Superintendent and Board Member Visit Rios Elementary School!

Thursday, October 30th Rios Elementary School had the pleasure of a visit with David Miyashiro and Tamara Otero. We were so proud and excited to share with them all the hard work and fun learning opportunities available to our students. During their visit to our primary classrooms they were entertained with students, singing songs about word families, teachers leading small group instruction, and students busy working on their Chromebooks deeply engrossed in Moby Max. As they entered the intermediate building they were impressed with the blended learning classrooms in third grade and they witnessed the ELA Performance Task test administration in second grade. They preceded to our fourth and fifth grade classrooms as students were beginning an Immigration group project whereby they had to select a country and prepare a presentation using Google Docs! Lastly, but not least, David and Tamara were interviewed by our student reporters who will write an article for our first edition of the Rios Roadrunner Student Newspaper. We look forward to future visits from our Superintendent and our School Board Members.

Maria Kehoe, Principal
Rios Elementary School

Teachers from across the district got together Thursday afternoon to teach and learn from each other, troubleshoot, and have fun! Celine O’Hara facilitated the session, but the learning went wherever the teachers desired. Topics for the day were decided by the participating teachers:
​Google Classroom App- an absolute HIT!
Must-have Chrome Extensions including Readability and Announcify!
Several tech tips (pinning tabs to organize browser, settings within apps, merging email to name a few)
Teachers enjoyed the session so much, they set up a monthly “Casual Tech Cadre.” Topics are determined by participants. The group will meet every third Wednesday of the month. Information about the next session:

Who: ALL interested teachers and SECAs
What: Casual Tech Cadre- come for as long as your schedule allows, drop ins welcome! Topics will include, but are not limited to: Edmodo and Twitter.
​When: Wednesday, November 19, from 3:30-5:30
Where: District Office, upstairs, PD Room 3
Why: To inspire, learn from, teach, question, wonder, connect… With everything that’s new, we’re all first year teachers again. Let’s come together and help each other out!​

Kristen Goodrich
Coordinator, Educational Services
Cajon Valley Union School District
Twitter: @KGoodrich313
(619) 588-3014

To kick off their unit, “Friends are important to have,” these TK-ers from Chase and Jamacha shared what they know about friends with each other via Google Hangout. This is the first time TK teachers ventured into “hanging out” and as you can clearly see from the picture, the kids absolutely LOVED it.​ They didn’t know other TKers even existed, and seeing them on the “big screen” was SO COOL. They plan to Hangout again during and after their unit and to see how the students’ views of friendship have changed after reading books, watching videos and singing songs about friends.

TK teachers were so excited with how the Hangout went with their students, they set up time Monday afternoon to collaborate digitally with TK teachers from around the district via Google Hangout. ​Being the only TK teacher at their site didn’t stop these teachers from collaborating. In addition to “hanging out,” they continue to collaborate digitally through Edmodo and meet face-to-face in each other’s classrooms as their schedules allow.

Way to go, Trailblazing TK Teachers!

Kristen Goodrich
Coordinator, Educational Services
Cajon Valley Union School District
Twitter: @KGoodrich313
(619) 588-3014

Last week teams from Anza, Chase and Johnson Elementary schools participated in school-wide positive behavior support professional development with Dr. Jeffrey Sprague. Teams developed or refined school wide student expectations and discussed various ways of communicating and teaching student expectations in all areas on their school campuses. Dr. Sprague presented ideas about school wide systems for rewarding appropriate student behavior. One of the strategies he shared is the rule of positivity. While some students will need a greater amount of attention, researchers have found that it helps to maintain at least a four-to-one ratio of positive to negative interactions with every student. Adults should try to engage in four times as many positive interactions as negative interactions. This could be as simple as offering a smile, making a positive statement or providing a “peacebuilder” ,“golden ticket”, “wildcat card” or other tangible reward. Check out the link for a cool song to use with primary grade students to develop listening skills https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBBUW95l6hI

Jennifer Grondek, Learning Support Coordinator II
CVUSD Educational Services

More than 40 members of the Lexington staff, certificated and classified alike, came together on Saturday to participate in “Visioning Day”. As a staff, we have a unique opportunity to create a vision of how we want to “Do School Differently” prior to moving into our new facility. The staff participated in identifying their communication style and used this new information to complete a team building activity. This set the stage for the real work of the day…visioning. Staff members generated ideas, programs and structures that would be put into place to support the new Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) goals. It was difficult to step outside the box this far, but the results were amazing. Creative and child centered ideas populated charts and conversations throughout the day. The last activity was spent on re-imagining space. We looked at traditional spaces like the office, cafeteria, lunch area, MPR etc. and re-imagined what would happen in these spaces. The staff re-defined how space would be used at the new school. From these ideas came the new name suggestions. After all, if you continue to call a space what it has always be called, you will receive the same behavior, but if you rename and re-purpose a space, you can expect new outcomes.

Karen Sapper, Principal
Lexington Elementary School

Flying Hills music teacher, Joe Dyke, leading students in the Fliegerlied, a German dance relating to Oktoberfest. The kids and staff absolutely loved performing this as part of our Friday morning weekly gathering. Every Friday, Mr. Dyke leads us in some sort of fun song and dance.

Jeremy Lyche, Principal
Flying Hills Elementary School

Technology is used to enhance instruction and to provide individual learning experiences for students at MMS. On a daily basis, a variety of devices are utilized for delivery of teacher lessons, design of student work products, exploration of information, and creative implementation of CCSS. Teachers collaborate regularly to write lessons that support all disciplines. The result, motivated and engaged Montgomery students!

Jackie Luzak, Ed.D.
Principal, Montgomery Middle School

The Global Read Aloud Project was created in 2010 with a simple goal in mind; one book to connect the world. This year, more than 300,000 students and over 6,500 teachers and facilitators in 60 countries signed up to take part in the project that runs from October 6 through November 14. Several classes in Cajon Valley joined in too.

Click the link below to see and learn how Celine O’Hara (SDC Teacher 3-5 @ Magnolia), Susan Plack (5th Grade Teacher @ Magnolia, Kathy Gligo (3rd Grade Teacher @ Vista Grande), Natalie Havrella (SDC Teacher 3-5 @ Jamacha), and Janna Finch (2nd Grade Teacher @ Chase) connected on this amazing project and learn how to get involved in the next Global Read Aloud.

https://docs.google.com/a/cvusd.co/document/d/1n6knU-0Il7x-pQTLgWPCQyJ2diqekagHCijSOuGpepI/edit

With the goal of transparency and improved communication, Kari and David videotaped a short conversation (17 minutes) using the CVMS broadcast studio with the help of Mrs. Loether and students. This was an impromptu “one take” attempt to answer questions about phase 4 of our technology rollout, blended learning next steps, instructional materials, upcoming professional development, the merge of special education and ed services, and Prop C.

At Naranca School, every adult helps students discover what they love, turn that love into a goal and turn that goal into a reality. We are passionate about individualizing instruction for all students by using data from our adaptive curriculum and then forming small groups to provide support. Naranca teachers are eager to grow, change, and support one another by embracing an incredible opportunity to improve our educational system. Simply, teachers at Naranca are change makers!

Michael Serban – Principal
Cajon Valley Union School District
Naranca Elementary School
1030 Naranca Ave. El Cajon, CA 92021
W- 619-588-3087 F – 619-441-6176
serbanm@cajonvalley.net