Stay tuned for more photos throughout the day. The Big Orange boys will race at noon.
Congratulations to your Big Orange Girls Cross Country State
Champions! They had a final team score of 55 points.
Megan Adams 5th place 18.43
Ashley Yoder 8th 18.49
Addie McAuley 10th 18.56
Katelyn Stapleton 18th 19.20
Madison Bahan 31st 19.38
Taylor Kennedy 89th 20.49
Claire Longshore 127th 21.51
Mr. Hollar and Mr. McGill challenged elementary students to exercise their “right to vote” in a very important poll during this week’s Gold Card Friday video. Both McGill and Hollar came up with ideas that would give students something to think about and discuss before casting their ballots. Mr. McGill offered an extra 15 minutes of recess, and Mr. Hollar offered Mrs. Jones getting a buzz cut to match his! Lucky for Mrs. Jones, our students had her back, and 484 students voted for the extra recess!
It's Gold Card Friday, and we're holding our own election at WLS Elementary! https://youtu.be/_XK87e_wodk
Congratulations to 2 awesome seniors who were named the
November Seniors of the Month! Madison Bahan and Dawson Jenkins were nominated and voted on by their teachers. They work hard both at school and in our community, show good citizenship, academic responsibility and kindness to others! Keep up the good work!
The FFA has been hard at work this week! You can find out all they’ve been up to here:
https://www.wlstigers.org/article/342220?org=wls
Congratulations to West Liberty-Salem class of 1996 Alumni, Dr. Daniel A. Showalter, who was recently named the Ohio University Alum of the Month!. The full article can be found here:
https://www.ohio.edu/education/alumni-spotlight-daniel-showalter
“The Patton College of Education is honored to recognize alumni Dr. Daniel A. Showalter, winner of Eastern Mennonite University’s 2020 Excellence in Teaching Award, as our November Alum of the Month.”
Parent/Teacher conferences are off to a great start! If you haven’t already done so, please consider scheduling a conference with your child’s teacher. You can schedule by calling Mrs. Nieman for MS/HS or Mrs. Cotrell for elementary. Special thanks to the PTO for feeding our elementary staff Subway and the FFA, organized by Olivia Muirhead, for feeding MS/HS!
Hello, This is Kraig Hissong, Superintendent with an important message. Today, Champaign County, was designated as Red, by the Ohio Department of Health. This is considered a Level 3 Health Emergency with very high exposure and spread of COVID. After speaking with the Health Commissioners of Logan and Champaign Counties, both are seeing very few positive cases in schools and very little spread in the school settings. Therefore, they are recommending that schools stay in session, 5 days per week as we have been. Both health departments will continue to watch to see if we have any outbreaks in schools, but at this time, they feel staying is session is best and that schools are providing a safe environment for students and staff. We will continue to monitor our own situation as well. At this time, most of the COVID spread is occurring in the adult population in social situations with friends and extended family, where masks are not worn. We want to encourage families to continue to use caution if you are out in the public or at a gathering with friends or family. Please continue to wear your masks and social distance as much as possible. A little more caution now will help result in our district remaining open and fully operational so we can enjoy all the related activities that go along with school a typical school year. I want to thank all of our families for your help in keeping our students and staff safe during the COVID pandemic. Have a great evening!
We are pleased to announce that Molly Perdue was selected as the Southwest School District winner in the OHSAA Step It Up Wellness Challenge for Ohio schools! This 2 week long steps contest took place from October 18-31, and challenged participants from Ohio schools to compete for one of only six $2000 cash prizes for their district. Winners were selected this week. When Superintendent Kraig Hissong received the invitation to participate, he knew Perdue would be the perfect fit to encourage health and wellness in our school, while providing some stiff competition in our region!
On average, Mrs. Perdue walked 47,980 steps per day, 24 miles per day, and a grand total of 336 miles and 671,729 steps. To put that in perspective she walked farther than Pittsburg, PA., Chicago, IL., Buffalo, NY., and almost to Nashville, TN., in just 2 weeks! Everyday, Mrs. Perdue honored her commitment to the challenge by walking before school, on her lunch break, walking in place at her desk and during afternoon pick up, in addition to her typical 5-7 mile evening and weekend walks.
Mrs. Perdue has served West Liberty-Salem Local Schools for 22 years as our Elementary Librarian and Elementary Paraprofessional. She now holds the title of OHSAA Southwest District Regional Stepper! Congratulations, Molly! We are grateful for your commitment to our district and applaud your health and wellness efforts each day!
Congratulations to our October Students of the Month!
Left to Right:
8th Grade: Jessa Beard & Quentin Rudolph
7th Grade: Gwen McCullough & Caleb Heater
6th Grade: Clair Linge & Troy Christison
Students are nominated and selected by their teachers for being good citizens and great students. Great job to this great group of students! Keep up the good work!
