Dear WA Grandparent,

We at Westminster Academy are so very excited to have your grandchild at our school. It is a special privilege to partner with your child to educate and equip your grandchild in Jesus Christ and God's Truth. We also want to partner with you. This is why we are sending you our weekly newsletter called the "E-news Letter." You will receive the Westminster Academy E-news each week on a Friday or Saturday. From time-to-time we will send a special E-news during the week.

Please know that you are a special part of our school community.  We appreciate you and we want to encourage you to attend as many school events as possible. Your prayers and involvement in our community is very much welcomed and appreciated.

Please let us know if you would like to be removed from our mailing list and no longer receive these updates from Westminster Academy (WA). Please let me know if you have any questions or if you need any additional information. Please email me at orsinol@wacad.edu if you do.

Please allow me this opportunity to share our mission and guiding principles. We use our mission and guiding principles as our map at WA. It is important that each year we share the mission and guiding principles with the entire school community. Even though you will find our mission statement on all of our school wide communications, we do not always print our guiding principles.  

Below please find our mission statement, guiding principles and our definition of what we mean when we say "devoted to Christ and dedicated to excellence."

Mission

Westminster Academy is a Christ-centered, biblically-based college preparatory school dedicated to equipping covenant students to excel by using their gifts and talents for God's glory.

Guiding Principles:

For the glory of God we will continue to be dedicated to:

1. Teaching and modeling God's Truth, wisdom and prayerful discernment in all areas of our school ministry as we exemplify Jesus Christ with our words, work and witness.

2. Equipping our students with a scholarly and biblical world and life view as we educate them to become exceptional life-long learners, extraordinary thinkers and Christ-honoring decision makers.

3. Inspiring our students to excel with their gifts and talents in academics, spiritual and character development, fine arts, athletics, service to others and student life programs.

4. Instilling in our students a biblical love and respect for God, His Truth, Jesus Christ, parents, family, teachers, school, church, community and country.

5. Encouraging and discipling our students, alumni and school community to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ and their understanding of God's Holy Word, as they strive to be champions of the three greats: the Great Commandment, the Great Commission and the Great Cultural Mandate. 

         DEVOTED TO CHRIST 

Wholeheartedly determined to know Jesus more and make Him known to others (Great Commandment and Great Commission)

 (Mark 12:30-31) (Matthew 28:18-20) 

         DEDICATED TO EXCELLENCE 

Wholeheartedly determined to carry out God's Kingdom  

work in a timely manner with a Christ-centered attitude and approach

        (Galatians 6:9) (Colossians 3:23-24)

WHOLEHEARTEDLY

Completely, sincerely, eagerly, conspicuously and contagiously

(Ephesians 6:7-8)

Please continue to pray that God would use every person and every program at WA to save souls, educate minds and impact lives for His glory.    

Thank you again for playing a special role in your grandchild's life.  At WA, we know that grandparents are a very special blessing from God!  

Blessings to you and your family in the Name of Jesus Christ,  

Leo Orsino

Headmaster 

Upper School

Monday, September 5

No School - Labor Day

Tuesday, September 6

B Day

4:00 PM MS Volleyball @ The Sagemont School

5:00 PM JV Volleyball @ The Sagemont School

6:00 PM Varsity Volleyball @ The Sagemont School

Wednesday, September 7

A Day

8:00 AM Moms in Touch @ the CRPC Women's Ministry Center

10:45 AM Upper School Chapel - CRPC Sanctuary  

(parents are welcome to attend) 

