Designers' Reminders
October 29, 2023
Weekly Messaging from Design39Campus
Here What's Happening in the Month of October into November
- October 31: Halloween
- November 1: Dio De Los Muertos/All Saints' Day
- November 5: Day Light Savings
- November 7: Collaborative Pizza Party
- November 7-8: Minimum Days (Student-Led Conferences)
- November 9: No School (Student-Led Conferences)
- November 10: No School (Veterans Day Observed)
- November 12: Diwali
- November 20: Transgender Day of Remembrance
- November 20-24: No School (Thanksgiving Break)
Facilitators' Findings
It's that time of year again where we remind you that there's no evidence in the text that the song "Monster Mash" takes place on Halloween. Since the song was recorded in May 1962, and released on August 25, 1962, the song has no explicit ties to Halloween. It's just a fun party song for monsters that could be in April, or it could be a summer monster anthem. We just don't know for sure.
Also, you’ve never heard the actual "Monster Mash." You've just heard a record about the Monster Mash. Bobby Pickett, the singer, is a non-monster recalling an occasion when he heard monsters mashing. At best, his recording is only a rough approximation. We have only listened to the story of how the "Monster Mash" was played by a group of monsters a la "We Are The World" style. The only actually known hearer of the "Monster Mash," Bobby Pickett, died in 2007. So, unless the monsters agree to appear for a repeat performance or reunion tour, the actual song will remain fundamentally unknowable to us.
What's not up for debate is the obvious fact that the "Monster Mash" was a graveyard smash — it’s right there in the lyrics. The real song must patently slap if the narrator says it does in every chorus.
Halloween Reminders
As a reminder, if your student chooses to dress up for Halloween, we ask that the following guidelines be observed:
No weapons. Knives, guns, or batons are not permitted at school. If your child does have these items, they will be removed and returned at the end of the day
No costumes that depict violence, alcohol, or drugs
No masks, face coverings, or face paint. Students' faces must be visible throughout the school day
No costumes that could be offensive. i.e., a stereotype of someone’s culture, gender, heritage, or religion
We also ask that you save your scary costumes for the evening, sending your child in attire that will not “scare or spook” our young designers. Students wearing questionable costumes will be asked to change into appropriate school attire.
Thank you for your support.
What I Wish My Parents Knew
What I Wish My Parents Knew is back and you are invited to attend! This is a series of workshops held twice a year for PUSD parents to learn about their students and some of the realities of their day-to-day world in school today. Workshop sessions include Establishing Guardrails, Managing Stress & Anxiety, Social Media Pressures, and Balancing Academics. Sessions are facilitated by PUSD Administrators and local faith leaders, and also feature student voice! The fall WIWMPK workshops will be held on Wednesday, November 8th starting at 6pm at Oak Valley Middles School. No sign-ups are needed - please make sure to bring a friend or two with you to this important and unique parent event!
PUSD Substitute Teachers Needed
With flu, cold, and COVID season upon us, we are once again in need of qualified substitutes to support PUSD and our campus in the event of an LED absence.
If you or someone you know are interested in applying to become a substitute teacher with Poway Unified School District, please click here.
Couraging with Design
Equitable Spaces
Equity at Design39Campus
November marks National Adoption Month and National Native American Heritage Month.
National Adoption Month: National Adoption Month is an initiative of the Children’s Bureau that seeks to increase national awareness of adoption issues, bring attention to the need for adoptive families for teens in the U.S. foster care system, and emphasize the value of youth engagement. The 2023 National Adoption Month theme, “Empowering Youth: Finding Points of Connection,” emphasizes the importance of providing opportunities and services that connect youth to their backgrounds to support meaningful permanent relationships. When youth are connected to their roots, they can build a strong identity. But for more than 114,000 teens in foster care, it’s difficult to experience these connections when they are separated from their families. Without access to or knowledge of their history, many teens may leave foster care disconnected from their roots and wondering, “Who am I?”
National Native American Heritage Month: November is National Native American Heritage Month. The month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people. Design39Campus has always called this place home, but even as we celebrate our opportunity to learn and design here, we want to take a moment to pause, reflect, and honor those who were here long, long before us. We acknowledge that the land upon which our campus resides carries the footsteps of millennia of Kumeyaay people.
