Wise Word, 1/5/2022

Principal’s Message:

Hello Golden Owls,

 

Happy New Year, and welcome back from Winter Break. I know that as COVID cases rise in our area, many people are left feeling anxious. As a reminder, MVWSD has layers of measures in place to combat COVID transmission, including on-campus COVID testing, sanitation, masking, ventilation, and vaccine clinics that were held over winter break. Additionally, as part of a statewide effort, the California Department of Public Health is providing at-home COVID-19 testing kits for free to families (Preschool - Grade 8) to test students as they return from winter break. A box containing 2 tests is available for each student today. We are asking that you administer the test to your child this evening. Further directions will be provided along with the kits. Thank you for your cooperation.

 

We need your HELP!

Want to join the Vargas family? We need more yard duty personnel. If you are interested, please click here for more information.

 

In Partnership,

 

Principal Vern Taylor

 


Events Calendar

  • January

5th - Principal Office Hours - Virtual, 4:00pm - 4:30pm - Register Here

6th - MVWSD Board of Trustees Meeting, 6:00pm - 10:00pm - Agenda

7th  - Superintendent Community Check-in, 3:30pm - 4:30pm - Register Here

10th - 14th - Parent / Teacher Conferences, Minimum day week dismissal at 11:55am

12th - Principal Office Hours - Virtual, 4:00pm - 5:00pm -  Register Here

12th - SSC Meeting - Virtual, 5:00pm - 6:30pm 

17th - Martin Luther King Jr. Day Holiday - No School 

19th - Principal Office Hours - Virtual, 4:00pm - 5:00pm -  Register Here

20th - MVWSD Board of Trustees Meeting, 6:00pm - 10:00pm 

21st - Superintendent Community Check-in, 3:30pm - 4:30pm - Register Here

26th - Principal Office Hours - Virtual, 4:00pm - 5:00pm - 

26th - ELAC Meeting, 6:00pm - 7:00pm -

28th - Principals Coffee, 8:30am - 9:30am -

 

  • February

2nd - Principal Office Hours - Virtual, 4:00pm - 5:00pm - Register Here

9th - Principal Office Hours - Virtual, 4:00pm - 5:00pm -Register Here

 

 


In this Newsletter

School News:

  • Morning Drop-off

  • Parent-Teacher Conferences

  • Attendance is important: Parent notifications ramp up in January

  • Please upload your child’s completed vaccine card

  • Lost and Found Items

  • Principal’s Virtual Office Hours

  • Coach’s Corner - NewsELA

Flyers

 

District News:

  • Mountain View Community Shuttle EXPANDED HOURS - Flyer

  • “Parent University: Effective Parent-Teacher Communication & Tips for Conference Week”

  • Board meeting Preview: Jan. 6

  • Superintendent's Community Check In on Friday, Jan. 7

  • MVPL Event: How to Make Comics with Gabriela Epstein - Flyer

  • Preschool information meetings: Jan. 12 and Jan. 26

  • Parent University: Managing Stress and Fostering Resiliency

  • Mentor Tutor Connection Volunteer Information Session - Jan. 11th

  • School meetings are coming up. Open Enrollment for all MVWSD students starts in January

  • MVEF Gala Save the Date - March 19, 2022!


PTA News:

  • Readathon Planning Committee

  • Project Cornerstone: Become an ABC Reader

  • Spirit Wear

 


Morning Drop-off

When dropping off students in the front driveway of the school in the morning:

 

  • Drivers should pull forward as much as possible. All gates lead to the classrooms, so parents and drivers can drop off at any of them.  

 

  • Drivers need to stay in the vehicle in the drop-off lane. Stopping and getting out of the vehicle can be unsafe and slows the flow of traffic. If a student needs help getting out of the car, PULL FORWARD AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. A staff member can assist if needed.

 

  • Students should be ready to leave their car without driver assistance. This means having masks on and backpacks and lunch boxes easy to grab. 

 

  • Use the crosswalk to get from the parking lot across the driveway. Wait for a staff member to cross.


Parent-Teacher Conferences

Please remember that we are on a minimum day schedule all next week while we hold our Virtual Parent-Teacher Conferences. Students will be dismissed at 11:55 am each day.  If you have not been able to schedule your Virtual Parent-Teacher Conference, please contact the front office as soon as possible so that we can assist you. 


