Principal's Newsletter
March 9, 2020
Principal's Message
Dear Adelante Selby families,
I want to assure our community that our district is taking steps to ensure the health and safety of our students as related to the Coronavirus/COVID-19. We encourage everyone to follow the San Mateo County Health Department's personal hygiene recommendations which include frequently washing hands(20 seconds at a time minimally), covering mouth and nose when sneezing and coughing-- ideally into a tissue and throwing the tissue away immediately or into the elbow of your arm. Also, it is important to avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, and staying home if you are feeling sick. Additionally, all non-essential activities have been cancelled in our district for the next 4 weeks. By "non-essential" activities we mean gatherings with more than 20 individuals that cause for participants to be in close proximity, which includes all school and district-sponsored activities taking place on and off campus. For example, the Auction/Parent Night Out event has been cancelled for this coming Saturday and will only be an ONLINE auction/fundraiser now. Also, the Kindergarden Super Saturday Party event is cancelled. Furthermore, the school district is saying that no volunteers are allowed to work on school campus for the next 4 weeks. Please follow the district web site regarding
COVID-19/ Coronavirus at: https://www.rcsdk8.net/Page/9720
I would like to call your attention to the wonderful school visit we had on February 25th to our SEAL classrooms in TK-3rd grade. We had visitors from the Learning Policy Institute (researchers and policy writers from Stanford University), the president and secretary-treasurer of the California Teachers' Association, the president of the California School Board Association, Early Childhood Education policy researchers and writers, Antioch school District admins, teachers, coaches and parents, and several other representatives from nonprofits and advocacy organizations.They were all impressed to see alignment between grade levels in terms of teaching strategies, and yet also such a variety of ways the strategies were implemented. They commented on a strong balance of collaborative work, whole-group teaching, and independent work-- more so than during any other visit they have had so far. Here are some highlights of what they noticed in the teaching and learning they observed:
Student interactions and patterns of participation:
Think-pair-shares during whole-class instruction
Students building on one another's responses
Students excitedly explaining what they're learning about
Student collaboration:
Students using content language and language functions even when not directed to
Students talking and laughing their way through SEAL center work-- interacting with chants, graphic organizers, working with retelling and summarizing, doing science experiments
Students negotiating teamwork skills (it is not always easy!)
Talking and writing their way through observation pictures
Taking language to the next level:
Scaffolding and then generating responses from students rather than instructing them what to say (students made their own sentence frames)
Pulling phonics concepts from chants
Pulling concepts from chants and having students create sentence frames around the language function
Students writing and sharing questions after experimenting in the research center
Below are some of the comments they left for our amazing teachers and staff that I woud ike to share:
Thank you so much for opening your classrooms to us. The students were all clearly engaged and surrounded by amazing study of language and content. There is clearly a lot of work that goes into these amazing classrooms, job well done! Amazing! -Natasha
Grateful for the opportunity to learn from you! The joy and engagement of students was contagious. I was really impressed with the alignment across the classrooms. I'm so curious about how things are going with the merger and integration. Thanks!
Thank you so much for opening your creative, dynamic, joy-filled space for us to learn...I loved the active participation, pair and group learning, challenging exciting learning and incorporation of art, music and dance. You are such gifts to our children, families and community!
Thank you for dedicating your lives to shaping and educating our children! You all are the real heroes!
Thank you so much for your generosity in sharing your classrooms with us. It was a pleasure to watch your amazing work in action! Thank you!
Thank you for opening your classrooms to us! We learned so much and are inspired by your work to support bilingual learners!
Thank you for letting us visit. Amazing learning in all your classrooms. I learned a little Spanish even :-)
Thank you for allowing so many strangers into your space. Being monolingual, I was able to follow along with your students. Amazing opportunities available for your students with many options.
Thank you for allowing us to visit your classrooms. The joy and rigor and variety of engaging activities were inspiring.
I'm so appreciative for the opportunity to visit your classrooms. So much inspiring student engagement and inspiring teaching! I especially liked the consistency and familiarity between classrooms, which speaks to a lot of collaboration among you, the educators, so that the students can have a better experience. Gracias!
Thank you so very much for welcoming us into your classrooms. There is a powerful learning taking place here. What an inspiration! Thanks for sharing your passion for dual language education with us.
Thank you so much! Your classrooms are wonderful and amazing. I wish all classrooms looked like the ones I saw today.
The school naming committee met on February 28th and narrowed down the community input and voting to 3 names: Adelante Spanish Immersion, Adelante Selby Spanish Immersion, and Unidos Spanish Immersion. Superintendent Baker will select one of the three names and present it as a final choice at the Redwood City School Board meeting this Wednesday, March 11th at 7:00 pm at 750 Bradford Street. The School Board will make a final decision at the Wednesday, March 18th meeting at 7:00pm. Community members have the opportunity to speak to the School Board for 3 minutes about the school name by filling out a speaker card at the Board meeting.
Please check out the Lost and Found in the Cafeteria as it is overflowing again with coats, sweatshirts, lunch boxes, and water bottles. As the Lost and Found is overflowing, we will be recycling the clothing this Friday so please come by the Lost and Found and see if your child lost a sweater, jacket, lunch box, etc.
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
Kindergarten and 1st Grade Danny G Dance Performance
Crazy Hair Spirit Day
BMX Show in After School Program
1st Grade Consumer/Producer Market Photos
Volcano Eruptions!
March Events
- 3/9-3/13 Parent Teacher Conferences, 1:25pm Student Dismissal All Week
- 3/11 Redwood City School Board Meeting to discuss new school name, 7:00pm
- 3/16 ELAC meeting 8:45am, Room 204
- 3/18 Redwood City School Board Meeting to discuss new school name 7:00pm
- 3/20 No School
- 3/25 School Site Council Meeting 3:00pm, Room 501
April Events
- 4/2 Science Fair/STEAM night times TBD
- 4/3 Early Dismissal at 1:25pm
- 4/6-4/10 No School, Spring Break
- 4/13 ELAC meeting 8:45, Room 204
- 4/14 Unidos/PTO meeting, 6:00pm, Library
- 4/22 School Site Council Meeting, 3:00pm, Room 501
- 4/25 Day of the Child/Día del Niño event, 11:00-4:00pm