4:30 PM Swimming and Diving @ Pine Crest

Thursday, September 8

B Day

7:00 AM Faculty/Staff Fellowship Breakfast and Devotions  

Kennedy Fellowship Hall

8:00 AM 6th Grade ERB Testing

1:00 PM Varsity Golf vs.The King's Academy

@ Coral Ridge Country Club

4:00 PM MS Volleyball vs. Somerset Academy

@ East Campus

6:00 PM Varsity Volleyball vs. Parkway Academy

@ East Campus

6:00 PM JV Football vs. Cardinal Gibbons

@ the Athletic Complex

Friday, September 9

A Day

7:00 PM Varsity Football @ Coral Springs Christian

Saturday, September 10

All-State Orchestra Auditions

ACT Testing

8:30 AM Cross Country @ The King's Academy Invitational

10:00 AM Varsity Swimming WA Relay Meet

@ the WA Aquatic Complex

Lower School

Monday, September 5

No School- Labor Day

Wednesday, September 7

8:00 AM Moms in Touch @ the CRPC Women's Ministry Center

Thursday, September 8

7:00 AM Faculty/Staff Fellowship Breakfast and Devotions

@ Kennedy Fellowship Hall

8:15 AM Lower School Chapel @ the DeVos Chapel

(parents are welcome to attend) 

Friday, September 9

6:00 PM Kid's Night Out, Hosted by the NHS @ the WA Gym

New Online School Calendar!

To help keep you even more informed about school events, WA has chosen to use Tandem for Schools as our our new online school calendar. As a Christ-centered, comprehensive college-preparatory school, there is an abundance of learning opportunities to keep track of during the school year. To help you and your family, we decided to use Tandem for Schools as our main calendar system.

Even though we wanted to go live the first week of school, there were a number of challenges with customizing the calendar for our school and we wanted to make sure it was user-friendly.

We have updated the calendar links on the website and you can now access the calendars on the website immediately from there.    

This introductory video explains some of the features in this new system. It explains how to create a user account, and shows you how to track the events that interest you.

(Note: If you have subscribed to the old school calendars, you will need to unsubscribe to those and subscribe to the new.)

This new calendar provides you with:

· One place to find all school events

· The ability to subscribe to events in a personal calendar, such as Outlook, iCal, Cozi, or Google calendar

· A personal Dashboard area where you can track events for the Groups that are important to you, and receive email updates when their events change time or location

· Google Maps to event locations

 In the coming weeks we will send out detailed information on how to get the most out of this new calendar. If you have any questions or feedback please email calendar@wacad.edu.  

Thank You Safety Patrol Students for  

 Sharing God's Love With Our Community

"Safety Patrol" is sponsored by AAA, and was founded in 1902 for the purpose of assisting in the safety of students as they arrived to school each day. Safety patrols assist the WA community in a number of ways. Some of their duties include: walking younger students to their classrooms, offering a word of encouragement, tying shoes, helping with a heavy load, or simply smiling and saying "Good morning!" Most importantly, safety patrols are continuing to learn the importance of sharing God's love with their community!    

Our 2011-2012 Lower School Safety Patrols are:

Gabby Audet

Brandon Beaupied

Thomas Budd

Andrew Chiwara

Lexi Gonzalez

Bradley Hebda

Danielle Kim

Maxwell Lowe

Cole Lynch

Christopher Martinez

Megan Matthews

Joseph McDonald

Gianna Milan

Paul Miller

Catherine Moraitis

Christian Perun

Logan Riedel

Abigail Russ

Kaitlyn Scallin

Alexandra Verrillo

Adam Warters

Madelyn Weissman

  Let's Talk About Lunch...  Q & A  

As we launched our new lunch program, we had some additional questions. Please click here for information which you may find helpful.    

Please click here to view next week's menu.   

Westminster Academy uses ParentsWeb as part of the RenWeb School Management Software, which gives you an opportunity to be aware of your child's academic progress and future success.

You can access ParentsWeb by clicking the link in the upper right-hand corner of the school's website. If you don't yet have a ParentsWeb account, you may create one by clicking "Create New ParentsWeb Account" and entering the email address on file with the school. If we do not have your email on file, please contact IT at: parentsweb@wacad.edu.

Please know that RenWeb sends weekly email reports on Sunday at 5 PM, as a way for parents to stay current with their child's academic progress.  We are happy to provide our parents with this service, but we regret that the emails are sent on Sunday.  Unfortunately, we do not have the ability to choose the day the updates are sent; if we did, we would not have chosen to send this information on the Sabbath. 

Thank you!  

 We encourage our families to be involved in mid-week services at their churches. This is a helpful reminder that no homework will be assigned on Wednesdays. Please know that at times work may be due on Wednesdays from a previous assignment.

