The Great Kindness Challenge Week is January 23-27, 2023. This is a great opportunity for every member of the Vista Unified learning community to demonstrate our district’s newest value - kindness! Our goal is for all participants to find simple, thoughtful ways to make a difference in the life of someone else. The smallest gesture matters deeply, and their impact can live on further than you might realize. Help us grow kindness at every school site by encouraging your child’s participation and by asking them about activities at their school or in their classroom. Families may also participate in The Great Kindness Challenge by using the attached family edition checklist.

In addition to its neighborhood schools, Vista Unified has five magnet schools throughout the district. Magnet schools are schools of choice with a focused theme that shapes the curriculum and instruction at that school. If a student and their parents are interested in the focused theme offered at a particular magnet school, then a magnet school might be a perfect alternative to the neighborhood school. The window to apply for a middle or high magnet school is January 11th through February 17th and for an elementary magnet school is January 11th through April 7th. Applications and additional information can be found by visiting the Vista Unified magnet webpage.

Using technology in a safe way is more important now than ever before. All of our teachers and staff just completed training on how to support students to become good digital citizens. As parents, you play a key role in supporting your children as they learn how to safely use technology, particularly social media. Stay tuned for a “Special Edition” Community Update, filled with resources parents can use to support healthy technology habits at home.

Vista Unified will be hosting a technology awareness workshop via Zoom for parents on Thursday, February 16th from 6:00-7:30 pm. Technology expert Jon Moffat will guide parents through such questions as:

• How do I check privacy settings on my child’s profiles?

• How do I set up boundaries in the Digital World? How do I keep up?

• What are the latest tech trends in our community? What might my child be up to?

• Learn more about Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, Discord, Roblox, BeReal, and many more.

Mark your calendars and join us for this special parent workshop.

The pandemic has taken a toll on student’s academic, behavioral, and social-emotional development. Consistent school attendance is more critical now than ever to ensure long-term student success. [Institute of Educational Sciences, 2022] Parents, guardians and families are essential partners in promoting good attendance because they have the responsibility for making sure their children get to school every day. We all know that learning improves when students consistently attend school. Students are also able to build stronger relationships with their teachers and peers when they are in class consistently.

Attendance Considerations

• Monitor your student’s attendance on Aeries Parent Portal, and contact the school as soon as possible if you have questions or concerns.

• Starting in preschool and kindergarten, too many absences can cause children to fall behind in school.

• Missing 10%, or approximately two days each month over the course of a school year, can make it harder to learn to read and make adequate academic progress.

• Frequent absences can be a sign that a student is losing interest in school, struggling with school work, dealing with social-emotional issues, or facing some other difficulty.

• By sixth grade, absenteeism is one of three signs that a student may drop out of high school. By ninth grade, attendance is a better predictor of graduation rates than eighth grade test scores.

Prioritize School Attendance and School Success

• Talk with your child about the importance of attendance and create a mindset for “showing up” even when it is difficult. This is an essential life skill that you can help your child develop early on.

• Create the conditions for success. Choose clothes the night before, establish consistent sleep and wake times, set a schedule for when you need to leave the house based on distance, traffic, etc., and schedule appointments outside of school time as much as possible.

• Set and monitor goals to be on time, and identify simple ways to recognize and celebrate reaching those goals each week.

• If your child must be absent, reach out to the school to get the missed assignments, and work with your child to complete them. If the reason for the absence is excused, students may submit their work in a reasonable amount of time and complete missed quizzes, tests or projects for academic credit, as determined by the teacher. Even if the absence is unexcused, your child will benefit from staying current with their learning.

Keep The School Informed

• Contact the school as soon as possible when your child will be absent, and provide the reason for the absence. Parents/guardians are responsible to notify the school of the reason within 72 hours of the student’s return to school, or the absence will convert into an unexcused absence.

• Reach out to the school administration or counselor if you are facing challenges or barriers to getting to school or staying at school.

Keeping Parents/Guardians Informed and Involved

One of the primary strategies we are implementing this year is to re-establish consistent communication and engagement systems with our families for attendance through a partnership with Attention2Attendance, or A2A.

• Automated calls are sent out each day to parents/guardians of students who are absent when the school has not been informed by the parent/guardian of the reason for the absence. After this time period, the absence remains unexcused.

• Additionally, our district follows all state guidelines for sending parent notifications for both unexcused and excessive excused absences. Click here for more information about state guidelines for parent notifications and attendance definitions.

• Through our A2A Partnership, we are also sending periodic positive attendance notifications to recognize students who have positive attendance.