“ Such a joyful time at the RDW Elementary School! Thank you to the RDW PTA for putting on a week long Santa shop and gifting books and the love of reading to all of our RDW students! We even had a very special visit from Santa and Mrs. Clause! “ All of the students LOVED the Christmas Fun and Spirit!”
Mrs. Maria Miller has been chosen to receive the 2023 Administrator Appreciation Award from the Pennsylvania School Counselors Association (PSCA). This rare distinction “acknowledges administrators who demonstrate an understanding and support of, commitment to and belief in the role of school counselors and comprehensive, developmental school counseling programs.” Miller will be formally recognized at the PSCA annual conference on December 7th at Kalahari Resorts and Conference Center. She has been an avid supporter of the school counseling program at RDW since they started working together in June of 2012. She is the reason the program has received national and state recognition; and she is a true champion of the school’s comprehensive school counseling program. Miller was born and raised in Waymart and has lived there her whole life. She graduated from Western Wayne School District in 1986. She then attended Marywood University where she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Early Childhood (1990) and Master’s Degree in Early Childhood (1992). Later, she received her Principal Certification in 1997 from The University of Scranton. Miller has worked at R.D. Wilson for the past 33 years. She was a classroom teacher for 10 years, serving students in Pre-K, Kindergarten, and Fourth Grade before entering her current role as principal. Miller is a champion of her community and has devoted her career to bettering the lives of the students and families in this area that she calls home.
Mrs. Miller spear-headed the efforts to bring the PROSPER Program to the Western Wayne School District. Based out of Penn State, this program trains local teams to lead family-based and school-based prevention program efforts on the ground in their communities. In addition to her many roles at school, Miller is Waymart Historical Society: Vice President; has her RAMP-Certification: Principal of a RAMP-Certified school (2019-2024), currently supporting the counselor in applying for Re-RAMP and the PA Black Diamond Program award. Also, R.D. Wilson received the Adequate Yearly Progress PDE achievement recognition every year from 2002 until 2011 (when PA stopped awarding this to schools) under Miller’s leadership. Miller is thrilled to represent Western Wayne at the awards ceremony to receive her great honor in early December.
Guiding Good Choices for 4th-6th grade parents and caregivers. Attend this FREE VIRTUAL five-session program to help your youth navigate the pressures and expectations of life during their teen years to succeed and achieve a brighter future.
Parents and caregivers can enhance their parenting skills by learning how to:
Promote health and well-being during the teen years.
Develop health beliefs and clear standards for behavior.
Deal with anger in a positive way and manage family conflict to strengthen bonds with youth.
Protect their children from substance abuse and other problematic behaviors.
Strengthen family bonds and increase youth’s involvement in the family through the teen years.
Youth attend session 4 with their parents and caregivers. The program will be held on five Tuesdays: February 6, 13, 20, 27 and March 6 from 6 to 8 PM via Zoom. For more information or to register, e-mail or call Karen Thomas at kat1@psu.edu or 570-878-2385
The students at RDW have been working hard to make Autumn inspired artwork! Students across grade level have used the changing seasons and weather, as inspiration for paintings, drawings, and collages! They have observed the environment around them and utilized a variety of techniques to create beautiful seasonal art!
Picture Four, from left: Elijah Sledzinski, Amelia Kosciuk, Avery Orloski, Ella Yedinak, and Calista Gregorski.Picture One, from left, Western Wayne Band Members: Will Dwyer, Makayla Walton, Lillian Maros, Nicholas Fisichella, Anthony Redmond, Zach Wilbur, Logan Jezorwski, Kalob Franko, Caden Wilson, Joey Regalbuto, and Brad Miehle. Band students at the event, not pictured: Adrianne Waller and Xavier Graham.Picture Three , from left, the 2023 Homecoming Court: Carter Mistishin, Brooke Kellogg, Frankie Leyshon, Lexi DeSiato, Rhayni Carroll, Allie Pauler, Vinny Tomasetti, Taylor Maiocco, and Ethan Grodack (absent from photo Gunnar Minor).Picture Two, from left: Amelia Kosciuk, Avery Orloski, and Ariana Marsan.
