Principal's Newsletter
December 7, 2020
Principal's Message
Dear Adelante Selby Spanish Immersion families,
We are just a few weeks away from Winter Break and I want to wish you all a Happy(and SAFE) Holiday! Incredibly, we are already recruiting for our incoming Kindergarten and Transitional Kindergarten classes for the 2021 school year. We will be holding weekly informational Zoom meetings on Fridays at 10:00am via ZOOM for interested new families. A reminder that the district does give preference and priority to siblings of our current students(or siblings of current Kennedy Spanish Immersion students). If you have a TK or Kinder child that is going to attend our school in August, 2021 please fill out the K Sibling Form by January 12th so you can get priority in the selection process. Families still need to fill out the registration form for the district to their "Home School"(as determined by your address) and then need to fill out the district School of Choice form indicating Adelante Selby Spanish Immersion School as your first choice. The first round of School of Choice closes on January 22nd.
A recent article on how bilingual children and adolescents may grow up with more grey and white matter in their brains was published in Brain Structure and Function. While bilingualism has previously been shown to positively affect brain structure and cognitive performance in adults, the paper is the most comprehensive analysis to date showing that the effect of speaking more than one language may have similar impacts on developing brains. “Grey matter in the brain decreases from an early age, but our study found that key brain areas showed less such shrinkage in bilinguals than monolinguals during development,” explained Dr Christos Pliatsikas, the leader of the project and an associate professor of Psycholinguistics in Bi and Multilinguals at the University of Reading. “In previous studies, we’ve already seen that bilingualism has a positive effect on grey and white matter in adult brains, but this is the first time we’ve seen strong evidence for these effects in children and adolescents as well.” Furthermore, Pliatsikas argues, “...the impact of bilingualism on grey and white matter may have a number of wider benefits for language and cognitive function, such as performance in tasks related to attention and executive control, which have been suggested to be enhanced in older bilinguals. Overall, the findings indicate that encouraging bilingualism in childhood may have benefits later in life.” This research is very encouraging and another reason to advocate for Immersion education.
I’d like to update you on where we are with our school’s plan for January. Based on the most recent survey results, our plan is for our school to continue with the Full Distance Learning model for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year. Our most recent surveys of parents and teachers show the following:
35% of parents prefer that we continue with the Full Distance Learning model
37% of parents prefer that we return to our campus with the Hybrid Model
28% of parents would like to stay with their current teacher in either model
80% of our teachers prefer to continue with the Full Distance Learning model
Clearly, we do have families who want their children to return to our campus (37%) and students that need a stable and more supportive learning environment. Our plan is to identify and support our neediest students by expanding the number of current REACH Pods, opening up Academic Learning Centers or Hybrid Option #3 classes (with the teachers classes that agreed to return to work in person), and starting some Hubs with district hired teachers. We realize we will not be able to accommodate everyone on site with these options, but using an equity lens we hope to provide a stable and supportive learning environment for the students that need it the most. The teachers have identified the students that would benefit the most from being here at school and we will call families as Academic Learning Centers open up. Obviously, the in-person classes will be different for the students and staff as these academic centers will need to follow the 4 Safety Pillars, e.g., students will remain in distinct cohort groups that do not mix, students will need to keep their masks on and socially distance, hand washing and cleaning protocols will be followed, and we will need to stagger the start and end times of the academic center schedules due to physical/social distancing requirements. We will be finalizing our plan at the upcoming School Site Council Meeting this Wednesday.
Please enjoy dancing along with Danny G as he has shared some of his You Tube Videos here:
ABC Warm Up (TK, K, 1st, 2nd grade)
ABC Warm Up(3rd, 4th 5th grade)
The Virtual Scholastic Book Fair will be from November 30th- December 13. Use this link for more information: Virtual Book Fair. If you are interested in showing your school spirit and how proud you are of being bilingual, pre-order "Being Bilingual is my Superpower", school Spirit shirts for $10 using this link: Superpoder
Important information from Kennedy for 5th grade families:
Kennedy Middle School is offering some virtual informational sessions to learn more about Kennedy. The 2021-2022 school year will be here before you know it. Below are the dates, times, and Zoom link for our informational sessions. Spanish interpretation will be offered at each session.
Tuesday, December 15: 8:30 am and 6:00 pm
Thursday, January 14: 8:30 am and 6:00 pm
Thursday, January 21: 8:30 am and 6:00 pm
Zoom Meeting Info:
https://rcsdk8-net.zoom.us/j/85980616440?pwd=MjZ2WHBPN1ZmZUg5V2czT0ZGNkMvdz09
Meeting ID: 859 8061 6440
Passcode: Kennedy
It is important that all families please visit the Unidos WebPage and take a few minutes to fill out the Membership Toolkit. Unidos supports a number of important programs at our school as well as coordinating volunteer efforts. They also provide communication to our community on a regular basis and need families updated information in the toolkit to do so. Unidos has set up this great link on explaining the process of reserving and checking out Library books. Parent volunteers have also set up a sign up page on the link if you can not come to the school to pick up the books and they will schedule a time to deliver the books to you(contact free of course!).
A reminder that the district has set up an informational resource for parents and the community on the district web page called the Roadmap to Reopening of Schools.The district has also included a Parent's Guide to Distance Learning and in Spanish: Guía de Aprendizaje a Distancia para Padres to help support families.
Student breakfast and lunch drive through pickup here is now on Mondays and Thursdays 11:30-1:30, or at Roosevelt, Henry Ford or Taft from 2:30-4:30 Learn more here
Office Hours
Our school office is open to the public on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 8:00am-4:00pm. Please call to make an appointment if you need help. All staff and visitors to campus must:
- wear a mask
- use hand disinfectant when entering the office
- have your temperature taken in the office at the kiosk so we can screen you
- complete the visitor Wellness Screening From using the QR code in the office
- keep 6 feet of social distancing at all times
Please note that the school playgrounds(including play structures and swings) and field are closed. The general public should not be on the school campus.
Please send me an email of a photo of your child learning at home or a screen shot of their project and I will try to include it in upcoming newsletters.
Please visit our school website , Adelante Selby Facebook Page and our PTO/Unidos webpage and social media accounts: unidospto.org, Facebook and Instagram for more information.
Regards,
Director Warren
Our New School Sign for entrance by the new office
Happy Holidays to All!
Our new school office is almost finished
Maestra Ana's class: Journal Writing about Winter using Transitional Words: Primero, Luego, Al Final
Maestras Cynthia y Vanessa See Saw, Winter -Themed "Avatars"
Important December Dates
- November 30-Dec. 13: Scholastic Virtual Book Fair: unidospto.membershiptoolkit.com/bookfair
- December 7: ELAC Meeting, 4:00pm
- December 8: Super Minimum Day synchronous instruction ends by 11:45pm
- December 9: Library Book Distribution, 9:00-11:30, 12:30-2:30(Use drive through by Library)
- December 9: School Site Council Meeting, 3:00pm
- December 10: Food Distribution, 3:00pm
- December 11th and 18th: New Parent(TK or Kinder) Orientation Meeting, 10:00am: Join Zoom Meeting https://rcsdk8-net.zoom.us/j/83462949549?pwd=L1E5NWlWR2hRcHUwbWwrSjZtMnl5dz09 Meeting ID: 834 6294 9549 Passcode: Warren
- December 18: Minimum Day Dismissal, 1:00pm
- December 21: Luminaria Night (If you purchased a Luminaria, please put it out when it's dark)
- December 21-January 4: Winter Break
- January 5: Classes Resume