Activities for the week:
Monday: Collaboration schedule
Tuesday: Many sports..check it out at wolfpack.gushd.net
Wednesday: Student Senate Period 5--Rm. S-8: Please elect a class representative and ask them to bring feedback from Homecoming week as well as any other student issues they would like ASB to work on.
Thursday: Many sports..check it out at wolfpack.gushd.net
Friday: Freshman meeting at lunch in ASB for Freshman Elections
Staffing transition...Site Sub Taylor Hallahan is our new Finance Tech beginning Monday. While we will miss our own terrific Janelle Malueg, we know WHHS and Vanguard University grad Taylor will do a terrific job!
EXCELLENT events all week ASB, ARDY RIEGO and ALL FACULTY and STAFF! Thank you for your support in attending the ASSEMBLY and enjoying the water theme! Students and others remarked how SPIRITED WHHS is ...Thank you for continuing this great tradition! WHHS had the FOOTBALL TRIFECTA --FRESHMAN, JV and VARSITY all won! Kudos to English teacher and Head Coach Casey Ash for a terrific program and season so far!
Congratulations to Eric Sigler and Vivien Panela on becoming this year's Homecoming king and queen! (Center couple in this picture below before the reveal)
All sports are underway and we have a NEW ATHLETICS website! Each coach and program posts photos, updates, and wins / losses to this site or hopefully has a parent booster volunteer to do so. Check it out for ALL the WOLF PACK sports news!
We will be testing ALL 10th Graders and some 11th on our MINIMUM DAY OCTOBER 19.
VP Joann DuFloth and Guidance are working out the testing schedule. Department Chairs and Leadership believe this is a great baseline data set for us to see how our students are achieving. We are using Title I funds to pay for students to test. Organized similar to the CAHSEE testing in the past, many teachers will be proctors, others will be asked to be "relievers" for those proctoring or asked to "take in" some students if they are not testing but their teachers are proctoring.
On or before October 7, Period 3 teachers will have individual student bulletins with specifics to students to hand out. Please look for them in your mail box.
Much more information and specifics coming soon.
News from the Library...
PrepSTEP Test Preparation (replaced TERC): Check out the new resources for teachers and students...FREE!!
Chromebook Insurance Deadline - 9/30/16: Please let students know this is coming up. We have sent Infinite Campus messages to all students and parents as well. It is inexpensive (Only about $25 for one year and a multi-year discount is available).
Retiring old Samsungs; Acers as day loaners: FYI...yes, there IS something different about our loaners now...
Destiny Textbook and Novel Checkout: All things to help teachers can be found here
Destiny Textbook and Novel Checkout: All things to help teachers can be found here
Continuing our theme this year with PBIS and our knowledge base on the whole student, here is a short article on the Mental Health of our Students .
Guidance continues to work with our community partners, SDYS and Children's Hospital to provide many students support groups and outreach. If you have a concern about a specific student, please continue to call and work with Guidance and Admin, including our School Resource Officer (SRO) Deputy Marcos Collins. We are continually looking for grants to support this effort and anyone interested in writing grants please let Robin know.
Theater Program News...Thanks to Theater Director and wonderful teacher Carrin Edwards for letting us know.....
During the last two weekends, West Hills was represented really well! On Saturday, September 10th, West Hills Theatre did well at Techfest! Techfest is a yearly event at Grossmont College where the professors teach high school students technical theatre skills and then the high school kids compete. We made it to the Finals! The first picture is our award and the kids who went. The kids in the picture are Ryan Fagan, Nick Webb, Bryan Moore, Breann Brown, John Robinson, Selena Noreiga, and Natalie Wood (the last girl is an eight grader on the SDTEA student board).
This past Saturday, we hosted the San Diego Theatre Educators Alliance (SDTEA) Student Leadership Conference. SDTEA has a student leadership board and in the past two years, WHHS has had the highest number of students on the board (the board has students from all over San Diego county). The student board presents workshops for Leadership, Drama Club, and Unity for not just high school theatres, but for the entire high school. There were over 60 theatre students from San Diego county that attended! The pictures below show the kids and workshops. In the " school" photo, the kids in black shirts are on the student board (Danielle Revilla, Jennifer Bologna, Lindsey Abbott, Rose Hawaree, Haley Rezendes, Madie Mock). The other kids are WHHS students who attended the conference: Christopher Dixon, Selena Noriega, Jaden Roschefski, and Christina Keegan
Here is the process for our Professional Development sign up. Since we are using Title I funds for much of our work, we have to keep track of who attends what. There is a new District protocol where staff will now register themselves for both PD within the district and outside. This is a simple google form but there are a few steps as noted in the link above. It is a "need to know" if you are a staff member attending so this is just an "FYI" to all. You need do nothing with this right now...just wanted to let you know the change is underway.
Speaking of Professional Development...if you would like to shadow a student for a day, we have funding for a sub for you. I "double dared" all Chairs and Coordinators in Leadership and Department Chair meeting to let departments know and to do this. It is the single best way to address your feedback to me this past year and a half that "we don't know what everyone is doing". This is a great way to truly know and experience what a learning day is like for a student. I also asked Chairs and Leadership to talk with their Departments about voluntary visits, on prep periods, or any part of a person's prep period to visit another class and observe what students are doing, note it down for our WASC documentation with a form provided and submit it to our WASC evidence file online. This is not evaluative of the teacher in any way and will not be used for any other purpose than to inform us as individuals of our school wide experiences. Please give feedback to your Chair and Coordinators as you like and we will discuss this further at out next Department Chair and Leadership meeting in two weeks. We can craft our own protocol and it will always be voluntary.
Please consider Measure BB on this year's ballot..The GUHSD Board has approved this new bond measure to continue the facilities work needed in our schools. If you live in the east county, you get to vote on this measure. WHHS has several large items on the list including upgrading all classroom technology pieces (projectors, screens, lighting), our Weight Room, replacing our artificial turf for our football field (it is at the end of it's warranty and will need replacement in the next two years at a cost of about $500,000), a retaining wall on the east access road for soil erosion; addressing the dirt under the stadium bleachers so soil doesn't "creep" onto the track area in times of rain; fixing all storm drains and much more. As always, please see our website for a full roster of activities and information. Go Wolf Pack!
