Annual Food Drive

Every November, New London-Spicer Schools work to help our local food shelf, The Link Food Pantry. The Link provides food and services for families within our own community and is located in New London. This year the goal has been set to collect 1,500 lbs. If this goal is met, we could provide 1,250 meals for citizens in our community!

The food drive will be held on Monday, Nov. 11 - Friday, Nov. 15.

(11/11) Breakfast items such as; pancake mix, syrup, cereal, dried hash browns, oatmeal, dried fruit
(11/12) Lunch/Dinner items such as; Mac ‘n Cheese, Hamburger Helper, instant potatoes, soup, rice, dried beans
(11/13) Beverages items such as; juice, juice boxes, water, or any kind of beverage you like to drink
(11/14) Snacks such as; crackers, jello, pudding, fruit snacks, raisins, granola bars, etc.
(11/15) $1 donation to the Wildcat Backpack Program or an item of your choice.

Mark Your Calendars

Wednesday, October 30 - Quarter 2 Begins
Saturday, November 2 - State Cross Country Meet
Tuesday, November 5 - Election Day (No School: PreK)
Monday, November 11 - FFA sponsored Veterans Pancake & Sausage Breakfast
Monday, November 11 - PW Veterans Day Program
Mon., Nov. 11 - Fri., Nov. 15 - Food Drive
Tuesday, November 12 - School Board Work Session
Tuesday, November 12 - MS Informational Meetings: Boston '25 and Washington D.C. '26 Optional Trips
Tuesday, November 12 - PW PTO Meeting
Thursday, November 14 - FFA Fruit Sales End (Place Order)
Friday, November 15 - Grade Check for Grades 7-12
Friday, November 15 - NHS Blood Drive
Thurs., Nov. 21 - Sat., Nov. 23 - Elf the Musical presented by NLS Drama Dept (Get Tickets)
Monday, November 25 - School Board Meeting
Monday, November 25 - Middle School Winter Band Concert
Tuesday, November 26 - Prairie Meadows Family Craft Day
Wed., Nov. 27 - Fri. Nov. 29 - No School: Thanksgiving Break
Saturday, November 30 - PAC Series: Christmas with the Celts (Get Tickets)

CatPAC Series: Christmas with the Celts

BUY TICKETS!

WATCH VIDEO PREVIEW

Saturday, November 30, at 7PM in the Performing Arts Center

$35/ticket

The original national PBS show Christmas with The Celts aired on over 200 PBS channels across the U.S., Canada and on the BBC in Ireland for three years. Currently celebrating 14 years of successful national touring, Christmas with the Celts perform a wonderful combination of timeless ancient Irish Christmas Carols and lively Irish dance with modern contemporary songs but with Irish instrumentation.

The show presents a perfect combination of modern Christmas hits, lively ancient Irish Carols, hilarious spontaneous humor, thrilling Irish dancing, a children’s choir and meaningful Christmas ballads with lush string arrangements giving audiences a most memorable interactive Christmas experience.

This year's CatPAC Series is sponsored by: Rambow, Inc., Lake Region Bank, Jennie-O, & Dooley’s Pertroleum.

High School

2024 Pumpkin Carving Contest

The contest was held on Friday, October 25 during lunch. Staff and students were allowed to vote for their favorite. Congratulations to all the HS Art Students who participated in this year's Pumpkin Carving Contest! We had 44 talented teams work to make these creative pumpkin art masterpieces.

SHOUT OUT and THANKS to Phil Westby and the Country Stop for providing the pumpkins this year.

National Honor Society

On October 28, our National Honor Society inducted their newest members.

Wildcat Activities

Congratulations to the Wildcat Girls Cross Country team on winning the Wright County Conference West Championship! Pictured: Team members Kyla Vick, Hazel Vetsch, Kayla Reuss, Coach Disa Daucsavage, Emersyn Hagen, Peyton Dahl, Maren Munsch, and Stella Moline!

The State Cross Country Meet will be held on Saturday, November 2 at 10AM at the University of MN.

BUY TICKETS NOW!

Middle School

For your convienence, we have made a procedural change. When dropping off items for your child(ren) during the school day you will now be able to place the items on the table we have set up in the MS entryway. Please use the post-its to label the item with your child(ren)'s name. We will then grab the items and deliver it to your child(ren).

We have both dance and girl's basketball underway, and our band and choir concerts are coming up quickly! We hope to see you there!

8th Grade Honor Band event in Benson

Students from 13 schools in the area were nominated by their band directors to participate in the 8th Grade Honor Band on Saturday, October 26. The selected students spent the whole day rehearsing with guest conductor Scott Kummrow from Fergus Falls to prepare for an evening concert.

"Some of the music for this event was at a level that I would put in front of our high school players, and these 8th graders did a great job with it! They showed respect, responsibility, and perseverance throughout the day, and represented our school with pride!" - Ms. Caitlin Becks, MS/HS Band Instructor

Congratulations to Marcus DeJong, Axel Eichhorst, Cayson Plowman, Caiden Rheaume, and Anna Sukalski!

