News & Announcements

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.

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.

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.

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.

The February-March 2019 issue of Arts a la Carte is filled with information and photographs of what's happening in our art studios and music classrooms across the district, along with news of the many honors earned by our talented student artists and musicians. Enjoy!

“We have many wonderful STEAM opportunities for students around the district that let them build on the science skills they develop in their classes,” says Thomas Paterson, Supervisor of K-12 Science. Click the link above for a summary, along with oodles of images, of the many activities surrounding science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics in Westfield Public Schools.

A watershed is an area of land that drains into a body of water such as a river, lake, stream, or bay. There are 5 water regions in New Jersey and 20 watershed management areas. Tamaques 5th graders recently heard from “ambassadors” from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection about the importance of watershed stewardship and what can be done to protect the state’s water regions.

First graders at Tamaques School in Westfield honored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by reciting a portion of his “I Have a Dream” speech and discussing the meaning of Dr. King’s legendary oration at the March on Washington in August 1963.

The Westfield Board of Education is seeking applicants who are interested in serving on the Board through December 2019 to fill the vacancies resulting from the resignations of Lynn Benner and Charles Ostroff.

Registration for Kindergarten and First Grade for the 2019-2020 school year opens in January. Please click on the link above for dates and other important information about the registration process. You also may visit the Family Resources tab on the district website and click on "Student Registration" in the drop-down menu.