KFCS Friday News Flash
December 1, 2023
In this Issue
- Upcoming School, Community Events
- Student Success Corner
- Sky Lakes Wellness Center Lifestyle Medicine Facts
- KUHS Alumni
- Phone App Download for District Website
- Join Our Team
- KFCS Board of Education
Upcoming School, Community Events
KFCS gives to Assistance League's Operation School Bell
A full team effort came in time for Christmas this year as Klamath Falls City Schools along with Klamath County School District, took part in the Assistance League of Klamath Basin’s Operation School Bell program.
Last school year, Operation School Bell clothed over 1,700 children in the Klamath Basin.
Lisa Danskin wears many hats at KFCS. You can find Danskin as a SPED ParaEducator in the KUHS Goals Room, as the KU Key Club Advisor, while keeping busy as KFACE President.
A year ago, Danskin and the Key Club came up with the idea of putting together a coin drive to raise funds to bring to the Assistance League for Operation School Bell. The fundraiser came up with nearly $1,600.
This year, Danskin made it a priority to have each school within KFCS put together a themed gift basket, which will be purchased during the Assistance League's Christmas Basket Jubilee and Tree Raffle.
The raffle will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2 at Findables, 1330 East Main St, and will continue until Dec. 16.
The following baskets represent a school at KFCS, with over $600 in total value within the 11 baskets.
Klamath Community College Visits Klamath Learning Center
Students heard from Heather Beaman, Accelerated Learning Student Success Adviser at KCC. Beaman made sure to let KLC students know the many options they could take to help pay for college, as well as the free opportunities they could find.
Marketing Coordinator at KCC, Eduardo Ruiz, brought excitement to the experience as he brought a game and a spinning prize wheel for students to earn KCC merchandise.
"I want to work somewhere where I can help my family with a chiropractor job, KLC student Kayla Enriquez said. "That is why I keep going to school here because I like seeing the variety of things I can do after school. I am going to get my GED here and make sure I come to graduation."
KLC student Lilly Santos was also inspired by the KCC visit and said she only confirmed her plans after high school in wanting to join KCC Cosmetology. Santos' older sister, Leona, currently is in the cosmetology program at KCC.
"You want to feel nice on the inside and out," Santos said. "My mom also enjoys working in the same profession so it would be great to make it a second and third generation kind of thing."
Ponderosa students decorate cookies after having exceptional attendance
Today at Ponderosa, students who had exceptional attendance decorated cookies. Ponderosa math instructor Leah Wahl put together the special day for students to decorate and enjoy their cookies.
Wahl was accompanied by members of the Ponderosa PTO to help students in all grade levels who earned stellar attendance for the month of November.
"We are so appreciative of the local bakeries that donated cookies: Aztec, Frosted Shuffle, My Friend Erin, and Jenn's cookies," Wahl said.
Ponderosa is rewarding students twice a month with similar events. One event a month rewards students for behavior and the other monthly event rewards them for academic achievements. Upcoming events are Pondo trivia and a hot chocolate party.
Every quarter, students have the opportunity to get a Gold or Silver Card. Gold card requirements are 3.5 GPA or higher, no major referrals, and 90% attendance. Silver card requirements are earning all C's or better and no major referrals.
The students with gold cards will earn trips this year to see a movie, Diamond sledding and Redding waterslides. Silver card trips this year are ice skating, an Oregon Tech basketball game and bowling.
First Snow Day of the Year
Sky Lakes Wellness Center Lifestyle Medicine Facts
Weight loss
Perhaps the most common reason people come to the wellness center is to seek help with weight loss. I’d like to start by saying that it is possible to be healthy at any weight, just like it is possible to be UN healthy at any weight. Weight numbers are a great way of keeping track of your weight, which can be an important part of health and wellness, but weight numbers alone are NOT a good way of keeping track of your overall health. I say this because there is overwhelming shame, abuse, and pressure heaped on people carrying extra weight in our society, and these attitudes are pervasive, unnecessary, and harmful. The cause Depression, Anxiety, eating disorders, and dissatisfaction. Be gentle, not least with yourself, when talking about weight. The second thing I want to say is that being healthy and losing weight are not the same thing. You can weight on a very healthy diet, and you can lose weight on a very unhealthy diet. If you ate nothing but a candy bar (~200 calories) every day you would definitely lose weight, but you would be wildly unhealthy. Healthy behaviors have to do with how many vegetables, fruits, and whole foods you eat as well as how much movement you do, while weight loss behaviors are all about how many calories you spend per day vs how many you intake per day. I’ll say it as clearly as I can – it is more important to eat healthy foods and exercise frequently than it is to lose weight.
