Principal's Message - September 28, 2015

Monte Vista School

The Independent Learning Academy

Principal’s Message

September 28, 2015

“The influence of teachers extends beyond the classroom, well into the future. It is they who shape and enrich the minds of the young, who touch their hearts and souls. It is they who shape a nation's future.”

F. Sionil Jose

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This message as well as the past messages can be found on the Principal’s Blog:

http://drmvpblog.blogspot.com/

Good Afternoon and a pleasant Monday! We’re winding down September and October is knocking on the door.  October will not only bring us Halloween but a plethora of activities and events for Monte Vista students and staff.

Back to School Night is Thursday evening.  We’ll start the evening (6:00pm) off with a complementary MVP Dog dinner, then a quick welcome in the MPR followed by classroom visits. Brittany has been busy making gift baskets for our opportunity drawing and a few lucky ticket holders will be selected to have the ‘naming rights’ for a couple our incoming baby chickens.  There will also be a ‘Passport’ program for students and all ‘Passport’ completers will be put in a special drawing.  Please encourage your students and families to attend!

Spin Class at the YMCA starts this Thursday!  Best deal in town!  Let’s make sure the word gets out….9 weeks for only a suggested donation of $25!  Class starts at 3:30pm.

Thursday, October 8 (6pm) will be our introductory Floral Design class, all students, parents and staff are welcome to attend.  Our first project will be a fall sunflower arrangement.  Future classes have been scheduled for 10/29 & 11/19. To make sure we have enough flowers and materials, please RSVP in the front office by Tuesday, October 6^th.

The PSAT is nationwide test given by the College Board.  The test is sometimes thought as a ‘pre SAT’ and will provide sophomores and juniors with great college readiness information. However, juniors that do well on it can qualify for the National Merit Scholarship.  This year Monte Vista will provide our students the opportunity to take the PSAT at a reduced fee of $5 (the other schools are charging up to $25!) on October 14. Please encourage all of your sophomores and juniors to stop by the front office to sign-up for it!

Field Trip Time!  The Getty Museum trip is all set for October 19^th.  Spots are limited, so please send you’re interested students to the front office sooner than later.  I’m planning on attending as well, it’s going to be tough to keep me out of the gardens…especially the roof-top cacti display!

Our C & I (Curiosity & Imagination) room will have its official grand opening this Wednesday at 9am.  It’s designed for the primary students (a little guy’s Makespace Lab).  If you have secondary students that would like to help mentor the young students, please send them over.  And speaking of the Makerspace Lab, we have received our 1^st shipment of mini bots with more to come.  Hopefully we can find a volunteer to help man it…I know many of our secondary students are just itching to get in there and start to ‘make’.

Our garden is up and growing!  The first planter has been planted with fall veggies by our primary students.  Hopefully when the weather cools in a few days, we can get the other gardens up and planted….if you have students that want to get their hands dirty, send them my way.  Our volunteer, Mr Ed Garcia should be here next week and hopefully be hired by the county as our Agscience teacher before too long.

Start thinking about some Harvest Day Crafts for October 29^th.  We’re looking for crafts for both primary and secondary students.  Perhaps we can even do a dress up day (notice I didn’t say “costume day”).  Students can come dress up as a literature figure (ie, Bilbo Baggins, Harry Potter, etc) or even as a historical figure (Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, etc).  Let’s hash this idea around at our Friday’s staff meeting.

Thanks for all the great interest in supporting Paul and signing up for the Fiddler on the Roof.  Out of the 25 tickets I reserved, currently we only have 6 tickets left, if you have a friend or family member that would like to attend, let me know.  Also, we’ve decided to eat dinner at the Junkyard prior to the play.

Finally, they say “mum’s the word”.  Not true!  We have been getting the word out that Monte Vista is the place to be!  So please take a moment and respond to the Blog (http://drmvpblog.blogspot.com/) and tell us what makes Monte Vista special!  And if you do (teachers, staff, blog readers), I’ll show you what I mean when I say Mum’s the word!

Follow Monte Vista on Twitter*, keep smiling and let’s all make it a great week!

Steve  :)