NHS Family Newsletter
May 1, 2020
Checking In- only 4.5 more weeks!
We wanted to update you on plans to move to the end of the year, and try to anticipate needs and questions that you might have.
If we have missed something or if you have further questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.
4th Quarter Progress Reports
The next update will be coming on May 8th, in the form of a progress report for the 4th quarter. You will be able to see this update online on homelink.
Every class should have remote learning expectations and offerings- if you are concerned about a class, or have not been aware of the offerings from a particular teacher, please reach out to them to be sure that you have all of the class codes needed. Office Hours can be found here.
Our students and our teachers have impressed us every day with their resilience, innovation and creativity during this time, and we are building skills and capacity for our entire community in the event that remote learning becomes more common in the future.
Friday, May 8, 2020, 05:00 PM
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NHS Staff reaches out to the community
Internet
MDUSD Hosts 10 Wireless Internet Parking Lot Hot-Spots
Our passion and commitment is to serve you, and even in our five final weeks of the school year, we are pushing to increasingly meet the needs of our community—sometimes in creative ways.
Please see our Parking Lot Wireless web page, which details our provision of internet at 10 school site parking lots district-wide. We are grateful to our diligent Technology and Information Services staff for these arrangements in addition to the thousands of devices distributed and affordable internet options secured. Any Mt. Diablo Unified School District device should be able to connect to the internet at these locations.
While we ask that you maintain social and physical distance while doing so, we hope that more students are able to connect to their distance learning platforms.
Seniors celebrated in the community
Our amazing Parent Faculty Club designed and purchased these signs for every Northgate senior to display in front of their homes.
While we continue to work on plans to celebrate our seniors and an alternative to the traditional commencement ceremony, our seniors are making commitments to their colleges of choice, the military, and trade schools, looking to the future and the answer to "what is next?"
Locker Clean Out/ Textbook Return/ Award distribution/ Equipment return
We will assign families times and days to come by, and you will have the opportunity to clean out lockers, return textbooks, and retrieve any other items we have for the student, including any awards from athletic teams etc.
At this time, students needing texts for summer assignments will be able to pick these up as well.
We will send those assignments as this gets closer, which will be strategically scheduled to allow for following protocol laid out by the County Office of Health, and staff will be wearing personal protective equipment as well.
Please note senior appointments will be assigned the week of May 27th.
Monday, Jun 8, 2020, 09:00 AM
Northgate High School, Castle Rock Road, Walnut Creek, CA, USA
If your student needs more support...
Mindful Fridays
12 - 12:30 pm
Friday, May 1, 2020, 12:00 PM
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Self-Care during this time
I know that this is a challenging time for many, both personally and professionally, as we all navigate our temporary new living and working circumstances. One resource that I found useful this week comes from the Yale University's Center for Emotional Intelligence. They posted tips for managing anxiety around COVID-19 and I appreciate that their first tip is:
Start with yourself: Before you help others with their feelings, make sure you are okay—that you are calm enough to validate, reassure, and support others. Practice your calming strategies. Practice self-care. Talk to others. Breathe.
Check out their additional tips for individuals and school communities at rulerapproach.org.
All staff meetings are four pages on zoom!
Wrestling lends a hand- and donates to the Crisis Center
Teams and classes find ways to connect
Requesting Refunds
- Junior Prom- Go to the main Northgate webpage, and click on webstore. From a pull down menu, you will be able to select Junior Prom. You can request a refund or you can request to apply the cost of tickets purchased to the cost of the senior ball for next year.
- Athletics- for team contributions in spring sports- while these are technically donations, and refunds are not generally allowed per fiscal management regulations, we fully recognize that these are dire and challenging times for many families. If you would like to request a refund for your team contributions, please contact your team booster representative.
- Field Trips- these are also technically donations, but we would like to honor refund requests for all. Please use the same link as above in the ASB Webstore on the main webpage to request. This includes the Cal Academy of Sciences and Ashland.
- Choir tour refunds should be requested through the music boosters.
- Grad night refunds will be issued through the PFC.
With any of these refunds, you can of course donate the funds back to the school if you wish. Please follow above procedures or contact us.
Graduation 2020
- Physical celebration- This may be in the form of a car parade, a socially distanced commencement celebration with limited in-person audience, use of our local drive-in theater for a limited commencement celebration, or one of several other ideas we are working through.
-Commemorative video celebration- We will be putting together a video commencement for all graduating seniors, with speeches, the reading of the names, and the senior photos, and perhaps a few surprises! This will be aired for a virtual "watch party" and available for repeated viewing.
We will share information as this plan is fully formulated and vetted by the district and county regulations.
Wednesday, Jun 3, 2020, 07:00 PM
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Grading and Graduation
3rd quarter traditional letter grades were based on work assigned before the closure on March 13th.
4th quarter, from March 16th through June 3rd will be Credit/No Credit based on work done during distance learning.
2nd Semester, which is based on work done in both 3rd and 4th quarter, will also be Credit/No Credit.
Students are expected to communicate with their teachers and engage in the curriculum during this time in order to receive credit for the semester. Teachers and admin will be reaching out to families of students who have not or are not engaging in classes to help problem-solve where possible.
This Credit/No Credit will not affect the cumulative GPA, but will be the mark that appears on the student's permanent transcript.
Students who received D's or F's in classes 3rd quarter are in danger of receiving no credit for those classes and should be working with their teachers to raise these grades.
Students will be "held harmless" during this online learning time- their grades will not be reduced if they are unable to complete work during this time due to extenuating circumstances.
Seniors must still earn a total of 220 credits to graduate. Counselors and admin will be contacting families of seniors in danger of not graduating to work with them to get to the finish line. If you have any questions, please contact your academic counselor.
Yearbooks
The bad news- the manufacturer is not considered an essential business, and production is hindered by this. We do not know when these books will be made and sent, nor when we can distribute them. It is very likely this will need to occur during the summer.
Great news again- you can still order a yearbook online! Go to the webstore at http://northgatehighschool.org
Student Body Elections
2020-21 School Year
- While Governor Newsom did make a comment about school's possibly reopening in July, please know that the district has no plans to start the school year early. School is scheduled to begin again on August 13th.
- We do not know at this time what school will be like when we come back in the fall, and many possibilities are being considered by the district office. We will communicate out as soon as we know details.
- Class scheduling is occurring as usual, and families will get a first pass at class assignments in late May.
Who can I contact?
Last Name A-G ...................................Naseem Saremi~~~~saremin@mdusd.org~~~ext 3546
Last Name H-O....................................Kristen Bligh~~~~~~blighk@mdusd.org~~~~ext 3526
Last Name P-Z.....................................Mandy Kaur~~~~~~kaurm@mdusd.org~~~~ext 3539
Vice Principals
Last Name A-L.....................................Kelly Cooper~~~~~~cooperk@mdusd.org~~ext 3502
Last Name M-Z....................................Craig Bocks~~~~~~bocksc@mdusd.org~~~ext 3503
Northgate High School
Email: cooperk@mdusd.org
Website: http://northgatehighschool.org
Location: 425 Castle Rock Road, Walnut Creek, CA, USA
Phone: 925-938-0900
Twitter: @northgatehs