Monthly Archives: June 2014

Over 30 Students from Flying Hills performed on the main stage at El Cajon’s “America on Main Street” event this past Saturday, June 14th.  Flying Hills was also featured with a booth where over 200 children stopped by to paint their own tile and find out more about the program.  It was a great time to highlight Cajon Valley’s Fine Arts Magnet School!

This month the community and leadership of El Cajon had much to celebrate.  Below are just a few highlights from the Kaboom Park Build at Wells Park, America on Main Street, and Jimmy Johnson Day.  Governing Board Member Suzanne Mullins, Director of Child Nutrition Mark Mendoza, and Principal Kathy Skube joined in on the fun volunteering at the Wells Park Build, Flying Hills Elementary School rocked the stage at America on Main Street, and the Johnson Jaguars led a cheer for Jimmy Johnson at his ceremony on Tuesday.  We are proud of our city and the community that makes El Cajon GREAT!!!

The Cajon Valley Middle schools have come together for over 30 years to compete in the All Champions Track and Field Meet in May at Granite Hills High School. For the last 13 years, Greenfield P.E. teachers have organized the event with over 200 participating athletes. The Granite Hills High School Track Team volunteer and help run individual events to help make this meet successful. This year 10 records were broken between 6th through 8th grade boys and girls. Also in May and June, Greenfield and Los Coches Creek open up their facilities and hold additional meets with around 125 athletes. It’s a time for all the middle schools to come together, cheer each other on, and compete. Because of the existence of the after school sports program, many friendships have been made throughout the year between the middle schools.

Our students have finished their survey course of world history.  We ended with the colonizing of the Americas so that they would be ready for U.S. History when they return as eighth graders after the summer.  Understanding survival in the early colonies is quite abstract for our students, so we thought having them ‘build’ either Jamestown or Plymouth in the world of Mine Craft and giving them survival scenarios would better allow for them to understand what if may have been like.  All students are replicating one of the colonies.  Some will screencast their work as well.

Ty Dayton, Emerald Middle School

This year our students have participated actively in the California Writing Project Upstanders, Not Bystanders project. http://www.californiawritingproject.org/dldupstanders-bystanders.html Our leadership class at Cajon Valley Middle School has worked hard this year to stand up for those who need a voice.

The first project we did together this year was part of an anti bullying campaign called Mix It Up lunch. http://www.tolerance.org/mix-it-up/what-is-mix We wanted students to mix it up at lunch, eating with students who they normally don’t associate with. This year we created games for each table at our lunch area and had students play games together. We also provided white boards for students to write messages about how they define empathy. Here is a video that has highlights from that activity.

Click the link below to see more!

http://www.writingforchange.net/upstanders-not-bystanders-the-california-writing-project/

A team of ten students representing the sixth grade at Hillsdale Middle School earned Highest Honors in the 2013-14  WordMasters Challenge™—a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 150,000 students annually.  Each of the students scored a perfect 20, bringing their team score to an impressive 200 points out of a possible 200 in the last of three meets this year, placing first in the nation.  Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge,  the 6^th grade Honors English students who achieved these outstanding results in the meet include Harry Albers, Christopher Domes, Sisto Jacobo, Charlie Moreno, Randy Munoz, Adam Nance, Manuel Posadas, Janneth Rosaly, Cami Scantlin, Mikaila Shannon and Davey Vojtaskovic. In the first two meets this year the teams also included these top scoring students:  Michael Abbott, Natalie Butler, Oliver Conklin, Aniyah Guillen, Nick Lanciers, Joey Maroki, Gaby Rozendal and Bethany Sikute.

Among those on Hillsdale’s winning team are two exceptional students who have been recognized by WordMasters Challenge™ nationally.  The ranking of “Highest Honors” has been awarded to Cami Scantlin. It is reserved for those students who have finished among the top 10-15 students at their grade level in the country.  Cami is deserving of even higher praise in that she earned a perfect score at all three meets, the only student in her division to have achieved that score. Another outstanding student, Harry Albers has earned WordMasters’ national distinction of “High Honors,” which is for those students who have finished among the top 2% of all competitors at their grade level.

All of the 6^th grade Honors English students were coached in preparation for the WordMasters Challenge™ by teachers Barbara Burney, Ann Castro, Amy Cumming, Lisa Russo  and Rana Sibani. The teachers work with their students to complete an intense study of a group of above grade level vocabulary words three times a year. More than memorizing definitions, students use critical thinking skills to use those words to complete analogies.  The teachers  incorporate WordMasters preparation  into the Honors English curriculum, however, a WordMasters champion is someone who is truly committed to the individual, focused study essential to earn the highest score.

Hillsdale’s teams have placed with the top 10 schools across the nation for the last five years. “Our preparation is more valuable than the Challenge itself,” one teacher commented. “It’s great to place as high as we did, but in the end, I’m proud of the new words and skills they have learned. The students love it when they find one of the WordMasters words in their everyday lives. Even after the competition has ended, they still point out the words in their reading,  in song lyrics and music videos,  in advertisements and even quoted conversations; the best moment for a teacher is to see students incorporate these words in English and history writing assignments.”  Although only the top ten scores are applied to the team’s overall ranking each trimester, teachers report that all of their students improved significantly since the first competition in the fall.

The Anza office staff teamed up with members of the First Luthern Church Sunday to overhaul the lunch area.  All of the lunch tables were sanded and reprinted to provide a pristine environment for our students. The students will be ecstatic when they return to school on Monday and see how fabulous and clean the tables look!

Anza 4th graders perform the musical “Gold Bust or Dust to conclude their unit on California History.

The Earth Discovery Institute has been serving CVUSD students with standards-based science service-learning field education for 8 years. This video illustrates how children explore and enjoy nature, discover the wonder of science through hands-on projects and habitat restoration activities, and consider how they can use what they’ve learned to benefit their families, schools, and communities. Since 2006, over 10,000 CVUSD students have participated in this program. Come along on the adventure by watching this video! You can learn more about EDI at www.earthdiscovery.org, or https://www.facebook.com/pages/Earth-Discovery-Institute/105868482814906.

Cathy Chadwick
President/Director
Earth Discovery Institute