Westwood Updates
Week of 1/19- 1/23/15
This Week's Happenings
Monday- 1/19/15
Tuesday- 1/20/15
MAPS
2:20 Tech Meeting
Wednesday- 1/21/15
MAPS
* WEF Dining for Dollars- Red Robin (North County Fair Mall)
2:20 - 3:20 Staff meeting CANCELLED- please use this time to complete CHKS survey
Thursday- 1/22/15
MAPS
Friday- 1/23/15
MAPS
Student Council Spirit Day- Sports Day
8:00 Friday Flag
Reminders & Updates
CHKS Survey Open Now
Help our Lunch Team Out
The lunch ladies are preparing for the spring audit and they need your help. Please remind students that a healthy serving of lunch includes the main entrée and 1/2 cup of fruit or veggies - OR- one full cup of salad without an entrée.
Please remind students to pick up condiments and utensils before leaving the cafeteria. They should not be reentering the cafeteria.
Ms. Israni and the Playground League
Please send your selected superheroes out to the table by the cabins for lunch and games with Ms. Israni at your lunch:
Mondays- 4th and 5th
Tuesdays-Kinder and 3rd
Thursdays- 1st and 4th
Fridays- 2nd and 5th
T'is the Season for MAPS!
From LSS
Supporting our ELL Students
Guidance from the Departments of Education and Justice on Equitable Educational Access for English Learner Students:
The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice today released joint guidance reminding states, school districts, and schools of their obligations under federal law to ensure that English learner students have equal access to a high-quality education and the opportunity to achieve their full academic potential.
In addition to the guidance, the Departments also released additional tools and resources to help schools in serving English learner students and parents with limited English proficiency:
- A fact sheet in English and in other languages about schools’ obligations under federal law to ensure that English learner students can participate meaningfully and equally in school.
- A fact sheet in English and in other languages about schools’ obligations under federal law to communicate information to limited English proficient parents in a language they can understand.
- A toolkit to help school districts identify English learner students, prepared by the Education Department’s Office of English Language Acquisition. This is the first chapter in a series of chapters to help state education agencies and school districts meet their obligations to English learner students.
This is the first time that a single piece of guidance has addressed the array of federal laws that govern schools’ obligations to English learners. The guidance recognizes the recent milestone 40th anniversaries of Lau v. Nichols and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 (EEOA), as well as the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. The EEOA, similar to Lau, requires public schools to take appropriate action to help English learner students overcome language barriers and ensure their ability to participate equally in school.
The guidance explains schools’ obligations to:
- identify English learner students in a timely, valid and reliable manner;
- offer all English learner students an educationally sound language assistance program;
- provide qualified staff and sufficient resources for instructing English learner students;
- ensure English learner students have equitable access to school programs and activities
- avoid unnecessary segregation of English learner students from other students;
- monitor students’ progress in learning English and doing grade-level classwork;
- remedy any academic deficits English learner students incurred while in a language assistance program;
- move students out of language assistance programs when they are proficient in English and monitor those students to ensure they were not prematurely removed;
- evaluate the effectiveness of English learner programs; and
- provide limited English proficient parents with information about school programs, services, and activities in a language they understand
Name a Planet!
In celebration of the NASA MESSENGER spacecraft mission to the planet Mercury, MESSENGER's Education and Public Outreach Team, in collaboration with the International Astronomical Union (IAU) - the governing body of planetary and satellite nomenclature since 1919 - is conducting an international competition to OFFICIALLY name 5 craters on Mercury. These are craters revealed by MESSENGER to be of scientific significance. With this email your school district and schools are invited to participate.
MESSENGER:
NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has been in orbit around Mercury, the solar system's innermost planet, since March 2011. Traveling more than 8 BILLION miles since its launch in 2004 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this little craft not much bigger than a Volkswagen Beetle, became the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. Before orbital insertion, MESSENGER followed a path through the inner solar system, including one flyby of Earth, two flybys of Venus, and three flybys of Mercury. This impressive journey yielded the first return of new spacecraft data from Mercury since the Mariner 10 mission flew by the planet more than 30 years ago - the only other mission to the planet.
NEXT STEPS - PARTICIPATING IN THE CRATER NAMING COMPETITION:
Learn more about this unique opportunity and submit your favorite artist here:
Upcoming Events
1/26/15 8:30 & 9:15 am Jump for Heart Assemblies- MPR - AND WWEF Winter Raffle begins
1/30/15 2:00pm Multicultural Fair planning meeting B-6 - All are welcome!