The mission of West Hills High School is to graduate critical thinkers and problem-solvers who contribute positively to society as productive, responsible citizens.
WHHS self-identified & WASC confirmed Goals
Activities for the week: GREAT KINDNESS CHALLENGE WEEK
Monday: Collab Day schedule;
Tuesday: Regular Day
Wednesday: Regular Day; Period 5 Student Senate meets in S-8
Thursday: Regular Day:
Friday: Regular Day:
On Thursday, January 23, the city of Santee celebrated hosting the United States Olympic Race Walking Trials with a "Celebrate America" event starting from West Hills! Our senior, Dylan Shubert, ran the first 1/3 mile of the course winding through Santee. It was a great launch to this great event leading to the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan this summer! Thank you to World Language teacher and Cross Country / Track and Field Head Coach Juan Naranjo for partnering in this event.
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| Dylan Schubert, principal Ballarin, City Manager Marlene Best, and Karl Eagleman with USA Track and Field |
Congratulations to our very own Shayla Tropiano for being selected as the GUHSD Special Education Golden Apple "Teacher of the Year"! Shayla works within our Individual Instruction Department with students with moderate to severe disabilities. She is active in a variety of ways within the District Special Education team and was selected for her active engagement and application of the teaching standards with her students and her profound positive relationships with students, parents, and staff alike. We are very proud and fortunate to claim her as part of the Wolf Pack!
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Literacy Team Update: Get Lit(eracy) launched for West Hills
On January 21, our Literacy Team met to continue to look at our critical campus-wide efforts in continuous student improvement outcomes. Checking in on our literacy focus for this year and from our August PLC time as a teaching faculty, we discussed and looked at our 6 areas of focus for our students. Working with Lin Kuzmich, we looked at the best way ALL teachers could support our students and decided to focus on our WASC Goals around assessment, cross-curricular collaboration and common formative assessment practices. We also wanted to bring strategies TO TEACHERS in a variety of places and so we are launching our "guerrilla Get Lit(eracy)" movement. Simply put, every two weeks on Monday (beginning 1/27/2020), teachers will get sample assessment questions and strategies to practice / merge into their classroom practices. These assessment strategies and various types of questions are modeled after standardized testing assessment question types from both academic assessments (CAASPP, SAT, AP, ACT etc) and college and career industry standards type questions that we see and use in a variety of settings in the world of work (OSHA, ASVAB, Human Resources training, etc).
To launch week 1, check our our first sample and see if you can use this type of question, with your own content area, within the next two weeks with students of ALL grades. If you try it out, take a photo of your students using it, of the prompt itself, or other another way to help us SHOWCASE and SHARE with others for support and encouragement. Share the photo with Robin or John in Admin so we can get the word out and SHARE with others!
This same sample will be printed and placed in your mailbox and will be FOUND in many different areas on campus where teachers wander. Let's ACTIVELY APPLY these ideas with our students to better prepare them in a variety of ways to demonstrate learning!
Goals:
(a) Follow up on our common scoring for ELA Interim CAASPP
(b) Continue to make teachers aware that the CAASPP exam is a cross-content area exam--the content of the questions ARE art, science, history, music, health, comparative cultures and languages, etc.
(c) Give students and teachers active awareness and practice in a variety of assessment item types
(d) Model Webb's DOK levels of assessment and encourage teachers to actively apply same in their own assessment practices across all content areas
(e) Support speaking, reading, writing, listening, and numeracy skills for all students in all teaching areas.
Wednesday, January 29: lunch and into per.6: Faculty and Staff "Souper Bowl". Please see email "shared" document or this link for more info. We hope you will join us!
January 27-31: Great Kindness Week: West Hills will be participating in this national week. List of ASB sponsored Activities for the Week. We can all use a little more kindness in our lives! We will be encouraging social media postings of our kindness as well as whole school opportunities. We want to start 2020 off with continuing kindness and good will. Here's a short video to help explain it...
Monday, February 10: President Lincoln's Birthday: No School
Friday, February 14: Minimum Day; First Progress Report
Monday, February 17: President's Day: No School
Wednesday, February 19: Freshman Showcase, 5:30 p.m. Please SHARE the flyer with anyone who might be interested in West Hills. Feel free to POST IT to Social Media. Our enrollment is low and we WELCOME any and all students and families interested in West Hills. Any and all staff are welcome to open their classrooms and be welcoming ambassadors this night!
Wednesday, February 19: Freshman Showcase, 5:30 p.m. Please SHARE the flyer with anyone who might be interested in West Hills. Feel free to POST IT to Social Media. Our enrollment is low and we WELCOME any and all students and families interested in West Hills. Any and all staff are welcome to open their classrooms and be welcoming ambassadors this night!
Wednesday, February 26: Airbands Talent Show in Theatre--it's not too late to join in! Contact Debra Heeb in World Language for any questions. All staff emails have gone out as well.
Thursday, March 5: Literacy Team working with Lin Kuzmich; 8:00-2:00 pm., Rm. E-8
Friday, March 6: PACK DAY (Parents at Class with Kids Day)--minimum day schedule
Friday, March 27: 12 Weeks Progress Grades Due (note to parents of any student with a "D" or below "Student may be in danger of failing")
March 30-April 10: Spring Break, no school
Freshman Showcase 2020
Wednesday, February 19 starting at 5:30 p.m.
Reminder: Here is our BEST CHANCE at ATTRACTING students
to our school! We want as many programs and people
on campus this night welcoming parents and prospective students!
Please JOIN US!!