A healthy dietary pattern is one in which half of what you eat is a vegetable. A healthy exercise pattern is one in which you move enough to get short of breath a total of at least 30-60 minutes per day, 5 days a week. It can be as simple as that. We CAN make it more complicated, but we don’t have to. JUST. EAT. MORE. VEGETABLES. Or, as Michael Pollan has said it, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” OK. So now that all that preamble is established, how does one lose weight? I will here admit that weight loss can help reduce blood pressure, knee pain, back pain, cure sleep apnea, and reduce diabetes risk, so it is often worth doing. Weight loss plans usually come in 4 levels of intensity. Level one is all the low hanging fruit: just do all the obvious things. Stop eating out, eat more vegetables and fruit, stop having candy, stop drinking soda, etc. If this sounds familiar, this is basically just making your diet a healthy diet. For many people just getting rid of obvious extra calories is enough but doing it for one or two days a week will not get you anywhere. Losing weight is a longitudinal journey and needs to be done consistently day by day, month to month. Level two is when you intentionally limit your calories. There are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, which means that to lose a pound of fat you need to spend 3500 calories more than you eat. That’s hard to do in a day, so we usually say you need to have a 500 calorie deficit per day for a week (500 x7 = 3500).
There are many ways to limit your calories. Some people join programs that give you points or packaged food, some people count calories, some people do intermittent fasting. As long as you have a 500 calorie deficit per day, you will lose a pound a week. Part of this step is knowing how many calories you burn in a day. There are calculators online called the “basal Metabolic Rate” calculators, where you enter your age, gender, height, weight and activity level and it will tell you your estimated BMR. At the Wellness Center we have a fancy scale called a body composition analyzer that can do the calculations more accurately (if you want one done call us and we will schedule you!). Once you know how much you are spending per day, you can track your calories to assure you eat 500 less than what you spend. Alternatively, you can try intermittent fasting, limiting your eating window to something like 0800-1600, and then avoid eating outside of those hours. Both methods result in a calorie deficit over time, which will result in weight loss.
Remember that the best diet for you is the one you can do forever without causing anxiety of depression, because as soon as you go back to “what you were eating before” you'll find yourself in the same situation. Level three is using medications to help control appetite, which is an absolutely viable solution that you can talk about with your doctor. Level four is bariatric surgery, which is also absolutely viable, though usually we broach that topic only if meeting certain criteria or after having tried everything else. At the end of the day, lifestyle medicine is pretty simple: make sure to eat lots of vegetables, fruits, and whole foods; make sure of exercise as you can’ and if, after all that, you also want to lose weight, you should eat a little less calories than you would otherwise. That’s it. Just remember – a healthy diet is more important than a weight loss diet. Start there.
Thanks for reading! If interested in hearing more about our programs and resources, please call us at 541.274.2770 or visit our website at www.SkyLakes.org/Wellness
Have a question? Submit yours by emailing us at SkyLakesellnessCenter@skylakes.org
Information provided by
Stewart Decker, MD, MPH, FAAFP, FWMS
Jeanette Rutherford, MA, LPC
Jennifer Newton, RD, LD, CDCES, MPH
KUHS Alumni
The new district website has an Alumni page for graduates of KU. This past week, six KU alumni sent us updates on their lives since they graduated. Take a look on the KU Alumni page on the district website. And, if you are an alumni, be sure and send us YOUR update!
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES - JOIN OUR TEAM!!
Apply for a District Job Opening
Become a Substitute Teacher or Paraprofessional in our District
PARENT LINKS
Click Here for the Family Friendly 2023-2024 School Year Calendar - English
Click Here for the Family Friendly 2023-2024 School Year Calender - Spanish
Synergy SIS Portal
Electronic Flyers for Your Students School
Thrillshare
How Will I Know if School is Cancelled?
KFCS Board of Education
Andrea Jensen, Zone 1, Roosevelt - andrea.jensen@kfcityschools.org
Andrew Biggs, Zone 2, At-Large - andrew.biggs@kfcityschools.org
Vanessa Bennett, Zone 3, Conger - vanessa.bennett@kfcityschools.org
Kathy Hewitt, Zone 4, Mills - kathy.hewitt@kfcityschools.org
Trina Perez, Zone 5, Pelican - trina.perez@kfcityschools.org
Patrick Fenner, Zone 6, At-Large - patrick.fenner@kfcityschools.org
Ashley Wendt-Lusich, Zone 7 At-Large - ashley.wendt-lusich@kfcityschools.org