Members of the Western Wayne Marching Band, Homecoming Court, some varsity athletes, and beloved school mascot Westie visited both EverGreen Elementary and RDW Elementary on Oct. 3 to perform songs, do meet and greets, and invite the students and their families to the Homecoming Game and ceremony on Friday, October 6, starting at 6:30 p.m. A fun time was had by students of all ages during the elementary school visits!
Picture Two, from left: Amelia Kosciuk, Avery Orloski, and Ariana Marsan.
Picture Three , from left, the 2023 Homecoming Court: Carter Mistishin, Brooke Kellogg, Frankie Leyshon, Lexi DeSiato, Rhayni Carroll, Allie Pauler, Vinny Tomasetti, Taylor Maiocco, and Ethan Grodack (absent from photo Gunnar Minor).
Lleft to right: Maria Shemanski, Coltan Davitt-Hillemann, Annabelle Decker, Makayla Franckowiak, Lylah Semon, and TJ McClure)
Nationwide, buddy benches are used at playgrounds as a place where students can go when they have no one to play with. When other students notice someone sitting on the buddy bench, they are encouraged to ask that student to join them. The RDW buddy bench was established by a group of kindness club students years ago. The bench has since been worn down, and the current group of kindness club students decided that it needed a facelift. Their goal was for it to represent Wildcat PRIDE and inclusion. We are very proud of their work, and they certainly captured what it means to be a student here at Western Wayne.
4th-6th grade parents and caregivers. Attend this FREE VIRTUAL five-session program to help your youth navigate the pressures and expectations of life during their teen years to succeed and achieve a brighter future.
The Third Annual Cat Pack Games were held on Wednesday, May 24 at Sharkey Rosetti Stadium. After a musical welcome from the Western Wayne Marching Band, student CAThletes from EverGreen, RDW, and the Middle and High Schools spent the day running, jumping, throwing, and playing! Student volunteers from the High School assisted in setting up and running the games and activities, taking photographs, and face painting. The day was a perfect highlight of some of the many talents of our students. Thank you to everyone who helped make it a great day!
The RDW PTA bought one flower for each student to take home to a parent for Mother’s Day weekend! (children had the option to purchase additional flowers if they wanted)
The RDW PTA made a buffet style “brunch for lunch” for all faculty and staff. As well as helped stock their classrooms with more snacks, cleaning supplies, and writing utensils!
ALL NEWS
Thank You to the RDW PTAApril 25, 2024RDW’s PTA provided a boat load of snacks to our PSSA testing students. [...]
Team of Western Wayne, Honesdale students heads to world robotics competitionApril 24, 2024The robot zoomed across the floor at Honesdale High School, picking up orange rings called notes and spitting them into a wooden box called a speaker.
Students from Western Wayne and Honesdale high schools hope the robot can stand out among the best in the world.
The team built the robot this year and won the FIRST Mid-Atlantic Robotics Competition Regional Championship earlier this month. With the victory the team called the Camobots will compete at the world championship in Houston, Texas this week.
Teammates gathered Sunday at Honesdale High School, preparing for their trip. Jacob Schott, a senior from Western Wayne, said going to the competition is a dream.
“So for a lot of us being seniors, getting to go is like one last hurrah… it’s awesome,” he said.
The two schools came together 13 years ago to form the robotics team. As the emphasis on STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math) grows, more schools offer robotics programs to students. Last year, 3,340 teams of high school students from 32 countries competed in FIRST robotics.
Continue with the full article here. [...]
RDW DISCOVERY DAY 2024April 22, 2024“It was an out of this world experience for our students at RDW! SPACE was the theme of this years Discovery Day. With all the hard work and dedication from the RDW PTA they were able to give our kids an amazing experience. From learning about the Moon, Star Constellations, the Sun, and Rockets – This years Discovery
Day was surely a BLAST!” [...]
Western Wayne FBLA Excels at Pennsylvania State Leadership ConferenceApril 19, 2024Row 1 (l to r): Olivia Gries, Audrey Agnello, Phoebe Schmitt, Taylor Maiocco, Rhayni Carroll, Emily Romanowski, and Madelyn McClure. Row 2 (l to r): Avery Ulner, Isabella Kolp, Clare Coccodrilli, Connor Bryant, David Elias, Khole Mistishin, Maggie Kotchessa, and Allie Pauler.
