLS head coach Ann Vogel. "The girls ran their hearts out, and their teammates not running supported them every step of the way. I'm so proud of their effort and energy throughout the season. To finish in the top five is a testament to the investments our athletes make year-round to be competitive runners and supportive teammates." Photo credit: John Coffman

WL-S students are impacting our community in big ways. Faith Instine, Bailee Wick, Veronica Wall, Brock Burgel, Carter Titus, Cooper Titus and Noah Boyd helped watch 50+ kids today at the brunch Raising Arrows hosted for foster and kinship moms. “We couldn’t have done it without them,” Co-Founder and board member Crystal Burgel shared. Thank you for serving our community! #buildingabettertomorrow #service

West Liberty-Salem is currently seeking a Transportation Supervisor for the 2022-2023 school year. Qualified candidates must possess the following Licenses: • Possesses and maintain a valid Ohio Driver's License or Commercial Driver's License. • A satisfactory driving record as verified through checks made by the employee agency • Pre-Employment FMCSA-Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Drug and Alcohol Clearing House to determine drug or alcohol violation information. • Preferred Class B Driver’s License ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following. Other duties may be assigned. • Develops all aspects of transportation services in support of the mission, tasks, functions, and goals of the school district. • Develops and monitors board policies and administrative regulations associated with assigned areas. • Consults with governmental agencies to ensure compliance with State and Federal procedures and mandates. • Develops and implements District pupil load, service, extensions, modifications and other phases of transportation operations. • Prepares and administers contract specifications and documents, vendor service agreements, rate adjustments and compliance with contract specifications for pupil transportation services. • Oversees the monitoring of fleet operations and service performance of vehicles transporting students. • Oversees and manages the Federal Department of Transportation mandated Drug and Alcohol Testing Program. • Prepares general fund budget proposals, purchases of school buses and other District vehicles relating to support facilities and activities. • Manages departmental expenditures and ensures prudent fiscal management in the application of assigned funds. • Manages the legal and operational requirements of students with disabilities, including the transporting of the medically fragile passengers. • Administers the assignment of transportation personnel; provides ongoing reviews of organizational structure, staffing and departmental policies and procedures, including performance evaluations. • Serves on the District safety committee The full job description can be found here https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/1083/WLS/2550964/TRANSPORTATION_SUPERVISOR_8649_.pdf.

A mandatory parent/guardian meeting is scheduled for all student athletes in grades 7-12 on November 16th, at 6:00 PM. If you have a student playing a winter sport, please plan to attend.

West Liberty-Salem students enrolled in Physics through Edison State University built an awesome water rocket as part of their unit on Newton’s First Law. Mrs. Brandie Roberts, who also teaches high school physical science, assisted her class in a successful launch this week! They spent several days building the rocket, followed by a test launch that proved their project needed a little more work. The wind caught the rocket, and it landed right on the roof! (Shout out to our custodian for climbing right up after it!) Students were required to use an astrolabe and calculus to determine the height of the rocket in several different launches. Great job on a successful launch!

Last week, we posted about the cookie bake-off in our 8th grade Health and Consumer Sciences class. The final verdict is in and Kim Leichty and her team of Mariska, Savannah and Claire were the ultimate champions! Mrs. Molly Smith and her team of Hattie, Aubra and Audri were runners up! Thank you to all of our staff volunteers who include Mr. Westfall, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Leichty, Mrs. Schuster and Mrs. Carter, and to our judges who were dedicated taste testers!

Mrs. Phelps eighth graders are studying the life, death, and career of Edgar Allan Poe while reading "The Tell-Tale Heart". To get students engaged, they examined a staging of the crime scene from the story. They examined evidence, formed hypotheses on the crime, and connected that information with what they learned in the story. Students loved playing CSI!

Seventh graders are reading S.E. Hinton's 1967 novel The Outsiders'. The story is a coming-of-age novel exploring the themes of class conflict, friendship and loyalty. The novel serves as an example of several literary devices like personification, alliteration, allusion, and onomatopoeia to name a few. Students were asked to dress like the groups depicted in the story, Socs or Greasers, for a class discussion on point of view and perspective. The Greasers tend to be the most popular group for costume day!

Champaign County Economic Partnership is kicking off a month-long celebration of manufacturing and education with their fourth annual Manufacturing Design Challenge for our county schools. We had two teams enter the challenge this year. Team 1 consisted of Taryn Bradly, Craig Stanford, Teagon Miller, Quentin Rudolph and Conner Ferguson. Team 2 included Max Rudolph, Joy Hudson, Caleb Hershberger, Isiah Reminder, and Aaron Campbell. Each team was required to make a boat out of cardboard and duct tape. The cardboard must be 1'x1'x1', and the boat was required to move 1 pound of sand and sustain up to 5 pounds of sand without sinking in 4 feet of water. Both boats successfully sailed with 1 pound of sand, and both were still floating with 9 pounds of sand! It was a very tight race, but team 1 was ultimately victorious. They will compete on Friday morning at the county competition against our neighboring schools. Please help us congratulate both teams and wish our winners the best of luck on Friday!