Attendance is important: Parent notifications ramp up in January

Research shows that school attendance is a strong indicator of success. It's about students learning what they need to know, belonging to the school community, and being part of the team that is preparing them with good habits for high school.


Letters: beginning in January, MVWSD will send letters to parents of any student who is truant (any three unexcused absences and/ or tardies over 30 minutes means a child is truant). These letters inform parents when students have had three or more unexcused absences and inform families of next steps and any resources or procedures in place to help their family get their child to school regularly.


Calls: In January, MVWSD schools will also begin using an automated system to notify parents when a student is absent from school. This automated call will alert a parent that a student has been marked absent.  This is important for the safety of your child and for our attendance accounting.  Please ensure we have the reason for your child’s absence. 


Please upload your child’s completed vaccine card

Many of our younger students are getting their 2nd COVID vaccine shot this week. When your child's vaccine card has their second shot listed, please upload a copy to Powerschool. Vaccine cards will be referred to in the case of a positive COVID exposure for your student, and MVWSD needs accurate data for decisions about COVID protocols. Click here for a video that shows you how to upload documents: https://vimeo.com/606954357.Thank you in advance for uploading your documents now!


Lost and Found Items

Is your child missing a sweater, jacket, water bottle, lunch box, or other items? If so, please stop by the front gate during morning or afternoon pick-up. 

 

Principal’s Virtual Office Hours

Join me today for our informal Principal Office Hours (virtual) from 4pm - 4:30pm. Feel free to drop in if you have any questions or if you just want to chat. For office hours, there is no formal agenda, it is a time for you to stop in to say hello, and for us to get to know each other better! I look forward to meeting you!

 

Register in advance for this meeting.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. 

 

Coach’s Corner - NewsELA

Students are so lucky to have one of the best literacy resources out there! NewsELA energizes readers by providing engaging content in every subject. NewsELA is aligned to national and state standards, and each article follows with comprehension questions for your student. Featuring high-interest articles on everything from fables, DNA testing, Minecraft, global women's rights, endangered species, animal adaptations, and trips to Mars, NewsELA has it all! This program also tracks student progress, provides feedback to teachers, and customizes the student’s reading experience based on the articles they are most interested in! 

Access NewsELA at home through Clever! For directions on How to Access Clever at home using a browser, Click Here


For directions on How to Access Clever at home using an iPad, ( Click here for Grades K-2) (Click here for Grades 3-8)

 


District News

Mountain View Community Shuttle EXPANDED HOURS - Flyer

Thanks to new VTA funding, the City of Mountain View is pleased to announce that the Mountain View Community Shuttle will expand weekday hours to better serve our community. 

 

Beginning Monday, January 3, 2022, the Shuttle’s weekday hours will be 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Weekend service hours will remain 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, please call Customer Service at: 855-730-RIDE (7433) or check MVCommunityShuttle.com.

 

“Parent University: Effective Parent-Teacher Communication & Tips for Conference Week”
Date: January 5, 2022, 5:30-7:00pm  Registration Link: http://mvw.sd/pu010522

Please join us for a thorough discussion on effective communication between home and school and tips on how to have a successful parent-teacher conference. A panel of parents, principals and teachers from Elementary School and Middle School will provide helpful feedback on how to approach difficult topics when talking to your child’s teacher or office staff. Parents will also learn how to read and understand the school report cards. 

To submit questions prior to the event, go to mvw.sd/questions. We will do our best to address your question during the session.

Board meeting Preview: Jan. 6

The Board of Trustees will meet on Thursday, Jan. 6 at 6 p.m. Some of the meeting’s topics include:

  • Security Cameras Project Update and Policy

  • Annual Preschool Self-Evaluation

For meeting details and agenda, please click here: https://www.mvwsd.org/trustees.


Superintendent's Community Check In on Friday, Jan. 7

Please join us for our Community Check-In with Dr. Ayindé Rudolph on Friday, Jan 7 at 3:30 p.m. Bring your questions. Spanish interpretation will be provided. Click here to register: http://mvw.sd/CCJan7. To plan ahead, please see this webpage for upcoming meeting dates. In case you miss it, a video recording will be posted on this webpage.


