The Prospector Post
January 14, 2019
YVES GOLD!
Dear Prospector Families:
Happy New Year! It's been a busy and amazing semester! Thank you for your support and encouragement as we continuously strive to improve. The Morongo Unified School District office has been supportive of our plans and goals, offering services and funding to support the needs of our school community. I am proud of our teachers, support staff, volunteers and families who pull together every day to ensure success for our students. That's YVES Gold!
Some newsy points since my last Prospector Post:
- Over 1100 family and friends attended our winter performance! Thank you for your incredible support for our students and with our FFA. We look forward to more family events in second semester.
- School Site Council approved the YVES library plan, including $13,500 for new library books!
- We have received a cart of 26 Surface Pros, and we have ordered 64 laptops to support technology integration.
- Teaching teams continue their intensive study on close reading strategies and student engagement during our 1/2 days and follow up days.
- Our staff will be offered a series of workshops before school on Wednesdays throughout 3rd quarter. We love learning at YVES!
- We are exceeding our goals for reducing behavior incidents by 10%. Our incidents are down approximately 20% over last year! We are thankful for a proactive staff and positive recess team who are facilitating Playworks!
We will be reviewing the results from our LCAP survey and begin planning for 2019-2020. In addition to the LCAP, we will be exploring high performing schools for best practices and ways to improve teaching and learning at Yucca Valley Elementary School.
Go, Prospectors!
Celeste Wahlberg, MA, MEd
Principal
Yucca Valley Elementary School
Attendance Matters
We are proud of our Prospector Families for joining with us to meet our attendance goal to reach a 96.5% attendance rate in September and October! THANK YOU!
November and December were tough attendance months, but many families are helping to bridge the gap by sending their children to Saturday Academy to support learning and make up attendance. Perfect attendance includes no tardies and no early releases. The state of California defines chronic absenteeism as missing 10% or more of school days, excused or unexcused. Missing school two days a month reduces your student’s attendance rate to 90%; missing 4 days a month decreases the rate to 80%.
We are excited to see our students each and every day! Students with perfect attendance for first semester will be invited to a dance! Details will come home soon, as the end of the semester is January 18, but we have two more days of Saturday Academy this month to help make up attendance. Thank you again for working together to meet our attendance goals!
Reminders
- Please remember that there is no supervision on campus and the gates do not open before 9:00 am. Please remind your child(ren) that they need to be safe and stay on the sidewalk by the drop off gate if they're early. Thank you!
- If your child will be receiving a semester award, you will be notified by your child's teacher. Semester awards include: Attendance, AR, Honor Roll, and more. Dates and times are listed below.
- Please do not send caffeinated beverages or sodas with your child. We discourage messy snacks such as sunflower seeds, Hot Cheetos and Takis, as those stain textbooks and library books. Snacks should be in individual size bags.
- Electronic devices should not be brought to school. Cell phones are understood, but they should be off and put away. Please note that bus rides before and after school are included as school time.
- Thank you for labeling your child's clothing, especially jackets and sweaters.
After School Activities
In addition to tutoring, we will offer the following programs:
- ART - 2 days per week grades 1-6
- Music/Recorder Club - 1 day per week grades 5-6
- Track Club
Class sizes are limited, so please sign up as soon as you get the forms. We will be adding math to the tutoring rotation. The rotation of subjects and activities will be determined by our staffing. We look forward to these opportunities!
Calendar
January
16 - FFA Meeting 4 pm Room 16
18- Friday Flag
18- End of Semester 1
19- Saturday Academy
21 - No School - Martin Luther King Jr
26 - Saturday Academy
30- Semester Awards- Kindergarten (2:30)
31- Semester Awards- 1st (2:30); 2nd (9:45); 3rd (10:20)
Feb 1 - Semester Awards- 4th (10:30); 5th (9:45); 6th (2:30)
Feb 5 - School Site Council 4 pm