Volume I Issue 10 ~ November 4, 2018
1. Academics Spotlight
Ms. Warren's art classes visited LACMA and the Craft and folk art museum Last Thursday. Students are posing in Uzumaki Cepeda's colorful faux fur installation. Earlier in the week, Drawing and Painting Classes took a walking field trip to do plien air sketches around PV Drive. 
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2. Athletics Spotlight
Football beat Harvard Westlake in the first round of CIF playoffs 42-6. The team will continue their path to the ring this Friday.

Congratulations to the Boys Cross Country team who won the Bay League Championship on Thursday and the Girls who finished second. Both teams will complete in the CIF prelims in Riverside on Friday.

Girls Tennis lost to Corona Del Mar on Friday in the CIF Quarterfinals. Congratulations girls on a great season!

Girls Golf Meg Yoshida (75) and Keira Wang (76) advance to CIF/SCGA Souther State Regional Championship held at Brookside/Pasadena next Thursday! Go Sea Kings!

Boys Water Polo finished the season with a loss to Foothill 10-8. Congratulations boys on a great season!
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3. Activities Spotlight
Ending our October Spirit month, BTC hosted the annual Red Ribbon Week to promote making good choices and raising awareness about substance abuse. Lunchtime activities included signing the hallway chalkboard with a dream or goal, participating in the drunk driving simulator, and planting a tulip, pledging to be drug free. 
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This week also ended with a Dia de los Muertos celebration sponsored by the Spanish National Honor Society. Dia de los Muertos, known as Day of the Dead, is a 2 day celebration in many spanish speaking countries that honors our loved ones that we have lost. Students got tattoos, made papel picado, and even got to color in calaveras, or skulls.
4. Halloween
Halloween was a great day here at PV high. Students dressed up in creative costumes with their friends. Some of the highlights include aliens, dinosaurs, tacky tourists, giraffes, and even the head coaches from various college football teams. BTC hosted the first ever costume contest in conjunction with pumpkin palooza at lunch time to get all students involved. The wellness center was also open all day with a caramel apple station available for any of our students.
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5. Library Spotlight
With the Halloween spirit taking over campus, the library joined in the fun to offer a haunted Break Out Box challenge to our students. Similar to an escape room, break out boxes challenges students to think critically and use the clues provided to solve the mystery. Students even had to use a blacklight to decode and solve the problems.

Ms. Ruiz's 10th grade English class came in to unlock the secret to Macbeth's Demise as did Ms. Sheridan's AVID 9 classes - to solve the mystery of Haunted High. And Ms. Belmonte's 3rd period came in to save Halloween for all Trick-or-treaters!
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6. PV Sunset Rotary Club Art Contest Winners
Congratulations to Chloe Boss, Seven Smith-Mercer and Madison Tody for their participation in the Palos Verdes Sunset Rotary Club’s Art Contest which took place on Tuesday, October 30. They displayed beautiful pieces of original artwork encompassing the 2018-2019 Rotary theme of “Be the Inspiration”. Madison Tody placed first in this competition and will now progress to the Rotary District 5280 competition in March at Loyola Marymount University with prizes up to $1,000 for the top contestant!
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7. Red Ribbon Week Speakers
In conjunction with Red Ribbon Week, our BTC leadership group hosted two guest speakers this week. Our guest speakers spoke to both students and parents about substance abuse, positive choices, and the long term effects of drugs. Thank you to all of the students and parents who attend and to our guest speakers for taking the time to connect with our community.
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8. Korean Lunches
Over 700 box lunches with beef or tofu were successfully distributed to our Sea Kings this past week to encourage students to learn about Korean culture.
Special thank you to the Korean Food Global Association for the tasty meals. Another huge thank you to the Korean Honor Society students, Korean class students, and to our parents for their support and help in making this a successful day.
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9. Student Spotlight
This week Triton Yearbook leaders joined Ms. Pavelka for the Fall National High School Journalism Convention in Chicago to participate in Write-Off competitions, Breaks with the Pros, publication evaluations, pod design meetings and visits to Loyola of Chicago, University of Chicago and Northwestern. Editors and staffers joined 6,000 other journalists from across the nation in yearbook, newspaper, podcast and broadcast journalism.
10. Next week at a glance
Monday:
  • Mock elections in Social Science classes

Tuesday:
  • CSU Application Workshop will take place in the College and Career Center. Students should have started their CSU Application and should bring a copy of their transcript. Two sessions will take place as follows:
Session 1: 9:00 am – 9:45 am
Session 2: 10:15 am – 11:00 am
  • Mock elections in Social Science classes
  • The Sea King Sustainability Committee will meet at lunch in the library. Students, staff & community members welcome. Help us make a lasting difference!

Wednesday:
  • Late Start Faculty Meeting
  • Stop by the library at lunch for another one of our lunchtime series, Information Insight: Career Q&A. Ms. Cherie Hudson will be joining us to talk about her career as a School Social Worker and the value in building professional relationships and saying YES to opportunity.

