The mission of West Hills High School is to graduate critical thinkers and problem-solvers who contribute positively to society as productive, responsible citizens.
Activities for the week:
Winter Assembly Week: Dress up days in blue
Monday: Collab Day; hibernation day (Pj’s)
Client K-8 Counselors / Admin on campus learning about WHHS; Say
"hello" if you see us "on tour"; Staff Lounge, 7:15-9:30 a.m.
Tuesday: Regular Day; lumberjack day (Flannels)
Wednesday: Regular Day; camp counselor (favorite staff member).
Thursday: Regular Day; boy scouts/girl scouts.
Friday: Assembly Day; Please join us at student lunch in The Pit in your Blue Faculty t-shirt for a giant whole school shot for our video. Go Wolf Pack!
| West Hills Secret Snowman |
| Please complete this form if you are interested in participating in our Secret Snowman activity! We will draw names randomly and let you know who you will be surprising this Friday, December 1st! Secret Snowman gifts ($25 maximum) can be either multiple small gifts given to your person over the course of the next few weeks, or one gift delivered prior to Finals on December 19th. |
Our Faculty and Staff Luncheon will be in the LOUNGE this year either the Tuesday or Wednesday of FINALS. Stay tuned for more information from the Foundation this week. They are kindly making this happen so as soon as we know, we will let you know!
Saturday, March 3, 2018: West Hills 3Oth Year Gala and Hall of Fame Dinner; The Handlery Hotel, tickets on sale soon. We hope you will join us for this West Hills Foundation sponsored fund raiser and celebration!
Sunday, March 18-21, 2018: WASC Visiting Team on Campus
The Australians are coming!
Hello. The following is from Jodi Kohler:
From January 4-January 15, 2018, Australian students will be experiencing home stays here in Santee. Their teacher needs a home stay too! If you have an extra room and would like to host a wonderful teacher from "down under", please read the attached and contact Jodi at Jodikohler@guhsd.net or swing by her classroom. Thank you!
Dress up Days this week:
Tuesday is lumberjack day (Flannels).
Wednesday is camp counselor (favorite staff member). **Students are excited!!
Thursday is boy scouts/girl scouts.
Friday is camp spirit for the assembly.
A Message from Ardy Riego, ASB Adviser
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break. The holidays are just around the corner, and West Hills have teamed up with Santee Santas Foundation to help with their food drive. *** see note below
Our scheduled food drive calls for ONLY Pancake Mix and Syrup. This is an area that the foundation is low on every year and they spend a lot of money to buy what is needed to ensure that each family gets one.
This drive is a CLASS COMPETITION for 5th period. The class with the most (quantity, not weight) Pancake Mix and Syrup will receive a Pizza Party from ASB.
Boxes will be distributed to your classrooms on Monday and Tuesday of this week and will be collected on Monday, December 11th.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact Ardy. Thank you.
Ardy Riego
CTE Sports Medicine Teacher/ ASB Advisor
Grossmont Union High School District
West Hills High School
619-956-0503 (Sports Med)
619-956-0479 (ASB)
***This whole school activity relates to our Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) #5 with our "Demonstrate a commitment to our community".
From our Department Chair and Leadership WASC Action Plan workday on November 13, we had an "ah ha" moment generated from reading our Areas of Strength and Areas of Growth for each Focus Group area: we needed a school wide tool for addressing academic rigor. Concurrently, we are undergoing our AVID Program Certification process which changed from a AVID student focused certification to a whole school certification process. Combining our WASC and AVID processes, we moved through the discussion and adopted the following:
Here is the Webb-Bloom's-Costa Thinking Chart that Department Chair and Leadership team focused on to give us a common language to talk about and evaluate our rigor as we design learning activities. Students would use Costa's chart for self-reflection; Adults would use the 3-in-1 chart for current standards alignment (Webb) and clarity with our familiarity with Bloom's Taxonomy. Please continue to use or begin to use this with your PLC teams and your own classroom practices. Having students self-reflect on an assignment or project with Costa's model is ideal.
This site, the California State Resources for Depth of Knowledge and Rigor, has many Common Core resources by teaching content area. Teachers might appreciate Depth of Knowledge Question Stems to prompt student thinking.
A great article on academic rigor can help us understand the issues, I was struck by the first third of the article:
Gaining deep understanding, developing strong habits of mind, and how you approach problems in multiple ways – that’s academic rigor.
The degree of academic rigor in a classroom is best summed up here, in this rubric describing the eight dimensions of discipline-based inquiry.
Academic rigor is the second of the eight dimensions, and in a nutshell, refers to the degree of complex thinking required by students as they:
- Build knowledge that leads to deep understanding;
- Work with multiple, flexible ways to approach the problem, issue or question using methods of inquiry central to the disciplines that underpin the problem, issue or question.
- Develop habits of mind that encourage questions of evidence, and to determine viewpoints, patterns and connections.
Our Academic League is going up against SANTANA for the "Mayor's Cup" this Wednesday, December 6 at Santana in their library starting at 3:30. CHEER on these students as they compete against Santana this week! (Not all participants are pictured....) VARSITY is tied for First Place with the Sultans so GO WOLF PACK!! Kudos to Mrs. Liddell and Ms. Biggerstaff for leading our Academic League participants! Go Wolf Pack Academics!
- Expanded Library Hours: The library is now open after school thanks to help from campus supervisor “Coach Q” Quentin London. Students may use the space to study until 3:40 pm. Keep in mind, library hours vary with alternative bell schedules and may occasionally close without notice based on staff availability. For more information about library hours and staffing throughout the day, visit: westhillslib.weebly.com/hours.
html
- Research Databases: When talking to students about different types on online information, the iceberg model is helpful for distinguishing between the surface web (what people are used to finding when doing a basic Google search) and the deep and dark levels of the web (content that is “locked” for general access).
Part of the deep web that our students regularly use is the suite of “EBSCO” subscription-based research databases. All GUHSD students have free access to this resource that hosts content such as peer-reviewed academic journal articles, the type of information that they will be expected to use in college. Students access EBSCO automatically at school, but a login is required when off-campus (this link only works when logged into an @guhsd.net account). Find out even more about GUHSD Online Databases. Have other questions? Contact our teacher librarian Ms. Sannwald. - #thankful: During the month of November, students participated in a Thankfulness Challenge adapted from We Are Teachers and promoted by some of our library aides. In December, we continue the trend with a Kindness Challenge shared by Action for Happiness. Print your own copy to join us in spreading kindness: bit.ly/kindwhhs2017
