Monarch Memo

December 18 - 22, 2017

Happy Winter Break and Happy New Year!

Best wishes for a enjoyable Winter Break.  I hope your holidays are filled with memorable moments, delicious meals and connections with family and friends. Before we head out, here are some thank yous, congratulations and semester transitions.

Thank you to Mike and Carrie Copeland for hosting the staff at the Holiday party in their home on Saturday night. We appreciate the games, contests and conversations.  It was great to see some of our little Monarchs in attendance as well.  

Congratulations to Martha Bakkedahl who will be retiring at the end of the semester. There will be a retirement celebration for her at Nicky Rottens, Monday, December 18th starting at 3:30 p.m. Please click on the flyer to enlarge for details.  Hope you can join in and wish her all the best in her retirement.

Eric Wilson was selected by our student body as the Golden Apple Teacher of the Year for Monte Vista.  The student representatives were happy to get to tell Mr. Wilson directly that he was selected. Congratulations Eric.

 

We have a new baby Monarch, Eliyas Nathaniel Estrella, to parents Edward and Alicia.  He was born on December 13 at 10:59 a.m. Weighing 7 lbs. 15 oz.  Congratulations to Edward and his family.

Erica Reed, transition teacher, is moving to Texas at the semester.  She has been an amazing and compassionate teacher to our students and will be greatly missed.  We wish her and her husband all the best with their new endeavors.  

Welcome back to Akeem Miller who will be taking Martha’s place in the new year.  Akeem is looking forward to being back as a collaboration teacher in addition to his coaching.   

Staff Holiday Potluck and Scholarship Basket Drawing

You are cordially invited to attend the Monte Vista holiday potluck lunch on Thursday, December 21, 2017 at 1:15 p.m. in the library community meeting room for lunch and then the library to eat and enjoy conversations with your colleagues.  We will give away the beautiful opportunity baskets after lunch.  Thank you to Gracia for her great organization of the baskets and to Jen for Enright for sending out letters to the community to get donations and for creating some pretty amazing baskets.  Denise has done a great job with PR and getting folks visiting the office to purchase tickets for the drawing. San Miguel Fire donated an adult bike and there is a basket with 3 nice bottles of wine where the tickets will be $1 each.  The rest will be 3 tickets for $1.  Tickets are still on sale. Perhaps you will be a lucky winner.  All money collected goes towards college scholarships for our seniors!  Remember school lets out at 12:31 p.m. on Thursday,

December 21, 2017, then come to the library for lunch!

FPM Audit last Tuesday

We were audited for CTE, ASSETs, EL, TITLE I and via the district for Athletics and ASB (on Wednesday).  Thank you to all the staff members who hosted visitors in their classroom (especially the Gen. Ed. teachers who were not expecting the EL auditors).  We were fortunate that there were no findings for the site, however, there are expectations set for us through our district departments when moving forward such as PD, documentation practices, etc.  A big thank you to Amanda Engstrand for uploading all the required documents and writing reports and to Sam and Joe along with the EL teachers for all their preparation for the visit.   Tom Gochenour spent many hours writing and plan as well as Kristine Miller who had to inventory all of our items purchased with ASSETs, CTE and Title I funds.  Also, thank you to our CTE teachers who stay on top of their programs of study to keep us in compliance.  We appreciate many others, like our ladies in the main office, who helped us find and upload documents.  We are in the clear for another two years at least. Great job everyone.

Last week at MVHS - Click on pictures to enlarge.

Here are some photos capturing some events that took place last week.  There are great performances by theater and music. Thank you to the ASB for coordinating the group photo for GHHS and Deirdre Oakley for hosting the National Honor Society induction on Friday.  Monarch Stars were honored on Thursday.  

MV Key Club members volunteered Sat., Dec. 16 with the Spring Valley Kiwanis at the Spring Valley Community Center’s annual Breakfast with Santa!  Our awesome PTSA parents created gifts for all staff members.  Have you joined PTSA?

REMINDERS

• SEMESTER 2 schedules will NOT be printed.  Please tell your students to look up their schedules on their Chromebooks.
• Special Education Golden Apple nominations are due 1/16/18. Please review the information in the memo shared via email by Denises regarding who is eligible to be nominated, who is eligible to nominate, and please consider taking some time to click on the link shared and complete a nomination form.
• Desks needed for PSAT on Wednesday, February 28th (a minimum day for WASC). Rad needs 12 teachers to please switch their desks for tables for ONE DAY ONLY please email her  if you are willing to help.
• Do you like to dance? The Poly Club is performing a short Polynesian dance at the next assembly and the staff are invited to join. Tracy will send a video out.  If you are available, Poly would love to have you join.  The song is from the movie Lilo and Stitch and it is Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride.  Practice will be daily after school once we return from break.
• Reminder from Anessa

Amazon wants our high school to win big! #GetWhatGetsYou

✔ play for a chance for our school to win the $10,000 grand prize

✔ play for a chance to win gift cards

✔ play every day

Visit to play:                   getwhatgetsyou.com

Week at a Glance     

Monday, December 18            CPT  - PLC meetings

Tuesday, December 19 Finals minimum day periods 2 & 6            

Wednesday, December 20           Finals minimum day periods 1, 3, 7.

Thursday, December 21 Finals minimum day periods 4 & 5

Staff potluck - LCR and library at 1:15 p.m.

Friday, December 22 Last work day for staff.  Don’t forget to sign in at the front office.  

If you plan to take a personal day, please fill out a blue sheet with Denise.

Dec. 25 - Jan. 5, 2018 Winter Break.

January 8, 2018 First day of second semester.

Here is the message sent home to parents on Sunday, December 17, 2017  

This is our last week of school for the semester.  Our students will be taking final exams on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week.  Tomorrow, Monday is a CPT late start day.

Our bell schedule is different for finals so please make sure to review the schedule that is attached to the email version of this message with your student. Finals for periods 2 and 6 are Tuesday, periods 1, 3 and 7 on Wednesday and periods 4 and 5 on Thursday.  The last day of school for students is Thursday, December 21. School and district offices will be closed for the winter break until Monday, January 8th.

 

Just a reminder that this week and the first week back in January is the last opportunity for yearbooks to be purchased for $75.00.  After January 12, the cost will go up to $90.00.  Our Finance Office will be open Monday through Thursday this week until 3:30 p.m. so you are welcome to stop on by and purchase a yearbook.   

 

We want to wish you a very wonderful and safe holiday season and Happy New Year. We will see our Monarchs in 2018 on January 8th.