Principal Update
10/22/20
Español
Por favor haga click en la hilera de puntos en la parte superior derecha y marque Español para traducir este documento
Greetings
The weeks seem to be flying by. In this email, you will find information about our Spirit Week. We have met with our WEB Leaders to create Spirit Week activities for students. The information below asks for students to participate by dressing up each day in specific ways. The school staff will also participate in these activities. We hope that all students will join in.
Additionally, this email includes information about Nutrition Services, Yearbook, Hispanic Heritage Month, Hacienda Homework opportunities, and a Financial assistance program that some may qualify for.
Ms. Snowadski shares her introduction letter and some family photos. We will continue to look for ways to engage students through our WEB leadership group. Thank you Web Leaders for sharing your student perspectives with us. We greatly appreciate it.
Have an awesome weekend.
Regards,
Ms. Vimegnon
Spirit Week October 26th - October 30th
Nutrition Services Info
The Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) was approved to provide additional Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) benefits to eligible students enrolled from July 1 - September 22. Similar to the spring, benefits are provided to children who receive free or reduced price school meals through the National School Lunch Program that are not attending school in-person.
Every child who is eligible will receive at least $100 and some will receive more benefits based on when school began. The initial $100 benefits were distributed on September 28th. If a child qualifies for any additional benefits beyond $100, this will be provided through a second deposit. Eligible students who receive Oregon SNAP benefits, or who received an Oregon EBT card in the mail with P-EBT benefits in the past, received these September P-EBT benefits on their existing Oregon EBT card. For lost EBT cards, families can request a new one by calling a local ODHS office or calling the EBT replacement line 1-855-328-6715.
If eligible families did not receive P-EBT benefits, they can send an email to the PPS Meal Benefits Office at mealbenefits@pps.net with the following information: Student name, school name, and parent contact information (address, phone). Once the student is verified as eligible an email will be sent to the P-EBT email address (ebt.schoolmeals@dhsoha.state.or.us) on the behalf of the family for follow up.
Financial Assistance
Please click on the link below for potential financial assistance.
Yearbook Advisor Message
The yearbook staff is excited to share with you that we are working on a Yearbook for distribution this year. In these COVID times, we'll be working on a book that may look a little different than years past, and we are doing everything we can to document it, representing our Beaumont Student Body. We're hoping that you will take photos of your student participating in school. We've provided a pdf on how to submit photos for our Yearbook. Please take the photos, and submit them. Please know if you have some technical issues with sharing them with us, we will work out the kinks as we go along. The important part is to take photos. Watch this space for more information.
UPCOMING INFORMATION
*purchasing the 19-20 Yearbook. It's a beauty!
*more information about purchasing a Yearbook 20-21 in a few weeks.
*Families of 8th graders, we'll share information about placing baby ads.
Thanks for all the interest in our Yearbooks! See the flyer below.
Ms. Bennett and the Yearbook Staff
HACIENDA EXPRESIONES AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS FOR K-8 YOUTH
In this folder, you will find property-specific Hacienda Expresiones program flyers. If any of your youth, K-8, need academic support and would like to participate in enrichment activities after school please have their parents contact the site nearest to them that serves their school. All of our programming is virtual and materials are delivered to youth’s home with no contact with them or their family.
Please note that this program does not provide case management, it is an enrichment program.
Introducing Ms. Andrea Snowadski
Welcome!
This is my ninth year at Beaumont Middle School- but before I came here I taught at Cesar Chavez K-8 (formerly Portsmouth Middle School) for 14 years. I understand that “Snowadski” isn’t an easy name to say- so I also answer to Ms. Snow. My last name drives me nuts- and if I’d had a good maiden name, I probably would have kept it when I got married.
When I was looking for a job, I thought I would rather teach elementary school. When they offered me the job at a middle school, I admit, I was more than a little nervous. I remember how much of a brat I was at 12, and wasn’t all that sure I wanted to be responsible for a group of them! To make a long story short, I took the job and ended up loving it. When I tell people that I teach middle school they often say, “Oh, I’m so sorry”, but I personally think that I am lucky. It is always fun, new, and exciting ~ no two days are ever alike. Feel free to remind me of this when I have a technology freak out (just ask a 7th grader- it will happen!).
I am the oldest of three daughters. I think my dad started calling me “Andee” because it was as close as he was going to get to a boy. I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas and I moved to Portland when I was two. My parents were both born here but my dad was in the Coast Guard and was stationed in Texas. Right after my second birthday, a hurricane came through and wiped out most of the area we were living in. My mom decided that she’d had enough and we lived with my grandma until my dad came back 5 months later. I’ve been back a few times since then to see relatives but I don’t really like it- Texas has flying cockroaches, way too many girls with huge hair….and don’t even get me started on big belt buckles!
I grew up in this neighborhood (59th and Klickatat!), went to St. Rose grade school and Central Catholic high school. I played volleyball, participated in drama productions, and was a pain in all of my teachers’ necks. I enjoyed being the ‘class clown’, and my mother would like you all to know that I received the comment, “Andrea would be a better student if she talked less in class”, on all of my report cards.