Since time immemorial, these original inhabitants were stewards of the land before they were dispossessed of their indigenous homeland and forcibly removed to places throughout San Diego County and Baja California. They are a people whose traditional lifeways intertwine with a worldview of earth and sky in a community of living beings. This land is part of a relationship that has nourished, healed, protected, and embraced the Kumeyaay people to the present day. We promote this balance in life as we pursue our goals of knowledge and understanding. We find inspiration in the Kumeyaay spirit to open our minds and hearts.
Today, the Kumeyaay people continue to maintain their political sovereignty and cultural traditions, and they continue to make important contributions to their communities, to California, and to the world.
It is important to acknowledge those indigenous people who called this place home and recognize that we are here because of the sacrifices forced upon them. In remembering these communities, we honor their legacy, their lives, and their descendants — past, present, and future.
We are committed to celebrating all students, recognizing and combating wrongs of the past, and honoring the many cultures who make up our school community. Together, on this sacred land, we strive to make a difference.
Welcome Center Information
Lost and Found
AVID Tip of the Week
Our AVID tip of the week is focused on Goal Setting:
Is there a sport you want to improve? Earn a good grade on a test? Set goals for yourself that are specific, measurable, realistic, and timely! When you make goals, you are challenging yourself to grow, and when you incorporate an action plan, it makes it more likely to be achieved. This week, create a specific goal that you can measure and achieve by Saturday.
Counseling Connections
Our Outstanding Team
Matt Bibby (last names A-I): mbibby@powayusd.com
Jennifer Asmann (last names J-R): jasmann@powayusd.com
Andrea Guevara (last names S-Z): aguevara@powayusd.com
Traffic Update
With the construction complete, you will notice that there are cones that are now closing down certain isles (please see attached picture). We are asking all vehicles that arrive in the parking lot to exit the last open lane to exit the parking area.
Lofty Ideas
Many of our younger designers practiced yoga poses while listening to I Am Yoga by Peter H. Reynolds during Loft time. We discussed how to keep our bodies and minds healthy as part of Red Ribbon Week.
Trunk or Treat
Redundant Repetitious Reiterating Repeated Recurrent Routine Reminders
Yes, You Have Seen This Before
Cuyamaca Outdoor School (6th Grade Camp): February 5th through the 9th, 2024. Detailed Camp Packets will be coming home soon. Please take a look home soon!
For information on camp, please check out this movie, or this slideshow, or you can go to their website. It is the best week of middle school!
It is never too early to begin preparing for one of the most momentous events of middle school, 6th Grade Camp. D39C 6th grade students will be attending Camp Cuyamaca February 5th through the 9th, 2024. This is not a dusty tent camping experience in the wilderness. Camp Cuyamaca is a fully accredited outdoor school run by the San Diego Country Office of Education based in our local mountains. Students will engage in science and problem solving activities and also enjoy hiking, rock climbing, and so much more!!!
The cost of the five-day program will be $455***; which includes transportation, food, lodging and medical insurance. It is an incredible experience and we are so excited to offer this opportunity to all students in PUSD.
You have two payment options:
- Cash
- Check (made payable to PUSD; please write your child's name in the memo line)
***Scholarships are available. Please see you LED for additional information***
Attendance and OCIS Contracts: With the holiday season rapidly approaching, we often have families who choose to take time off from school to travel. While we strongly encourage families not to miss school days, I also want to make you aware of our policy if you choose to take time off.
If you have a student who will not be in class for 5-14 days, please notify the office so we can have the parents fill out an OCIS contract for their child. The forms will have to be completed and signed by parents 5-10 days in advance of the absence. Click here for a link to the OCIS Contract.
Parents are required to give 5 days notice for absences up to 5 days, 10 days notice for absences more than 5 days.
Prepping work for students who are absent is an incredible amount of work for our teaching staff and we ask that you give your child’s teacher as much advance notice as possible beyond the above guidelines.
We do not write contracts beyond 14 days. If you plan to be away for 15 or more days please contact the Welcome Center for the necessary procedures.
Would you like to become a part of the Design39Campus Team? Do you like to be outside and work with children? If so, we are looking for a few quality Motion Managers to help support our designers during body breaks and lunch during the middle of the day. Possible times are 10:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. or 11:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. If interested, please apply through Poway Unified School District at the this link.
Attendance: To report your child's absence or early checkout, please email the attendance office at d39cattendance@powayusd.com before 10:00 am on the day of the absence. Please include your child's name, homeroom/grade, dates of absence, and reason for absence. We kindly ask that you avoid checking out your student during the lunch period from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm. Please refer to the attendance section of our Design39Campus website for protocols regarding reporting student absences and requesting early release for your student.'