MVPL Event: How to Make Comics with Gabriela Epstein - Flyer

Come meet Gabriela Epstein, a New York Times best selling illustrator known for the Baby-Sitters Club middle grade graphic novel adaptations and more, on Wednesday, January 12, 2022 from 2:30pm - 3:30pm. In this free program, Gabriela will share with us how to utilize a three act structure in comics, and do an interactive comic making demo with us. For children ages 7-12. Registration is required: mountainview.gov/librarycalendar.


Preschool information meetings: Jan. 12 and Jan. 26

The award-winning MVWSD Preschool Program is currently accepting applications for full- and part-day for the 2022-23 school year.


All 4-year-olds residing in the Castro School boundaries are now eligible for FREE, part-day state preschool at Latham.


Our preschool offers age-appropriate early math, language, literacy and science inquiry instruction, as well as social-emotional development in either part-day and full-day classes.


*** Join us for an info meeting on January 12 at 3:30 pm (Spanish) at Zoom link: http://mvw.sd/PK112 or January 26 at 3:30 pm (English) at Zoom link: http://mvw.sd/PK126 ***


Children who will be 3- or 4-years old at any time during the school year are eligible. Priority enrollment is for children who will be 4 years old by Sept. 1.  Full day is 8 a.m.- 3 p.m., part-day is 3 hrs in the morning or afternoon.


Now accepting applications for full- and part-day spaces. Enrollment appointments begin in March. For more info go to www.mvwsd.org/preschool or call 650-526-3560.


Parent University: Managing Stress and Fostering Resiliency

Date: 1/19/22  Registration Link: http://mvw.sd/pu011922

Does hearing about stress make you feel stressed out? Let’s face this universal phenomenon together. This presentation will:

  • Identify common stressors and the effects of stress

  • Explore tips for stress management for oneself

  • Provide tips on how to support our kids with stress management 

To submit questions prior to the event, please click here. We will do our best to address your question during the session.

Mentor Tutor Connection Volunteer Information Session - Jan. 11th

You can change the life of a student!  Come learn about volunteer opportunities to Mentor high school students and Tutor students in grades K-8  in our Mountain View and Los Altos schools. Becoming a Mentor or Tutor will add joy to your life and help a student in our local community to a brighter future! There is no obligation to sign up as a volunteer.  You're welcome to just come and learn more about what we do. 

Date:             Tuesday, January 11th
Time:            12:00 - 1:00 pm
Location:     Online via Zoom (URL provided upon registration
Register:  REGISTER ONLINE
Questions:   [email protected]
Information: MentorTutorConnection.org

 

If you are interested in learning more about the program but cannot attend the information session, please email [email protected] for information on how to proceed.

School meetings are coming up. Open Enrollment for all MVWSD students starts in January

For CURRENT students in transitional kindergarten-7th grade: Parents will be asked by email to confirm enrollment from January 24-28.


For NEW students:  Open Enrollment is from January 10 through Feb. 4, 2022 online. You can register your child for the 2022-23 school year when online registration opens here:  www.mvwsd.org/register 


Please visit www.mvwsd.org/register for more information.


MVEF Gala Save the Date - March 19, 2022!

The MVEF Gala Committee is hard at work ensuring that our Annual Gala on March 19th will be a fun evening that raises funds for our schools. We are still working out all the details as current conditions shift - so stay tuned! We do know that Trivia will be back as will our annual raffle. If you'd like to join the planning committee, please contact Andrea Maes at [email protected].


PTA News

Readathon Planning Committee

We are starting to plan for our annual Readathon (dates to be announced soon). This is our main PTA fundraiser to fund our programs (teacher reimbursements,teacher appreciation, student enrichment, community events etc…) If you are interested in helping with the planning to make this a successful fundraiser and fun event for the students please reach out to us!

[email protected]


Project Cornerstone: Become an ABC Reader

By volunteering just 2 to 3 hours per month, our Asset Building Champions build relationships with young people by reading selected books and leading classroom activities and discussions with a focus on respect, tolerance, peaceful conflict resolution, caring and friendship. Children learn what to do if they encounter bully behaviors and how to become an UPstander. 

For more information, email:  [email protected]

 

Spirit Wear

It’s sweater weather! Check out our selection of long sleeves and hoodies for winter! Also adult and childrens cloth face masks available.  Place your order online and pick it up on designated days at the office.

https://www.javargaspta.org/ja-vargas-store

 

Shannon Lundin, and the Executive Board 

[email protected]


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