Mark Your Calendars:

• Book Fair Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday April 4-6, 4:30-8:00 p.m. Barnes & Noble Bookstore 3003 W. Holcombe Blvd.

• PTO Meeting Tuesday, April 19, 8:00 a.m. MPR

• WUES 90th Anniversary Celebrations Monday-Friday, April 18-22

• Early Dismissal Day Friday, April 22, 12:15 p.m.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Monthly Mustang 1

Science & Math Night 1

Birthday Book Club 2

PTO Guest Speaker 2-3

Piranhas Sign-Up 3

iKids After-School 3

West U Trivia 3

Spring Edition, 2015-2016 Volume 13, April 4, 2016

Principal’s Place Upcoming Events Congratulations to our West U Mustangs Track Team who brought home the First Place trophy from our annual WUES Invitational Track Meet. Special thanks to all of the parent volunteers especially Judy Cheng who organized the parent volunteers for us. Kudos for Coach Jones for another job well done. Special thanks to 5th Grade Teachers Chuck Gay and Conrad Higgs plus Tristan Anderson who all worked the meet as track officials. Great job, everyone! Congratulations to all of the students on the Name That Book K-2 team for an outstanding job in the HISD competition last week. They placed 2nd behind T.H. Rogers in a very competitive match. Special thanks to parents Marina George and Monika Ummat who truly deserve a special mention for their efforts for two years in a row as team coaches! Thanks to all of the parents who worked with their child to get them ready for this contest. Well done! Have a first-class week! John T. Threet, Principal

The April Edition of our student newspaper is in this week’s Monday folder and available online at: http://www.houstonisd.org/site/Default.aspx?PageID=52136 Michael Connolly, School Counselor

Come travel Back to Basics at the Science and Math Night! We will be exploring 5 key areas of Science – Chemistry, Geology, Biology, Astronomy and Physics This great event will be held next week on Tuesday, April 12 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm There will be exhibits by:

H Houston Museum of Natural Science

H Bellaire Nature Discovery Center

H Mad Science H iKids

Food will be available for purchase. Hope to see you there!

West University Elementary School

The West U Pony Express

Happy Birthday, 生日快乐, Feliz Cumpleaños, С Днем Рождения!

The following students are celebrating their birthdays this week by donating a book to our school library:

Lily Zeng April 1st Margot Royston April 2nd Jack Verducci April 2nd Isabella Germann April 3rd Mia Myers April 3rd Leyre Calvo - Alegria April 4th Devin Morris April 4th Miles Royston April 5th Jack Schaefer April 5th Charlie Battista April 7th Anh P. Bui April 7th Alexis Shor April 7th Charlie Deutser April 8th Owen Epperson April 9th Ava Schwausch April 9th Maia Schwausch April 9th Will Paterson April 10th Grace Ritchie April 10th Mina Sato April 10th Grant Berger April 11th Thomas Frederiksen April 11th Olivia McCarty April 11th Alexandra Cintron April 12th Kenenna Ndefo April 12th Tobenna Ndefo April 12th Marshal Edgecomb April 13th Anna Senseman April 13th Eloise Tackett April 13th Abriella Fullick April 14th Ella Fullick April 14th Molly Jones April 14th Zander Attia April 15th Muraari Civunigunta April 15th Alex Frew April 15th Sophie Melancon April 15th Beltran Lopez de la Osa April 17th Emma Stoett April 17th Sahil Manjeshwar April 18th Lawson Behan April 19th

Erin Bray April 19th Ella Jurkash April 19th Kinsey Schwartje April 19th Katherine Adkins April 21st Mason Knupp April 21st Mary Elizabeth Pennington April 22nd Weston Benner April 23rd Mark Wheeler April 24th Maya Baird April 25th Yutia Li April 25th Sloan Rippstein April 25th John Fitzgerald April 26th Lela Izaddoost April 27th Vedika Tandon April 28th Diane Sun April 29th

If you signed up for the Birthday Book Club, many thanks for supporting our fabulous library! If you have not chosen your book, please stop by the library before April 11 to check out and enjoy your book before our school year comes to a close! Deadline: If you have not yet ordered a Birthday Book Club membership for your child, please note that Tuesday, April 5 is the last day to turn in your student's form for inclusion in this year’s Pony Express. After that date, we will be unable to process your request for this school year. Order forms can be found online www.westupto.org, or in the blue PTO box at the front office. We will celebrate all May birthdays in next week's Pony Express. If your child celebrates a summer birthday, we would love to include them in next year's BBC! Any questions? Please contact Tracy Benner (tracymbenner@yahoo.com) or Guadalupe Harper (guadacarlesso@hotmail.com)

Please join us for a special guest speaker during our 90th Anniversary week of special events: Tuesday, April 19, 8:00 - 9:00 a.m., in MPR. We are pleased to have Barbara Gruener, Author, Counselor and Character Coach, to help us support our children: KINDNESS IS THE REAL GLOBAL WARMING

The West U Pony Express April 4, 2016

Did you know character is a learned trait? Empathy leads to compassion, which leads to kindness. As parents, we teach our children by role modeling it. Barbara will give us guidance to help make it an action, not a noun, for our kids. For more information, please contact heather.curran.kelly@gmail.com.

Join us this week at the annual WUES Book Fair to purchase recommended summer reading books and participate in a variety of free entertainment. Any item purchased during the event will help fund improvements and additions to our school library. The WUES Book Fair is April 4th, 5th and

6th, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., located at Barnes & Noble on W. Holcombe and free to all. Join us to hear amazing Teacher and Author Readers, Ted Schwank the Magician, The Houston Museum of Natural Science presenting butterflies and other fun animals, Writers in the Round, Honeydew the Clown, and much more!

Hello Piranha Families! Summer is quickly approaching and that means swim season is around the corner! Registration for returning families will begin on Friday, April 1.

Registration for new families will begin on Friday, April 8. For more information regarding this season and registration visit the website at:

https://www.teamunify.com/Home.jsp?_tabid_=0&team=reczzwuptx Spread the word to your friends and neighbors!

Open registration for the 2016 – 2017 School Year begins today! Registrations may be turned into iKids or the WUES front office. iKids U offers many after-school opportunities onsite at WUES, including Stay & Play, Enrichment, and One on One services. Please contact iKids at 713-665-5200 or info@ikidsinc.com for any questions.

Did you know that we don’t have any copies of the original blueprints for our school? In the 1930’s, all of Houston and surrounding areas suffered an extreme flood to the point that West U City Hall had four feet of water in it and was demolished and rebuilt. The City’s copy of our building plans was lost in the flood. HISD also saw all of its building plans lost when its storage facility flooded in the same event. When we underwent renovation and expansion starting in 2005, our architect did not have plans of a large part of the building to reference during the design phase.

West Univers i ty Elementary Schoo l 3756 University Blvd., Houston, TX 77005

Phone: 713-295-5215 Fax: 713-667-8514

We’re on the Web!

visit us on the web at: www.westues.org

John T. Threet, Princ ipal Tracey L. Wyatt, Instructional Coordinator

Amber Pinchback, Assistant Principal Daphne Rawlinson, Teacher Specialist

Texas Education Agency Exemplary School

Texas Education Agency Met Standard with Academic Distinction in All Areas

Children At Risk, Ranked #2 Among All Texas Public Elementary Schools

Texas Honor Roll School

It is the policy of the Houston Independent School District not to discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, sex, handicap or disability, marital status, religion, veteran status, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression, or any other basis prohibited by law in its educational or employment programs and activities.

The West U Pony Express April 4, 2016