The Saber Truth
January 14, 2019
Saber Speak
Dear Sabers,
We've had a great week back and are looking forward to the next! This week, we continue to get back to work with zero period starting on Tuesday at 7:15am. We look forward to starting up our WIN (What I Need) intervention and enrichment rotations in the weeks to come. As the semester continues, please remember to actively monitor students' progress through Aeries, and please reach out with any questions or concerns you may have.
It may seem early to say so, but School of Choice Month is just around the corner! If you have friends or family who you believe might benefit from the programs at Sinaloa, or if you are interested in learning more about what the school has to offer, please note that tours are available on Thursday mornings. Tours include classroom visits, a walkthrough of the school grounds, and questions and answers on everything from IM to Mock Trial, Leadership to Athletics. Signups are available through our website.
Thank you for being part of the Saber family!
Sincerely,
Bradley Torti
Principal, Sinaloa Middle School
Notice Regarding Zero Period
Simi Valley Education Foundation Gala: An Evening Under the Stars!
To Our Parents in Simi Valley:
Each year Simi Valley Education Foundation (SVEF) provides Simi Valley schools with enhancement grants. These grants provide financial support for specific materials and programs that are designed to improve and enhance our children's learning. We all know that funding is low for our schools and teachers are left with little money to try to piece together these types of things for our kids. That often leaves them empty-handed.
With the support of the community of Simi Valley, the SVEF has been able to provide more than $2.5 million dollars to Simi public schools since our inception in 1989.
Every year SVEF holds a fun night of dinner, dancing, auctions and more all to raise money to fund our enhancement grant program! This year’s theme is An Evening Under the Stars.
All proceeds are distributed among the public schools in Simi Valley for various programs and grants. Working together, we are building futures through education by providing new resources, new opportunities, and a better educational environment for our children.
The highlight of the evening will be our silent and live auctions and your support is truly needed—and appreciated—to make this benefit a success. You are invited to help make this night a success by attending and/or donating an item, service, gift certificate to our silent auction this year.
Now more than ever, public schools need our help, and this is a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate your support for the Simi Valley Education Foundation’s efforts. For more information, please call 1-877-746-4543.
Plan now to attend our An Evening Under the Stars by visiting www.svef.org/gala.
For more information or to make a donation, please call (877)746.4543.
Sinaloa Career Faire is Approaching - February 6
On Wednesday, February 6, Sinaloa will be hosting it's 9th annual "Where are You Going?" Career and Education Faire. This is a wonderful opportunity for our 8th grade students to interact with members of our community and learn about different careers and opportunities that await them in their futures. We are looking for volunteers in all career fields to share with our students, but we also have particular interest in the areas of:
* medical fiield (nurse, doctor, EMT)
* arts/design
* musician
* automotive
* aviation
* construction
* engineering
* firefighter
* entertainment
* law (lawyer, paralegal, etc.)
* politics
If you have a career in one of these fields and would be willing to share with our students, or if you know someone who does that you think would be willing to share, please contact Miss Healy (jennifer.healy@simivalleyusd.org) by Wednesday, January 30.
Additionally, we will need parent volunteer help on the day of the event from 7:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. with set up, tear down, food prep, and general supervision. If you can help for any portion of that day, please contact Miss Healy.
Lastly, we are looking for donations of food for breakfast, lunch, and snacks for our Career Faire participants. This includes juice, water, fruit, snacks (i.e. granola bars, small bags of chips), 2L bottles of soda, muffins, bagels, cream cheese, veggie platters, and dessert items (brownies, cookies, etc.). If you would be willing to provide food donations, please contact Miss Healy.
Thank you for your support!
Celebrating Lew Roth Award Winner, Ryanne Boerem
SV Running Rebels
PTSA Annual Variety Show
Yearbook Ads for Sale!
