News & Announcements

Every day, we ask our students to problem solve, whether it's a word problem in math, determining primary versus secondary sources in social studies, or some other academic riddle. Yet we also expect our students to solve problems and make choices that can have a profound impact on the social and emotional well-being of themselves and others. In this examination of Responsible Decision Making, the 4th competency of Social and Emotional Learning, Roosevelt principal Mary Asfendis and Edison principal Matthew Bolton discuss the importance of supporting our students, not just academically but socially as well.
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Registration for Westfield's annual Summer STEM Camp will go live online on Thursday, March 7 at 3:30 p.m. Click the headline above for important details.
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At Westfield High School, the amount of clean energy generated by solar panels installed on the roof equals the amount of CO2 emissions avoided by a family sedan driven 422,326 miles.  The solar panels installed at Edison Intermediate School have generated enough energy to date to provide electricity to 40 homes for one year. Just a few of the recent statistics provided by an online overview of the positive environmental impact of the district's solar panels installed on five solar-capable schools.
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Two appointments to the Board, a solar panel initiative, and a presentation on a tentative district budget were among the highlights at the February 26 Board of Education meeting. Read more in Dr. Dolan's synopsis.
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Empathy and respect for different backgrounds and viewpoints are themes that appear throughout Social and Emotional Learning. But nowhere are they more prominent than in the third SEL competency, Social Awareness. As Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction and Programs Paul Pineiro explains in this segment of our TED-style Talks on SEL, developing social awareness among our students begins the moment teachers greet students on the first day of school for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten.
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On any given day throughout the school year, in any of the 10 schools in the Westfield Public School District, there are coat drives and food drives and collections of everyday items for communities in need. There are Two Lunch Thursdays and Extra Lunch Wednesdays where students bring an extra lunch and meet to make sandwiches, donating the lunches and sandwiches to food pantries and homeless shelters. There are dance-a-thons and math-a-thons and many other initiatives to raise money for pediatric cancer research and other charitable causes.
And whether observing Kindness Month or taking The Great Kindness Challenge or encouraging Random Acts of Kindness, there’s a common theme taking place this month and last across the district.
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Self-Management is the second of five core competencies of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). It is the ability to successfully regulate your emotions, thoughts and behaviors in different situations, to effectively manage stress, control impulses and to set and work toward personal and academic goals. In this third segment of the district's series of TED-style Talks on SEL, Westfield High School principal Dr. Derrick Nelson outlines the critical importance of self-management in our schools and in our lives.
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The first of the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) competencies is Self-Awareness. Self-awareness is crucial to all levels of success. When we are self-aware, we are able to recognize our emotions and how we respond to them, identify our strengths and weaknesses, and appreciate our self-worth and capabilities. As part of a series of TED-style Talks produced by the Westfield Public School District to explain SEL and how it is being used in our district, K-12 Director of Guidance Maureen Mazzarese focuses on the Self-Awareness competency of SEL, which allows us to live courageously, pursue our individual goals and dreams, and be our true selves.
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The Westfield Public School District has created a series of short TED-style Talks to explain Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and each of its five core competencies, with examples of how they are being used in our district and the research that tells us why they work. We hope this series helps you to better understand the tremendous benefits of Social and Emotional Learning. We start with this introductory overview by Superintendent Dr. Margaret Dolan, to be followed for the next five weeks by a new TED-style Talk focusing on each of the 5 competencies.
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The district's series of TED-style Talks on Social and Emotional Learning and the interview process to fill two vacant seats on the Board of Education are among the topics discussed in the February 5 issue of the Superintendent's Synopsis.
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