Schoolhouse Clue: A Halloween Adventure for K-12 Schools

Last week, our middle school students and staff had lots of fun playing Schoolhouse Clue. Each day a video was shared with all middle school Advisory classes. The video contained clues and puzzles to help solve the mystery. Our middle school is filled with many great riddle solvers! A special shoutout to our cast of characters, Mr. Beranek, Ms. DeWolf, Ms. Kruger, Mrs. Stoesz, Mrs. Richards, Mr. Richards and our producer Mr. Dahl!

Prairie Woods

K-2 BULLYING PREVENTION COLORING CONTEST: Students in Kindergarten through 2nd grade were invited to participate in a coloring contest for Bullying Prevention Month (October). The winners got to enjoy a root beer float celebration together! Congratulations to our winners!

VETERANS DAY PROGRAM: Prairie Woods Elementary students would like to welcome all Veterans to attend their Veterans Day Program on Monday, November 11 starting at 1:30PM in the PW Gymnasium. The students are very excited to honor the brave individuals who have served in the military, acknowledging their sacrafices and profound impact they have made on our freedoms and safety.

Community Education

NLS Volleyball Clinics by Coach Sjea Anderson Camps are for boys and girls in 1st - 12th grade. They will be held at Prairie Woods Elementary School Gym. $25/Clinic Day. Register today: www.nlscommunityed.com

Saturday, November 2: Grades 1-4 from 9:30-11:30AM & Grades 5-12 from 12-2PM
Saturday, November 16: Grades 1-4 from 9:30-11:30AM & Grades 5-12 from 12-2PM

New London-Spicer Wildcat Youth K-6th Grade Wrestling

Parent/Wrestler Meeting on Monday, November 25 at 6PM in the PW Cafetorium

All parents and wrestlers are welcome and encouraged to attend. This meeting will provide details of the upcoming season, sign-up for the youth team and allow time for questions. Practices will start on Monday, December 2. Registration deadline is November 24, sign up at www.nlscommunityed.com

Congratulations to the Women's Volleyball teams on a successful ladies league!

Gold Division: 1st place - Punt Companies, 2nd place - Chewblocka, 3rd place - Rambow

Silver Division: 1st place - WABAM, 2nd place - B & S Excavating, 3rd place - Spike Tyson

Bronze Division: 1st place - Worms Lumber, 2nd place - Spiked Punch, 3rd place - Hits and Giggles

Prairie Meadows

Our Annual Fall Festival was a huge success! We had over 200 trick-or treaters join us to play games, collect candy, craft, and decorate pumpkins! Money raised at the event goes to our early childhood scholarship fund helping families attend preschool.

A special thank you to all the businesses that donated pumpkins or joined us to play games and hand out candy to all the trick or treaters!

NLS Educational Foundation awards $783.20 for a Special Education Functional Skills Grant

The New London-Spicer Educational Foundation awarded $783.20 to Crystal Lenz, Special Education teacher, for her grant titled, Functional Skills in Special Education.

The goal for this Functional Skills project is to create a more innovative curriculum in New London-Spicer’s Middle School Special Education program. Mrs. Crystal Lenz’ students spend four years, from grade 5-8, working towards functional everyday living skills; functional math, reading, and other life skills needed to be successful. Each special education student requires an individualized curriculum to fit their IEP (Individualized Education Plan). The Environmental Print curriculum is a standards-based language arts curriculum to help students with significant cognitive disabilities. Students with mild to moderate cognitive disabilities will also benefit from using this program. A compelling aspect of this curriculum is that both verbal and non-verbal students will be able to use it because of the different scripted lessons, visuals and manipulatives that the curriculum provides. This curriculum is a year-long program with 160 lessons.

Each year, Mrs. Lenz has approximately 10 students on her caseload. The students' disabilities range from severe-profound delayed development and/or mild to moderate cognitive disabilities. With a wide variety of different leveled learners, this curriculum will benefit several of the students each year. These students will work on academic and functional goals addressed in their IEP (Individualized Education Plan) one-on-one with a para/teacher and in small groups throughout the school day.

“This curriculum will be a wonderful addition as a resource for teaching everyday life skills along with reading skills to all levels of learners,” Lenz continued, “It will enhance our work by offering tailored support and accommodation for students with disabilities.”

Looking into the future of the program, Lenz believes her students will be able to engage in more robust learning experience as the new material meets students at their level of ability. By incorporating the Functional Skills curriculum, our middle school special education program should see academic growth and success.

For a limited amount of time, donations made to the Educational Foundation's endowment will be matched $1 to $1 by the Dickerson's Match Campaign. To donate, checks can be mailed to NLS Ed. Foundation, PO BOX 58, New London, MN 56273. To donate online, click here. New London-Spicer Educational Foundation is a non-profit organization filed under the 501c3 tax status.