Hilltop Herald - Parent Edition
Be Respectful ~ Be Responsible ~ Be Resilient
Volume 1 ~ Issue 18 ~ December 5, 2022
Wonderful Falcon Families,
“Champions understand that finishing strong in practice, leads to finishing strong in application. You play the way you practice.” ~Atlas Rowe~
Families, we are almost done with Semester 1! The message that I want to end this semester is the concept of FINISHING STRONG. While this year was our second year in returning to school, it was still a very challenging year. Many of us were afflicted with COVID and had to miss school. Some were anxious about being in school in person. Whatever the reason you may have for experiencing a challenging semester, finishing the semester strong is the message that you need to cling to. Yes, you may still fail the semester but quitting is never the option. Quitting or giving up is worse that finishing strong and experiencing a glorious failure. Why? Because from failure you can learn and bounce back and do better. If you quit, then you do not learn anything at all. Students, we have one more week for you to raise your grades if you are failing one or more. Go to Falcon Scholar and the final Saturday Academy of the year and finish this semester strong. Then you will be able to look forward to a three-week break, get refreshed and start Semester 2 stronger. But before we go into the break, below are important events that will be occurring in the next couple of weeks.
Teacher of the Year Nominations 2022-2023
Staff, it is that time of year again when we get to nominate one of our teachers as Teacher of the Year. Any member of the Falcon community can nominate but only teachers get to vote. Click HERE to nominate a teacher. After teachers vote, I send the name of our HTM Teacher of the Year to the district where he/she/they will be interviewed for consideration for District Teacher of the Year. The top 5 District Teachers of the Year will represent the district at the Salute to Teachers for County Teacher of the Year.
GRATITUDE NOMINATIONS FOR STAFF
Falcons, you have the opportunity to honor a staff member or more by completing a gratitude nomination form. Click on this LINK to access the form. If you are nominating one staff member, you only need to complete the form once. However, if you want to recognize more than one, you will need to complete the form by the number of staff members you wish to recognize. You also have to use your district gmail/Google account NOT your personal one. We will close this form on December 9. Our goal is to have all staff members recognized.
Individual Student Empathy Interviews
In order to better serve our HTM community, the Faculty Advisory Committee has approved the use of Advisory time this week to ask 1-2 students on their roster to share about their experiences at HTM. If you do not want your child to be interviewed, please let admin know so we can inform their Advisory teachers.
END-OF-COURSE EXAMS INFORMATION
It is only two weeks away from end-of-course exams or finals, which will be given on December 13 (Periods 1 & 2), 14 (Periods 3 & 4) & 15 (Periods 5 & 6). These dates are all minimum days with a release time of 12:50pm. Please continue to encourage your children to work hard, catch up on any missing assignments and talk to their teachers if they are not passing at this time. If your children are in danger of failing a class at this time, you should have received a written report(s) from the teacher of the class(es).
Holiday Spirit Week Starts December 5
December 5th will start our final Spirit Week of Semester 1 and it is a holiday theme. We will end spirit week with a Holiday Dance right after school on Friday, December 9, 2022. Sales of dance tickets will start that Monday and will occur at the ASB Store. Please see flyers below.
Running in the Hallways
Falcons, please be mindful that our hallways are not wide and running in them during passing period and into nutrition break and lunch can cause you to bump into someone and could possibly potentially hurt them. Please no running.
Winter Dance on December 9
Students, we will be hosting a winter dance to end our final Semester 1 Spirit Week. Please buy your tickets at the ASB store during lunch and after school. The Cost is $10 and will occur between 2:00pm and 3;30pm. If you have a song request, please click on this LINK to put in your request by Thursday, December 8. It will give us a chance to check all the songs.
Winter Sports Schedule is Out
If you are in soccer, here are the dates for the games. All games are scheduled to be at Southwest High School. More details to follow and all coaches will email you all the details. Please mark on your calendar. Note: schedules might change at the last minute.
- December 10, 2022
- December 17, 2022
- January 14, 2023
- January 21, 2023
- January 28, 2023
- February 4, 2023
Please make sure that you read the newsletter in its entirety to ensure that you are in the KNOW of what is happening at HTM.
Sincerely,
Ms. Finley
Study participants who enrolled and/or reported test results through July 16, 2022, will receive a Year 1 cash incentive. Year 2 incentives earned after July 16 will be distributed in January or February.
To roll out the process, we will begin distributing cash incentives to staff on one or two days over the next two weeks. We hope to start disseminating cash incentives to parents of students and their household members starting on designated days as early as the week of December 5.
For HTl, we will be disseminating thefollowing incentives:
- A total of $60.00 incentives to total of 16 staff
- A total $576.00 incentives to a total of 131 students and household members
- A total $471.00 incentives to a total of 103 graduated 8th grade students and household members.
The cash incentives that individuals will receive range from $2.00 to $60.00 with most incentives under $5.00
Incentive Dissemination &Safety Considerations:
- We will confirm proposed cash incentive dissemination dates and locations with you.
- Cash incentives will not be stored at the school overnight, but will be stored at the SDSU research office.
- A parent/guardian will be required to pick up incentives for all students/minors unless they provide prior written authorization to the Return to School staff.
- We will notify and schedule parents in advance to pick up incentives on the scheduled dates.
Two Return to School team members will always be present when disseminating incentives
Easter Finley, Principal
Email: easter.finley@sweetwaterschools.org
Website: htm.sweetwaterschools.org
Location: 44 East J Street, Chula Vista, CA, USA
Phone: 619.498.2700
Twitter: @erfinleysd