Welcome back from our Spring break! Next year we will have two weeks....check out the calendar for 2016-17 as a reminder.
Up coming events supporting our school:
PTSA Color Run is Sunday, April 3. Anyone can still register to run!
WHHS FOUNDATION Annual Golf Tournament: April 16: Check out more information here. All proceeds this year will go towards refurbishing our Weight Room. You can play with friends, donate towards a gift basket (time or talents) or simply encourage GOLFERS you know to PLAY! Great value for the donation and great day of golf!
Up coming events supporting our school:
PTSA Color Run is Sunday, April 3. Anyone can still register to run!
WHHS FOUNDATION Annual Golf Tournament: April 16: Check out more information here. All proceeds this year will go towards refurbishing our Weight Room. You can play with friends, donate towards a gift basket (time or talents) or simply encourage GOLFERS you know to PLAY! Great value for the donation and great day of golf!
West Hills has about 46% of our students on the Federal Free or Reduced Lunch program, with a total of 68% of our students eligible to receive free or reduced lunch. This is a significant growth over the last 5-7 years and allows us to pursue special Federal Title I funds. At out last Department Chair & Leadership meeting, we spent a significant amount of time talking about becoming a Title I school. It will mean a large amount of funding for our site based on a per-pupil formula--about $115,000 dollars! There are many strings and requirements that come with this funding, including specific funds being set aside for professional development and Supplemental Educational Services (SES) for students outside the bell schedule day. This can include a variety of services such as tutoring and "Saturday Academy" or other supplemental educational and social-emotional supports for students with additional accountability. In this case, accountability for professional development means "required" with sign-in sheets and student pre-and post evaluation of effectiveness of the SES and PD work implemented. We are on a tight timeline to accept this status for next school year and to make careful plans via our Department Chair and Leadership team. Please talk with Admin or your Department Chair for more information. This will also be addressed in our April 4th All Staff and Faculty meeting--7:45 in S-8.
Continuous School Improvement conversation continues regarding grading and grading practices and the use of data to inform instructional decisions...
Focusing on increasing the “A-B-C” rate: Assessment for Learning: Doug Reeves and a short video on why “zeroes” do nothing for student learning. Just moving from 100 point scale to the GPA scale of A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0 provides a mathematically equal scale and allows a student to have accurate feedback that does not exaggerate the zero. These Six tips for Growth Mindset can help with increasing student achievement as well.
Advanced Placement...kudos to giving students rigorous preparation and not “watering down the curriculum” by opening access! Dr. Nat Malkus writes “Between 2000 and 2009, AP participation jumped 35 percent, but participants’ test scores did not show the declines critics predicted.” His description of his findings, which conclude that AP teachers, alongside AP Coordinators and administrators, have achieved "the rarest kind of success in public education," i.e., "expanding at scale without sacrificing rigor." In fact, Dr. Malkus finds that what you are achieving, day by day, week by week, and year by year, might be "the single happiest education story of the century." Read Dr. Malkus’ article here on hist research regarding Advanced Placement courses.
Congratulations to the January GUHSD Health Career Pathways student of the month, Mariah Cook! Mariah is both a standout in the Health Pathway at West Hills High School and a standout among over 2000 Health Pathways students across the district . A dedicated pathway student, she is concurrently enrolled in Honors Medical Biology and Honors Anatomy & Physiology at WHHS and works hard in both of these classes. She is also taking advantage of many out-of-class opportunities being offered to Health Career Pathway students this year. She was offered an interview last week for the High School Exploration Program (Scripps' summer hospital internship program) and represented WHHS at the Vet Meet-and-Greet at the Health Occupations Center earlier this semester. She was also chosen to represent West Hills as a student leader and representative of her Health Pathway at Camp LEAD last semester. From there, she was asked to return to Camp LEAD in order to present an anti-tobacco project that she created with a fellow pathway student from a different school. As a kind-hearted leader, Mariah is passionate about empowering and supporting those around her. Both in and out of the classroom, Mariah is a hard worker and is an encouraging, motivating peer to all of her classmates. She always has a positive attitude and treats everyone with respect as she leads through example! She has all the compassion she need to make an outstanding future healthcare worker. Congrats, Mariah!
Congratulations to our winter sports students! Check out the list as the Union Tribune honors 3,995 student-athletes
For a complete listing of all activities for the week, please visit our website.http://wolfpack.guhsd.net/
Go Wolf Pack!