Bus drivers wanted!
Mr. Lewis and the Calculus Club had an opportunity to turn change into a positive experience. The Calc Club typically hold once a month carry in’s, but this year is different. Due to restrictions with Covid-19, and keeping our students safe, those carry in’s will be on hold for a while. Instead of getting discouraged, though, these students decided to use their monthly carry in date to serve their community. In October they brought in enough items and filled several of our weekly blessing bags. Blessing bags are filled with easy to access food items that students/families in need receive for the weekend. This month, for Thanksgiving, they will select another local charity. We are very proud of all of them for making a positive impact on their community and choosing to look forward to something in ever changing times. Way to go, Calc Club!
Bridges Community Action Partnership is offering assistance for rent, mortgage payments and water bills for those who qualify and may have fallen behind due to the pandemic. If you would like more information, or know someone in need, please check out the following information.
Congratulations to our District Runner-Up Varsity Volleyball Team!
The Tigers ended their season as District Runner Up with a 3 set loss to state ranked CHCA on Saturday.
Congrats on a great season!
Below are details for this weekend’s State Cross Country meet.
https://ohsaaweb.blob.core.windows.net/files/Sports/Cross%20Country/StateMeetFAQs.pdf
Girls run at 10:00
Boys run at 12:00
This week’s staff spotlight goes to our very own, Linda Harr. Linda is always busy keeping our bus routes and riders as safe as possible! She just wrapped up National School Bus Safety Week where our riders go through bussing drills and learn/relearn all of the rules for a safe trip to and from school! Thank you, Linda Harr!
This is my 28th year at West Liberty-Salem. I have had many jobs while at West Liberty-Salem, beginning with school bus driver, Cattlewomen school bus driver and ParaPro, and moved into the Transportation Director position 12 years ago. Title changed again to Transportation/Maintenance Supervisor. Now, I’m strictly over Transportation.
I graduated from Graham High School. My husband, Jeff Harr, and our 4 children are all alumnus of WL-S. So far out of 9 grandchildren, only 1 attends WL-S.
Hobbies are farming, camping, my horse and the cattle, spending family time with our children and grandchildren, especially when we take family vacations together. I’m also a member of the Ohio Cattlewomen Association and love working at the Ohio State Fair for the OCW and enjoy meeting Cattlewomen from across the Unites States.
Working at WL-S has been full of many experiences, opportunities and making lasting friendships with staff and people in the community. I’m thankful for the awesome bus driving team that deserve so much recognition for keeping our students safe each and every day. They really do go beyond the call of duty to make this happen and I so much appreciate each and every one of them for doing their BEST.
Hello families, this is Kraig Hissong with a couple of announcements. First, as a reminder, tomorrow, Friday, October 30th, students do not have school. Tomorrow, staff will be participating in Professional Development and, therefore, students will not report to school. Next, if you have not received information from your child about Parent Teacher Conferences, please contact the office or your child’s homeroom teacher for information about different options for conferences. Last, there has been a lot of discussion about the increase in COVID cases in Ohio this fall and the concern that this could impact school remaining open and on a regular schedule. So far, WL-S has had two positive student cases and one positive staff case of COVID since the beginning of September. Overall, these are very low numbers, less than 1/2 of one percent have had COVID at WL-S since September. In speaking with both Logan and Champaign County Health Departments, the health commissioners are not concerned about the spread of COVID in schools as much as they are during social gatherings among family and friends, when people congregate in less formal environments. The health commissioners have stated that the procedures schools have in place are working based on the small number of cases and very limited spread. If one or both of our counties turn Red, it would not automatically determine that our district would go on a hybrid or remote instructional plan. They would look at cases within the school to make that determination. I want to thank our students and staff for your hard work in helping to keep each other safe by wearing masks and keeping our school clean. Governor DeWine also mentioned today that many people are getting COVID burnout, but it is important that we continue to be cautious and wear masks when we are around anyone outside of our families. Again, No school tomorrow, enjoy your weekend, and we will see students on Monday.
Thank you and have a good evening
Our 9th grade class officers put together a last minute trick or treat event for our freshman today! They visited homeroom classes, saw the spooky scenes created by other grade levels, and received a sweet and salty treat from teachers!
It’s official! The verdict is in a congratulations are in order to the following homerooms for winning the Halloween door decorating contest!
Champion: Mrs. Arnold’s 11th grade HR
Runner up: Mr. Wolfe’s 10th gr HR
3rd Place: Mrs. Phelps’s 9th gr HR
We would like to recognize Honorable Mention to the following:
Mr. Cotrell’s 11th gr Homeroom
Mr. Och’s 10th gr Homeroom
Mr. Lynxwiler for his individual efforts (no thanks to his Homeroom) and
Junior Holden Shafer for singlehandedly decorating the tops of the countertops in Mr. Stormes Junior HR
