January 20, 2023

From the Desk of Dr. Smith

The Great Kindness Challenge

Have you heard of the The Great Kindness Challenge? This is an annual event that takes place every year during the month of January and is fast approaching! The California Department of Education (CDE), in partnership with The Great Kindness Challenge, encourages all teachers, staff, students, and families of California schools to participate in this challenge during the week of January 23–27, 2023. The Great Kindness Challenge is also a global campaign that promotes kindness, social-emotional health, and bullying prevention in pre-kindergarten through grade twelve.

I am proud that Alta Loma School District participates each year with many wonderful activities and events. Last year, we were among great company. More than 4.5 million California students participated, representing 7,389 schools across 50 school districts and sharing over 230 million acts of kindness! I am so proud of our efforts to nurture the transformative powers of kindness among our schools and students.

Anytime is a good time to spread kindness and we could certainly use more of it in this world, especially during these difficult times we are experiencing. I encourage all Alta Loma School District partners to participate! I have provided a link below for anyone who might be interested in exploring activities that can be completed at home with family and friends. I hope you find value in the resources:

Resources for Families

Thank you for all that you do to create a safe and positive school environment for our students. Your kindness matters!

Superintendent's Community Cabinet

On Thursday, January 19, 2023 ALSD held the first Superintendent's Community Cabinet. Thank you to the 29 parent/community partners that showed up and participated in what I like to refer to as a "group think." The power of the conversations in the room were extraordinary, and I am so excited to see how this group of passionate and caring individuals will support our organization! I know only great things will transpire if we remember that together we are stronger. The focus of the evening was three-fold:

1-Identifying things ALSD is doing well and should continue to do

2-Identifying resources that each participant could bring to the group

3-Identifying questions/concerns that the group would like to examine and explore further regarding our educational organization.

From these conversations, a master list of topics was created that will now make up future agenda activities. The first two topics to be further explored at our next meeting, scheduled for February 16, 2023, will be class size equity across the District, and a deeper dive into enrichment programs, specifically examining what we already have and what important topics might be missing.

Please consider joining us at our next session. Everyone is welcome!

Upcoming District Events

• Monday, January 23 - Staff Development Day (No School for Students)
• Wednesday, February 1 - Board of Trustees Meeting, 6:00 pm, District Support Center
• Wednesday, February 8 - Board of Trustees Governance Workshop, 5:30 pm, District Support Center
• Monday February 13 - Lincoln's Birthday (No School)
• Thursday, February 16 - Superintendent's Community Cabinet, 6:00 pm, District Support Center
• Friday, February 17- End of Trimester II
• Monday, February 20 - Presidents Holiday (No School)
• Tuesday, February 28 - Elementary Parent Conferences (Grades 1-6 Modified Day)

We welcomed back all our Warriors last week with smiles and fist bumps! Our students were excited to be back on campus and their energy was positive and focused. They re-engaged with friends they had not seen for some time and caught up with one another. Our amazing teachers took time to build connections before getting back into the business of teaching and learning. Some of our students came back rockin’ our new BLUE CREW school spirit apparel!

#warriorPRIDE #bleedBLUE 

Alta Loma Elementary School

From Principal Josh Jauss:

Alta Loma Elementary’s 2023 is off to a smashing start. It has been exciting to see all the students coming before and after school to attend our Hoot reading classes. Thank you Mrs.Collins for all your dedication and hard work.

In addition, parents and students showed up last week to see 48 PTA fundraiser winners slime Mr. Jauss at our first Super Spirit assembly of the year. It was great to see the faces of the kids and to hear their sweet apologies and giggles as they dumped 5 gallons of slime onto Mr. Jauss’ head. Though it was unusually cold and a bit yucky, it was all done for fun and a wonderful spectacle for the kids.

Finally, we are pleased to announce that after three years, we finally have chorus back on campus. The kids were very excited to see Mrs. Dischiavi back in person. Thank you Mrs. Dischiavi for all your hard work in making the schedules work for the kiddos. 

Carnelian Cardinal students were in for a treat when they returned from winter break! PTA arranged for a magic show assembly with an anti-bully themed message. We have also resumed our Level UP attendance challenge for 2023. The day we returned from winter break, every class at Carnelian had 90% or better attendance and 14 out of 18 classes had 90% or better attendance for the entire week! Our Cardinal students have also been working extremely hard on the i-Ready Diagnostic assessments for ELA and Math. We can't wait to celebrate their growth and success! Our Carnelian community wants to remind everyone to “Be Safe, Be Kind, Be Proud and Have a Great Cardinal Day!”

Teaching children to read is one of the great joys of being a teacher, and there is a lot of joy in the first-grade classrooms at Jasper Elementary.

Mrs. Medford and Mrs. Dzama use a lot of fun reading strategies and supports to develop valuable reading skills for their students. Reading stations, body movement, songs, classroom aides, and parent support are all used as part of their master plan to set these Champions up for lifelong success. 

Floyd M. Stork Elementary School

From Principal Val Bires:

Our Stork Superstars are all back at school from Winter Break  learning new skills, making friends and helping each other. This week we had PBIS assemblies to learn new procedures, school news and new school-wide goals to finish off Trimester 2 strong. Take a look at how awesome we are at Stork! Click to view the video:  https://video214.com/play/iUnK3b0JISU76Sd14pIlSA/s/dark

Stork had the wonderful opportunity to honor our ‘original’ librarian, Mary “Sunshine” Laramie, who shared her life with Alta Loma School District for 42 years.  Mary was a very special lady whose legacy will live forever. Past friends, past administrators, current Board Members, District staff, school staff and family members were all present and enjoyed a beautiful celebration of life in our MPR.