The 73rd annual Pennsylvania State Leadership Conference was held this past week in Hershey. Western Wayne FBLA had 32 members competing at the conference this year. Sixteen of those 32 members placed in the top 10 at the state level and were recognized at the Awards of Excellence Program. Eight members have qualified to compete at the FBLA National Leadership Conference this June in Orlando.
The Business Ethics team of Rhayni Carroll, Taylor Maiocco, and Emily Romanowski placed 3rd. Olivia Gries placed 2nd in Introduction to Business Communications. The team of Audrey Agnello and Phoebe Schmitt placed 4th in Introduction to Business Presentation. Maggie Kotchessa placed 5th and Khole Mistishin placed 7th in Introduction to FBLA. Madelyn McClure placed 3rd and Madelyn Vinton placed 6th in Introduction to Parliamentary Procedure. The team of Clare Coccodrilli, Isabella Kolp, and Avery Ullner placed 9th in Introduction to Social Media Strategies. The team of Connor Bryant and David Elias placed 10th in Sports and Entertainment Management. Allie Pauler placed 4th in Word Processing.
In addition, Rhayni Carroll placed 4th, Emily Romanowski placed 7th, and Adrian Agnello placed 8th in Who’s Who in Pennsylvania FBLA and were recipients of the William Seldon Scholarship. Adrian and Emily each received a $1000 scholarship and Rhayni received a scholarship of $1250. [...]
Western Wayne / Honesdale HS Robotics Team Wins ChampionshipApril 18, 2024 This April the robotics team FRC 4285 Camobots (composed of Honesdale HS and Western Wayne HS students) competed at the FIRST Mid-Atlantic Robotics Competition Regional Championship and won. This is a huge endeavor and first-ever win at the FMA Regional Championship held at Lehigh University. The competition is three days (starting with inspection of the robot by teams of engineers, scouting of robot qualities, randomly competing with and against numerous teams, presentation to judge teams of CEO’s and engineers from companies, and finals team selection on the 3rd day). Our team was the 3rd selection of Alliance 2’s team. Our team had to play defense to shut down the other team’s top scoring robot and it worked (see attached video link and forward to timestamp). Alliance 2 won which was composed of us, a team from southern PA, and southern NJ. Further, our students involved work diligently in the offseason to secure funding from businesses along with the Department of Defense. Also, in the offseason the students are being trained up in fields of robot programming, CAD (AutoDesk Inventor), Engineering and Design, Electronics and Sensors, Automated machining, Automation and Game Play, Public Speaking, and numerous additional skill sets. Team Advisor and Western Wayne teacher Brian Landry wishes to thank everyone in both the Western Wayne and Honesdale School Districts and local community who helped the students achieve this tremendous goal. To better understand what competition is like, see attached information
FMA Day 3 Championship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCDUeduIIeQ – Timestamp 10:04:09 (we shut down the top scoring robots in our league)
What is FMA FIRST Robotics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KCrrp1DNmM&t=39s – couple minute video
Pictured is Team FRC 4285 with the coveted Blue Banner.
In addition, the local community is invited to watch the Robotics team compete in the World Championships in Houston, Texas, using the links below. They will be completing from Thursday, April 18, through Saturday, April 20. This link will allow you to watch all 8 fields live, if you click on one of the fields and then select Milstein Field (which is the one our team will be playing on) this will give you a larger version of our field. We have three teams including us playing in this division field from our league with a total of 72 (minus our 3 teams) from other areas of the United States and countries. 608 FRC teams (our division), along with est 300 FTC (middle school) and est 200 FLL (elementary). 50,000 students from around the world total competing in the highest STEAM related competition. Thank you, again, to all who support us in this endeavor. https://www.thebluealliance.com/gameday#chat=hidden&layout=8&view_0=firstinspires-0 [...]
Safe2Say Something is a youth violence prevention
program run by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General.
The program teaches youth and adults how to recognize
warning signs and signals, especially within social media,
from individuals who may be a threat to themselves or others
and to “say something” BEFORE it is too late.