Counseling Corner
Why Social Media Is NOT Smart for Middle School Students
In our counseling office we handle A LOT of peer mediation and self-esteem driven issues. This article cites amazing ideas and reasons parents should consider not allowing social media in your home. At the very least we ask parents to be aware of everything your child is doing online. Youtube has comments where long threads of chatting happen, Instagram has instant messaging, Snap Chat messages can disappear. Social media changes fast, but the more you are involved with your middle school student the more you'll be able to help them navigate the waters. This is their time to push back, but please know you are not alone. You are not the only parent monitoring your students social media. You are not the only parent contacting teachers to see how you can help you student. Lastly, you are not the only parent who cares about their student. (We know they tell you all of this!) As always, call or email us if you have any questions.
Our favorite part of the Article:
Because the midbrain is reorganizing itself and risk-taking is high and impulse control is low, I can’t imagine a worse time in a child’s life to have access to social media than middle school. Here are just a few reasons why:
- Social media was not designed for them. A tween's underdeveloped frontal cortex can’t manage the distraction nor the temptations that come with social media use. While you start teaching responsible use of tech now, know that you will not be able to teach the maturity that social media requires. Like trying to make clothes fit that are way too big, they will use social media inappropriately until they are older and it fits them better.
- Social media is an entertainment technology. It does not make your child smarter or more prepared for real life or a future job; nor is it necessary for healthy social development. It is pure entertainment attached to a marketing platform extracting bits and pieces of personal information and preferences from your child every time they use it, not to mention hours of their time and attention.
- A tween's “more is better” mentality is a dangerous match for social media. Do they really have 1,456 friends? Do they really need to be on it nine hours a day? Social media allows (and encourages) them to overdo their friend connections like they tend to overdo other things in their lives.
- Social media is an addictive form of screen entertainment. And, like video game addiction, early use can set up future addiction patterns and habits.
- Social media replaces learning the hard social "work" of dealing face-to-face with peers, a skill that they will need to practice to be successful in real life.
- Social media can cause teens to lose connection with family and instead view “friends” as their foundation. Since the cognitive brain is still being formed, the need for your teen to be attached to your family is just as important now as when they were younger. Make sure that attachment is strong. While they need attachments to their friends, they need healthy family attachment more.
- Social media use represents lost potential for teens. While one can argue that there are certain benefits of social media for teens, the costs are very high during the teen years when their brain development is operating at peak performance for learning new things. It is easy for teens to waste too much of their time and too much of their brain in a digital world. We know from many studies that it is nearly impossible for them to balance it all.
2018/19 Saber Club Schedule
Attached below is the flyer for this year's clubs. They are a great way for your student to make new friends, try new things, and even get help with homework. Check out the schedule with your student and encourage them to try at least one!
Attendance Policies
Attendance Phone Line: 805-520-6830 Press 1, or Ext. 7021 (Can call anytime day or night)
Para espanol, oprima la estrella. (Llama dia o noche)
ABSENCES - Parents have five (5) days to call-in, email, or send in a note to the attendance office to excuse an absence otherwise it becomes truant. Keep in mind that personal/vacation are verified but still considered unexcused.
TARDIES - If a student is tardy to homeroom or late to school, they need to check-in with the attendance office to get a tardy pass. Students tardy to homeroom will have a 15 minute detention after school unless a parent calls, emails, or sends in a note to excuse the tardy. Excessive tardies to classes will affect "citizenship" grade.
EARLY PICK-UPS - We encourage parents to call-in ahead of time (or send in a note or email) for early pick-ups so that we can have the student in the office ready to go. Anyone checking-out a student must be listed on the student's emergency contact list, be 18 years or older, and must show a valid ID.
Upcoming Events
1/11 Geography Bee
1/14-1/18 - Spirit Week!
1/16 Student Council
1/23 Pickleball @ Valley View 3:30 pm
1/23 First Semester Awards Night 6pm
1/29 Parent Information Night
For the full Sinaloa Calendar of Events, CLICK HERE.
Sinaloa Middle School
Website: sinaloa.simivalleyusd.org
Location: 601 Royal Avenue, Simi Valley, CA, USA
Phone: 805-520-6830
Facebook: facebook.com/sinaloamiddleschool
Twitter: @sinaloasabers