Senior class advisors Kristen Hall and June Seymour took the seniors to lunch at the Mad River Market today! They were joined by Mr. Johnson, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Lynxwiler, Joan Salley, and Trista Havens. Thanks for the great service, Mad River Farm Market!

Both State bound cross country teams will be on Peak of Ohio's chalk talk tonight at 7:20 and 7:40! Be sure to listen as they talk about preparing to make another Big Orange appearance at State!

Congratulations to the following Tigers who received OHC All Team honors! 1st Team: Bailey Poppe Olivia Wilcox 2nd Team: Chaley Wade Leah Robb Honorable Mention: Naomi Cole Bailey Poppe also earned her 1000th career kill during the teams final match against Miami East.

The elementary kindness cart and high school hug cart committee members delivered sweet treats to their fellow educators and staff as well deserved reward after a very busy October! The month was full of a lot of great things at WL-S! #helpingstudentsreachtheirfullpotential

First graders carved pumpkins with their fourth grade book buddies! They worked together on grouping and counting pumpkin seeds, too!

West Liberty-Salem Drama Club presents Above Average Man on Wednesday, 11/2, & Thursday, 11/3, at 7 PM in the Cafetorium. Come out and enjoy this old fashioned radio show with a modern twist!

Get your XC state meet gear! The deadline to order is tomorrow at noon. https://ernstapparel.chipply.com/wlsstateboundxc22/ *Last week, we posted a link for football playoff gear that caused our district page to be flagged for spam (against Facebook community standards). Many of our supporters who shared the link were also flagged. We will remove this link promptly at noon tomorrow, so that it can’t be shared after it is no longer live. We assume this is what caused the issue.*

Please help us congratulate Mr. Todd Lewis, Educator of the Week!

West Liberty-Salem, #3 in this weeks OATCCC D3 State Poll, finished Regional Runner Up at the D3 Troy Regional. It's the second consecutive year finishing Regional Runner Up and will be the teams 5th consecutive trip to State. It also marks the programs 21st state appearance. Sr. Owen Harrison 3rd. 16:44.7 Fr. Garrett Wallen 13th 16:58.5 Jr. Joey LaRoche 20th 17:16.5 PR Fr. Dylan King 21st 17:17.0 PR So. Troy Bradley 29th 17:34.3 So. Quentin Rudolph 33rd 17: 40.2 Fr. Brevin Louden 46th 18:09.1 "I'm very proud of the way this team responded after all of the sickness that has ran its course through the program this week. Qualifying to state for the 5th consecutive year is a testament of this teams fight and character. In fact, today we ran without Asher Knox the teams #2 runner who didn't compete because of illness. Just happy for the whole team stepping up in his absence and running an outstanding team race. We're hopeful he'll be back next week to help us at the state meet. Senior Owen Harrison ran an almost flawless race moving up methodically from 35th at mile 1 to finish in 3rd to lead the team. Freshmen Garrett Wallen rose to the occasion and delivered a top 15 finish, which is incredible for a freshmen. Junior Joey LaRoche and Freshmen Dylan King both had remarkable races and set career personal bests. Troy Bradley also ran a solid race rounding out the scoring for the Big Orange. Quentin Rudolph and Brevin Louden ran great races despite coming off of illnesses." Team Standings (Top 4 Teams Qualifying to State) Summit Country Day 53 West Liberty-Salem 74 Botkins 77 Cedarville 136 Anna 155 Covington 165 Russia 183 Versailles 211 Legacy Christian 212 Cincinnati Christian 253 Seven Hills 284 MVCA 296 Meet Record: 10-1 Season Record: 120-18 Total Runners: 95

The West Liberty-Salem girls cross country team earned its seventh consecutive DIII state berth Saturday at the Troy Southwest Regional meet. The Big Orange ranked #5 in the latest DIII state coaches poll was edged out by #2 state ranked Ft. Loramie by 1 point to place second overall. The top three teams qualified for next week's state meet. Team Scores: 1st Ft. Loramie 60, 2nd West Liberty-Salem 61, 3rd Maderia 72, 4th Botkins 116, 5th Summit Country Day 145, 6th Versailles 154, 7th Brookville 188, 8th Anna 196, 9th Russia 218, 10th Clermont NE 298, 11th Seven Hills 299 The duo of Ashley Yoder and Malia Yoder powered the Big Orange with top 10 finishes. Yoder placed 6th (19:46) and Miller 7th (19:51). Breece Gullet ran for 15th place (20:31) and Addison McAuley and Gwen McCullough recorded top 25 finishes with McAuley placing 22nd (20:49) and McCullough 23rd (20:52). Taylor Kennedy placed 37th (21:33) and Claire Longshore 51st (22:13). "The girls left it all out on the course today against two top 10 state ranked teams," said WLS head coach, Ann Vogel. "I'm so proud of the fight and determination they showed throughout the race. Qualifying for the state meet is always tough, and today's race is a testament to their work ethic, love for their team, and commitment to the tradition of the Big Orange program." WLS will compete at the OHSAA State Championships Saturday at The Fortress in Obetz starting at 11:45 a.m. Photo credit: John Coffman