I have a 22-year-old daughter named Rian who is starting her senior year at Warner Pacific University where she plays softball and studies Exercise Science/ Kinesiology. I’ve spent more weekends than I could possibly count sitting on bleachers, watching Rian play-or worse, sitting on a bucket as her catcher when she pitched! It was a strange thing this last spring and summer to have weekends free due to Covid. My husband, Jim, lives for sports- coaching punters and kickers in football and refereeing football, basketball, and softball. We live in Troutdale where we have two dogs named Norma and Harper. Norma is a 12-year-old neurotic border collie mixed with something super furry, who loves to survey her realm in the backyard, barking at the kids skateboarding in the street, attempting to catch squirrels and for some strange reason, she loves licking the leather couch! She used to eat drywall, so the couch licking is actually a huge improvement. Harper is half Shih Tzu and half Pomeranian- but she is basically ten pounds of pure fury! She doesn’t seem to understand that she is a little dog and tries to attack Norma on a regular basis. Rian named her after Bryce Harper, who was her favorite baseball player (until he left the Nats anyway). Last year’s 6th graders were obsessed with Harper- who they started calling “Evil Harper”- and loved to watch videos of her proving she deserved the nickname.
I love to joke around and I try to make sure that kids are learning the things they need to, but still enjoying school in the process. I’m pretty open to suggestions and I want kids to let me know when they’re struggling with something. I know that is hard at this age- especially through a screen- but even if they let me know in an email, after class or small group, we can figure it out. There’s 140 of them and one of me- so sometimes I need a nudge if something is wrong- but I promise to do whatever I can to help.
There are a lot of people out there that say they “hate math”, and believe it or not, when I was a middle schooler, I was one of them. It just didn’t make sense to me and I spent many nights crying at the kitchen table, trying in vain to make sense of what was in front of me. I tell you this so that you know when I say I understand a math phobia, I’m telling the truth. It wasn’t until I took “Math for Teachers” in college that it clicked. It can get better- promise!
I have no idea when distance learning will end but hopefully, we will get to be together in person at some point. I admit I miss the day-to-day life surrounded by 11 and 12-year-olds- with the noise and chaos of hundreds of kids all going in different directions. Until then, we’ll make the computer work the best we can and enjoy each other- even if it is through a screen.
Have a great year!
Hispanic Heritage Month
Sor Juana Inês de la Cruz – 17th-century feminist writer and thinker
Certainly the oldest on the list, Sor Juana Inês de la Cruz was a crusader for women’s rights at a time when the issue wasn’t even on the public’s radar. She was born circa November 12, 1651, in San Miguel Nepantla, Tepetlixpa, Mexico, and showed early signs of extreme intelligence, such as learning to read at the age of three. Inês de la Cruz studied to be a nun at an early age, mainly so she could devote her life to studying without the disruptions of a “fixed occupation.” She spent the rest of her life in Mexico City, where she composed poetry and prose in a variety of genres. This included comedy and scholarly works, which was unusual for a nun at the time. Inés de la Cruz is perhaps best known for her work, Respuesta a Sor Filotea, which argued for educational access for women. Her stature rose in the 20th century, coinciding with the popularity of the feminist movement. Today, her image appears on Mexican currency and she is considered the first feminist author of the New World.
6. Nydia Velazquez – 1st Puerto Rican elected to Congress
Velazquez holds the honor of being the most current women on the list as she still serves in the US House of Representatives, a position she’s held for fifteen years. Velazquez was born to a family of poor sugarcane farmers, who became self-taught political activists. She recalls a childhood where politics were always discussed at the dinner table, usually focused on worker’s rights. After being the first in her family to graduate high school, Velazquez arrived on the mainland, eventually receiving her MA in political science from New York University. After returning to Puerto Rico to teach for a few years, Velazquez came back to the mainland and began her political career. She worked herself up from the bottom, starting as a representative’s aide. She soon secured a seat on the New York City Council and within eight years, was elected to Congress. Velazquez continues to advocate for human and civil rights for the Puerto Rican people to this day.
It is National Hispanic Heritage Month. Hispanic Heritage Month is a period from September 15th to October 15th in the United States. Every week we would like to pay tribute to the generations of Hispanic Americans who have positively influenced and enriched our nation and society. We will showcase two individuals each time. This week we would like to share the following two people and their contributions so that we can celebrate and learn about their efforts.
https://brink.com/wonder/10-unsung-hispanic-heroes-that-changed-history/
By Joel Foster
7. Ellen Ochoa – 1st Hispanic to leave Earth’s atmosphere
In 1993, Ochoa became made history when she served on a 9-day mission into space aboard the shuttle Discovery. This was far from Ochoa’s humble beginnings in La Mesa, California, where she lived with her single mother and three brothers. From an early age, Ochoa thrived in school and eventually earned her doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1985. This led to a research position at Sandia National Laboratories and the NASA Ames Research Center. In 1990, NASA chose Ochoa to become an astronaut, serving as a crew representative for flight software and robotics. Three years later, Ochoa became the first Hispanic to reach space, as part of a mission to study the Earth’s ozone layer. In 2011, the city of Cleveland celebrated Ochoa’s accomplishments during Hispanic Heritage Month.
8. Rodolfo Gonzalez – Poet and champion of the Chicano movement
Rodolfo Gonzalez grew up in a tough Denver neighborhood during the Great Depression, which took an especially heavy toll on Mexican Americans. His father instilled a sharp sense of history from his native Mexico and encouraged his son to take pride in his heritage. After becoming a successful professional boxer, Gonzalez retired in 1955 to write poetry. In the 1960s, he composed the poem, “I Am Joaquin,” which many views as the first spark in the Chicano movement. The poem discusses Gonzalez’s idea of the Chicano, which represented a combination of conflicting Indian, European, Mexican and American identities. Gonzalez devoted the rest of his life to teaching cultural identity, focusing on building self-esteem among discriminated people.