Monthly Archives: May 2016

TED-Ed + TEDx = TEDucation in Cajon Valley. This video documentary highlights how the Cajon Valley Union School District implemented TED-Ed clubs across their district. Then created a community-wide TEDxKids@Cajon event to showcase students and student work. The TED efforts were supported at all levels of the school district from the Governing Board to the Custodial Staff literally bringing the district together under the TED umbrella.

Liz loether, Coordinator of Education Technology

Cajon Valley Union School District

Pictured here is my friend and soon to be 8th grader at Hillsdale Middle School, Matthew Kashat.  Last week we had a great conversation about social media, responsible online behavior, and what the district should and should not control in terms of Chromebook wallpaper, Google Hangouts, and the like.  Matthew suggested we have a contest where students across the district could submit their wall paper design to be voted on.  The winning wall papers would appear on all student chromebooks and the school or classroom could win some small prize.  What a great idea.  We’ll try it out in June and see what the response is.  Students will receive information through their chromebook wallpaper=)…. See our correspondence below.  Very impressed by this bright and articulate student.

David

Hi Dr. Miyashiro! My name is Matthew Kashat and I am a 7th grader at Hillsdale Middle School. Lots of my classmates (including myself) have expressed strongly disliking the Chromebook default wallpaper, so I took it upon myself to reach out to you to see if it could please be changed. I think a great idea is to have a district wide contest cool artistic drawings, and could be like a monthly thing, but you do whatever you feel comfortable with doing.I hope my request came a cross clearly! If you could please respond back that be wonderful! Thank you for your consideration. 

Thank You For your time,

Matthew A Kashat, 7th Grader

Hillsdale Middle School

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Dear Matthew,

Thank you so much for writing.  I love that you’re taking action on your interests and ideas.  I’ll be at Hillsdale on Friday visiting classrooms.  I would love the opportunity to meet with you in person.  Perhaps we can work out our visit schedule to allow for you to join us for lunch.  If you’re interested in that I’d be very happy to hear more.  If you’re available and interested in joining us for lunch, please let Mrs. Minjares know so we can plan on it.  If not I can meet with you after school.

Sincerely,

David

David Miyashiro, Ed.D.

Superintendent

Cajon Valley Union School District

This video is courtesy of CVUSD School Counselor Maria Lemus and some of her Jamacha scholars.  It is a modeling video on how to use the Peace Path.  The Peace Path is a path on the playground that empowers kiddos to solve conflicts all on their own. After the video was shared with all Jamacha students she received feedback from kids themselves saying they have tried using the Peace Path. 

“The Peace Path is a great tool for elementary schools in CVUSD to use in order to build students’ problem solving skills, and I wanted to share :)”

She is currently working on a “Problem solving” video with Madison, minus the Peace Path, but she’s hoping to get the Peace Path there in the future!

Thank you for sharing…

Maria G. Lemus, M.A., PPS

School Counselor @ Jamacha and Madison

Congratulations to Los Coches Creek’s own Jacob Saflar and Mrs. Ann Mason, recipients of the San Diego Chapter of the California Special Districts Association Public Outreach Video Contest!

The San Diego Chapter, an affiliate of the California Special Districts Association, initiated a Video Contest for Middle and High School Students, in an effort to provide educational outreach and awareness of special districts and their role in local government. The one-minute entertaining and creative video focuses on educating the public about “What’s So Special About Special Districts?”

Jacob’s video on the Alpine Fire Protection District was one of  four videos were selected to receive $1500 in cash awards to be split between the school and the student.  Jacob and Mrs. Mason will be honored at an awards ceremony this Thursday, May 12, 2016, at 6 PM in the Board Room at Helix Water District, 7811 University Avenue, La Mesa. 

Dana Stevenson

Principal, Los Coches Creek Middle School

Naranca teachers have made a massive difference in the lives of their students by personalizing the learning for each student, by making learning visible and by helping students turn their passions into goals. It is such an honor to work with such a highly dedicated and motivated learning community. This video is a simple expression of love form the Naranca students, parents and administration. We love our teachers!!!!! 

Thanks,

Mike

—

Michael Serban – Principal

Naranca Elementary School

Cajon Valley Union School District

In writing my class has been working on opinion and persuasive writing.  Last week, my student Landon Matthews wrote a note to our “lunch lady”, asking that the hot entree choice be corn dogs every day.  His reasons were that they are good and he loves them. (those were his words too, although he used phonetic spelling)  🙂

I passed the note on to our Fuerte cafeteria staff, and Marilyn Bell very kindly replied with a note back to Landon.  That alone made my day, and Landon was so pleased to get a response to his request.

But there’s more!  Marilyn sent Landon’s note to Kathie Ward, who passed it on to Mark Mendoza.  He sent me an email, asking to come to the class and meet Landon, and to talk to the kids about what they’d like for lunch!  He came today, sat with the class for about 30 minutes, and had a great conversation with them about their lunch ideas and about the menu choices available.  The class was thrilled to see how a note from our class could have an effect. I’m attaching a photo of Mark talking with the class.

Yay for Child Nutrition staff!  The response to Landon’s note from Marilyn and Mark really supports what I’m teaching in class and I appreciate their support very much.  Awesome, awesome, awesome!

Kathy Fine

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Kathy Fine, Kindergarten teacher

Fuerte Elementary School

The CVUSD Refugee School Impact Grant (RSIG) program is an extended school day/extended school year program designed specifically to support our district’s refugee student population. Students are provided transportation from 7 CVUSD schools to the after school programs at Chase and CVMS.

The Department of Social Services visited and reviewed the RSIG program recently, and they made it very clear we have a model program here in CVUSD! They appreciated our wrap around service, mental health support,  trauma informed care-based practices, technology integration, whole child attention, authentic data-infused documentation, fiscal savvy, and inclusion of parents. The CVUSD RSIG team is comprised of teachers from around the district, central office staff, and partnering entities such as Yalla, SmartMind Robotics, AJA, and Survivors of Torture,. The entire team has worked hard to design and implement a program that supports acculturation while honoring the unique cultural experiences our students bring to the door.

Congratulations on an exemplar program and an outstanding review!  The Department of Social Services shared they will be highlighting the program as a model of best practices at forums and on the Web.

Ryan Burke, Director

Categorical Programs and Language Acquisition