School Snippets
VH Bear Byte:
Vine Hill had a great start to the year! The first week culminated in a schoolwide assembly. All new students were recognized at the assembly including 100 new kindergarteners. Michael Everson is joining the teaching staff in 5th grade and Michelle Smart will be providing Title 1 math support. Many Vine Hill families joined the PTA at SVEF's Friday night food trucks at Skypark. Back to School Night was a huge success. We look forward to Art, School Garden, Music, and Library starting this week!
-Brook Knoll is happy to welcome several new staff members this year including our three new teachers Lanna Murphy, Kristin Lesniak, and Jaime Davis.
-Thank you to all the parents and staff for making Back to School Night a huge success!
-We encourage everyone to come and see our many beautification projects. Brook Knoll is proud of its new Knolls Garden, our fresh exterior paint, several new murals, landscaping, etc. The school is looking great! A special ‘Thank You’ to Kenny Kaspar and his crew for the upcoming work on our benches for his Eagle Scout Project.
-Our first round of enrichment opportunities will begin shortly. The Music Room, Computer Lab and Library should be open next week.
-We were very excited that we found a way to switch all of our PCs with outdated Windows to the Chrome Operating System. This should keep our Computer Lab open for many years to come and cost very little.
-Also, Starting in mid-September, the students, TK-5, will be enjoying push-in science lessons with hands on engineering projects and outdoor Garden Lessons.
-Coming soon: Verbal Judo, Picture Days (9-24-19), and Code Naturally
The Dolphin’s Dish:
Dear Families,
I hope that you have all had a wonderful summer! We are looking forward to the start of a new school year in our beautiful new school.
We will be welcoming just over 530 students to the middle school and a few new staff members. Ms. Jamieson will be teaching 8th grade history and English and Ms. Boudreau will be joining us as a 6th grade science and math teacher. In PE, we welcome Ms. Wertman to the team. We are also excited to welcome back Mrs. Hollenbeck as our Band teacher.
After a year of study and evaluation, the history department is excited to use our brand new history books. With an online version and several online resources, our new textbook will enhance the learning and instruction. We have also adjusted our Wednesday bell schedule to include Extended Learning Time (ELT). Students will still be dismissed at 12:30 on Wednesdays, however, we have built in 30 minutes at the end of their day to allow for intervention, extension and student support. We think this adjustment will provide more individualized, direct support services to our students.
Please join us for Back to School Night, on Thursday, September 5 beginning at 6pm sharp. We look forward to seeing you there.
SVMS is proud to continue our ICARE program. We look forward to supporting our students’ social-emotional growth and well-being with positive behavior intervention and support. The ICARE program allows us to recognize students outside of their academic requirements. Under the expert leadership of Assistant Principal Joe Allen, with the direct support of our counselor Abbie Stevens, our ICARE team continues to refine our practices and strengthen our school climate.
We look forward to a great year! Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Mary Lonhart, Principal
Great news for the IB Diplomma Program:
The May 2019 exam results are in and they are spectacular. 100% of the IB Diploma candidates earned their Diplomas, making this the fourth year out of the last five where we've achieved this goal. Over 91% of all of the IB exams taken at SVHS last year earned a passing score. Congratulations to all of our teachers for their amazing work in leading their subjects and preparing our students for exam success while also caring deeply about their students' emotional well-being. In particular, our IB English, IB History and IB Biology staff produced our highest exam scores in the history of our school.
This summer the International Baccalaureate Organization announced that the IB will no longer charge a registration fee for IB exams. This will save $174 for each and every student who registers for IB exams, and hopefully will help more students to consider sitting for the exams. As we move forward, students will only be required to pay the fee for each exam, currently $119. This puts the IB in line with exam costs for AP and Cambridge.
The second, wonderful news item is that the UC A-G has accepted more IB courses for honors status, especially the first year of HL courses as well as significant SL courses. Special thanks to the California Association of IB World Schools for spearheading this effort. For us at SVHS, this change will now give honors credit for:
- English Literature HL1
- English Language and Literature SL
- French IB SL
- Spanish IB SL
- History of the Americans IB HL1
- Biology IB HL1 and SL
- Chemistry IB HL2
- Physics SL
- Visual Arts L2 and SL