California Education Code 48205 states that a student may be excused legally from school when the absence is due to:
- Personal illness or injury
- Quarantine under the direction of a county or city health office
- Medical, dental, or chiropractic services
- Attendance at funeral services for a member of the immediate family
- Justifiable personal reasons, including, but not limited to, an appearance in court, observance of a holiday or ceremony of his or her religion, attendance at religious retreats, attendance at an employment conference, when the pupil's absence has been requested in writing by the parent and approved by the principal or designated representative
- For the purpose of serving as a member of a precinct board for an election
- Exclusion for failure to present evidence of immunization
- Exclusion from school because student is either the carrier of a contagious disease or not immunized for a contagious disease
Drop Off/Pick Up Reminders: Please remind your designers that they should be walking their bikes, e-bikes, scooters, skateboards, hoverboards, horses, segways, pogo-sticks, unicorns, and unicycles when on D39C campus. Also, while we love puppers and always want to pet them when we see them, please refrain from bringing them on campus during drop off and pick up. Thank you.
Communication with your Designer: If there is a need to communicate with your child during the school day, please send a message to your child’s LED or the Welcome Center. Please refrain from communicating with them directly through text messages or phone calls as it disrupts their learning.
Personal Items: For equity reasons, we are asking that students keep their personal playground equipment at home or in their backpack. Our wonderful Collaborative supplies us with enough funding to ensure that there is enough equipment during recess and lunch.
The Design39Campus Collaborative
The D39C Collaborative is a 100% volunteer-run foundation designed to be responsive to the needs of students, parents, and learning experience designers of Design39Campus. Once a year, the D39C Collaborative secures funding to expand and enhance the educational experience of every student attending Design39Campus.
This year’s 39 days of giving campaign was the school’s most successful yet. Thank you so much to all our generous families.
What's Up With Poway Unified?
Exceptional Family Resource Center: Our Special Education Department has partnered with Exceptional Family Resource Center to provide a parent engagement series for our families of students with IEPs. The next session will be Wednesday, November 1, 2023, from 6:00-7:30 p.m. in the District Office Community Room. The topic is “Beyond the Basics of the IEP” where we will dig into the specific portions of the IEP in greater detail and connect the concepts to the IEP forms used by PUSD.
EmpowerED Digital Magazine
We are excited to debut the first-ever edition of our new EmpowerED Digital Magazine, to highlight all the ways you are empowering world-class learners every single day! We want to share with each other and the rest of our community what makes Poway Unified students, staff, and families so special in this visually pleasing, multi-media platform moving forward.
Click here or anywhere on the below image to be taken to a flipbook to enjoy the magazine. You'll see slideshows, links, and videos embedded in the pages. We hope you love it as much as we do! Feel free to share it with your family, friends, alum, retirees - anyone who might enjoy it too.
Parent Education Courses: PUSD is excited offer several Parent Education courses each month. Families are able to enroll and pay online at via Poway Adult School on their website linked HERE. You can search for the course you are interested in and enroll directly from the site.
November 2023 Parent Education Courses:
- Help Your Teen Manage Stress and Anxiety – 6th -12th Grade NEW
- Early Childhood Development: Language is a Cognitive Super Power TK-3rd Grade NEW
- Help Your Children Manage Stress and Anxiety – TK-5th Grade
Please note, scholarships are available to parents who may be in need. Parent can contact the Caring Connections Center for more information.
Thank you for supporting our PUSD Parent Education and for all you do for our students and families! May you have an amazing 2023-2024 school year!
Food and Nutrition Updates and Reminders: School breakfast and school lunch are FREE for all enrolled students, every school day. Meals must still be entered into the cafeteria computer by individual student account.
Even though meals are free, families are still highly encouraged to complete the application for free and reduced-price meal eligibility. School site funding depends in part on the number of students eligible for free/reduced-price meals. Families that qualify for free/reduced-price meals may qualify for other benefits, as well. The meal application is available online at MySchoolApps.com.
Printer-friendly PDF menus are available on the PUSD Food and Nutrition webpage. At the top of the page, click or hover over School Menus + and then Printable PDF Menus.
Interactive, web-based menus containing nutrient and allergen details are available at MySchoolMenus.com, as well as via links from the F&N webpage.