Thursday :
  • Golf Tournament
  • Fall Music Recital 7pm in the MPR

Friday :
  • CIF Football Quarterfinal game. Look for more details soon! To help our Sea King family celebrate, we are taking $5 off the new t-shirts at the student store. Long sleeve and short sleeve on sale. Hurry in and get your logo shirts for this week’s game!
  • XC CIF Prelims

Enjoy the long weekend! Remember there is no school on Monday November 12th in honor of Veteran's Day.
Health and Wellness

UNTENDED NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES

When the topic of teen drug or alcohol use comes up, many parents do not pay close attention. The majority feel that their children do not have major issues. When there is a presentation or lecture, they do not feel the need to attend, thinking it does not apply to them. For those where there is an issue, concerns around shame and embarrassment and not wanting to publicly air problems prevents them for seeking help. Compared to most medical problems, substance abuse is endured in silence, and when one needs assistance, there is reluctance to go to a friend, neighbor, or physician, and ask for a good referral.

The reality is, the vast majority of your children will not develop an addiction problem. Only about 7% will fall into the most severe category of use in their lifetime. While that may bring some measure of relief, at the Thelma McMillen Center we have learned that the real danger for most is what we call “unintended negative consequences”. Any use by a child or teenager exposes them to significant risks. I use the analogy that using is like walking through a mine field, and accidentally stepping on a mine will a major negative impact. The following are the major unintended negative consequences that teens encounter, with any degree of use:

School Problems. For teens who experiment with alcohol and drugs, their school performance often suffers. Some drugs, like marijuana, have significant impact on memory and concentration. While impact may only be a grade or two, such impact has effect on college admission and future. Their friends and activities could change. The vicious cycle then turns towards low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. These consequences are often a result of experimental use, and do not require full blown addiction.

Legal Problems. Using substances or alcohol is illegal. The consequences for even a single use can be significant. Being ticketed, or even arrested for a substance related issue will follow the child for a long time. Certain legal actions can effect the ability to gain college admission, or to qualify for financial scholarship or assistance. I worked with a law school graduate who was ticketed for alcohol as a teen, and had to defend himself to the moral character committee in order to be admitted to the bar. These are not problems of addiction, but of experimentation.

Sexual Issues. The use of drugs and alcohol correlate with higher incidences of sexual experimentation. Substance use reduces judgment and good decision making, and can result in sexually transmitted disease, unwanted pregnancy, and accusations of sexual assault. (did anyone watch the Supreme Court confirmation hearings). I have worked with teens who have been accused of sexual assault, and have undergone severe legal and financial consequences. These were not kids who were addicted, but just experimenting.

Accidents. Over the last twenty years, life expectancy has increased for all ages except 15-24. The three leading causes of death are accident, suicide, and homicide, all linked to drug and alcohol use. Although only 17% of the population, 15-24 year olds are involved in 48% of the fatal accidents. I have worked with many kids who have injured or killed others while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and have undergone significant consequences. The majority of them were not addicted, but just experimenting.

I write to you about unintended negative consequences not to frighten you, but to make you aware of things that could happen without your child having a drug or alcohol problem. It is essential to have a belief and philosophy when it comes to substance use, and to make sure you effectively communicate that to your children. While you will not be able to fully control their behavior, clear messages from you could make a difference. The goal is to delay experimentation. In our program, we have recognized the need to work with early intervention as much as with abuse and addiction. The research indicates that the sooner one intervenes, the less the likelihood to develop an addiction.

Remember, if you have issues you would like to see addressed, please email me at askdrgelbart@gmail.com.

Moe Gelbart, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Thelma McMillen Center
General Info
In January 2016, California adopted a new law covering comprehensive health education in public schools, Education Code Sections 51930‐ 51939 (AB 329) called the CA Healthy Youth Act (CHYA). Students in intermediate and high school must receive comprehensive health education and HIV prevention education from trained instructors. Each pupil shall receive this instruction at least once in middle school and at least once in high school. Here are some facts about the CHYA.

Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) is recommending the following steps to take toward initial, immediate compliance, with future consideration of a complete textbook adoption with the release of the new Health Education Framework in 2021:
1.    Selecting curriculum to cover CA Healthy Youth Act requirements (Board of Education approval process)
2.    Determining who will teach the curriculum and in which grades
3.    Scheduling training, parent education events, and public review of curriculum/opt-out procedures


LACOE strongly encouraged us to use the Adolescent Sexual Health Work Group curricula review as a starting point, as they were charged with grading a subset of comprehensive sexual health education curricula for alignment and compliance with the CHYA.


Five of the districts in the South Bay Consortium have selected the same resource, while the others are just beginning this process. Administrators across the greater South Bay have continued to communicate with each other as we move collectively forward towards legislative compliance. PVPUSD will coordinate with LACOE to present information to the Board of Education and entire parent community about the changes.

If you are interested in participating in this Health Task Force work, please complete the following form: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=alG_LzE4eUS6iIMJfbVyeR3BiGtsvk5NgKNhK9rVDgpUOEUxVzBNUUxYVzhLRVA4QUJMWkNYOVAzNi4u
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600 Cloyden Road, Palos Verdes Estates, 90274 ~ 310-378-8471 ~ pvhs.pvpusd.net