Students who are interested in meeting with these representatives will be excused from class. Parents are welcome to attend! Please contact Student Services for more information. 

SEPTEMBER

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI (Room 203)

September 8, 12:30 - 1:00 PM

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY (Room 203)

September 20, 1:00 - 1:30 PM

GARDNER-WEBB UNIVERSITY (Room 203)

September 21, 1:00-1:30 PM

OCTOBER

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY (Room 203)

October 5, 12:30 - 1:00 PM

GUILFORD COLLEGE (Room 203)

October 13, 8:30 - 9:00 AM

ITHACA COLLEGE (Room 203)

October 18, 12:00 - 12:30 AM

DAVIDSON COLLEGE (Room 202)

October 24, 10:00-10:30 AM

More dates to follow ...

Please plan to attend a six week course on the basics of Financial

Stewardship (Financial Peace with Dave Ramsey). This course begins September 13, at 6:30 PM at CRPC. For registration and additional information please contact: Jeff Masters at 954.977.5150 or jeff@jeffmasters.com. 

The first class is FREE!

    The WA Choir Sings at
Rio Vista Community Church
 
We are excited that WA's mixed choir will be singing at Rio Vista Community Church on Sunday, October 2, at both the 9 AM and 11 AM services. We are grateful for this opportunity for our students to minister to the congregants of Rio Vista.  If you would like to join us, directions and more information about the church can be found at www.riovistachurch.com.

Thank you for your continued support and encouragement of our exceptional students as they share the love of Christ through music.  

CASA/Hang Time--After School Opportunities for Students



We are excited to offer children a safe and fun place
 to go to after school! CASA is for children from preschool (beginning at two-years-old) to the 5th grade. Children have time to rest, eat a snack, do homework, and enjoy being a kid!

We also have a great "Hang Time" experience for middle school students. "Hang Time" students have the opportunity to finish their homework, eat a snack, and enjoy some time with friends.

Please click here to sign up for CASA, and click here to sign up for Hang Time. Please pick up your child from PK CASA on the lower school campus and grades K-5 in the lower school building. 

You may also call Lynn Koffler at 954.632.7466, ext. 2519.

Please consider giving magazine subscriptions as gifts this year or purchase subscriptions for the school. 

 Also, please let friends and family know about our fundraiser and ask them to place their orders for us. Magazines offer a wonderful opportunity to promote reading in the home!

If you would like to support WA, please shop online and renew or order new subscriptions--simply click here and enter our school account number (1117353) to make a selection! All online sales will count toward your child's prizes.

Family members living outside our school area can easily go online and order magazines without having to do it through the mail. The success of our sale depends on the teamwork of our students, families and school community.

Thank you, we couldn't do it without you! 

Twenty-six lower school students enjoyed a pool party on Thursday, September 1, as a reward for their wonderful summer reading achievement. Dr. Orsino and Mrs. Myers visited to present the Headmaster's and Principal's Award to:

    Audrey Aguiar, Tomas Blanco, Clara Harms, Leah Michels, Jessica Nedry, and Sierra Sollars.

Others attending were: Alyssa Allen, Amber Amos, Matthew Baker, Hannah Billings, Hannah Brown, Skylar Durand, Jeanna Evans

 Kylie Grimm, Tyler Hyatt, Joshua Joseph, Samuel Joseph, Nicholas Kaufman, David Malinetescu, Robert Nedry, Mark Pekic, Zachary Roch, Lilly Searle, Dimitri Selimos, Amanda Smith, and Isabelle Voce.

       It was a joyful time for all!   

      Helping WA as You Shop!   

Every time you use your Target Visa or  

Target Guest Card®  

at a Target store or at www.target.com, Target will donate to WA. The amount donated is equal to 1% of your Target  

purchases and 1/2% of Target Visa purchases made at a store other than Target to WA.      

Please see details at target.com.   

From time-to-time, special wardrobe privileges will be given to our students and faculty/staff. In order to reduce confusion, special privileges will be given only on the last day of the week only  

(other than Homecoming, Winter Homecoming and winter weather for extremely cold days).

If the varsity football team wins tonight (Friday night), then everyone can wear jeans and flip flops on Friday, September 9!