The 2019 school year is passing by in a swirl of activities and student achievements. It is already February, and we are at the halfway point for 3rd quarter! I am honored to work with this staff and these students, and am delighted have the opportunity to invite you to join us for Take Your Parents to School Day on February 14th. Join us at PG and see for yourself what a high school day is really like. In addition, we will be offering optional parent workshops. The PGHS Black Student Union is also offering a tasty sampling of Southern Sweets during lunch in celebration of Black History Month. Register online for a fun- filled, informative day!

As I said, February is a busy month. With less than three months of school remaining, plans for the 2019-2020 school year are now underway! Students are using SYNERGY to register for next year’s courses. Online registration makes the process quicker, and more efficient. You can help your student/s with the course selection process by checking their student SYNERGY account, verifying their selected classes are correct, and clicking ” lock” – easy right? Thank-you for supporting your child’s education.

According to Nelson Mandela, education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. Our students continue to excel in every way: They are achieving academically and athletically, showing kindness to others, demonstrating respect and celebrating diversity. They make us proud as they continue to impact the world in both large and small ways.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Taigan Keplinger

Principal

Be Safe Be Respectful Be Responsible Be Your Best

• Black History Month
• Student Parking Lot is Full
  
• Take Your Parents To School Day - 2/14
  
• Food Delivery Policy Change
  
• Fingerprinting for All Parent Volunteers
  
• Gift of Love - Valentine's Day Card and Toy Drive
  
• Happy Chinese New Year
• Mock Trial Team
  
• Comprehensive Safe School Plan
  
• PGHS Tardy Initiative January Winners
  
• Multicultural Assembly
  
• Academic Decathalon
  
• Athletic News
  
• PTSO News
  
• Culture and Climate Update
  
• Career Center Events (Feb. - May)
  
• IDEA Academy Recognition
  
• School-wide Tutoring
  
• Upcoming Activities and Events
  

PGHS BSU has many exciting, informative activities and events planned for Black History Month.

https://padlet.com/tfrancis8/hzqrwiadvtuk

The student parking lots are completely full. All student drivers, MUST have a valid parking permit in order to park in the student parking lot.

New drivers and students without parking permits will need to continue to carpool or take the school bus. Students must have a valid driver's license in order to legally drive and park on campus.

We are excited to announce that we will once again host our annual Take Your Parents to School Day On Thursday, February 14! You will have the opportunity to attend classes with your child and get a sample of what they get to experience every day at PGHS. We will have events running from 8:00am - 3:11pm and we would love to show you what a great school PGHS is!

As well as attending classes with your child, we will have a number of informational workshops throughout the day on all things related to teens. Please see below for a sample of the workshops we will have available for you when you are not in your child's classes.

A registration link will be coming soon to both your email as well as the school's website. This will help us have your child's schedule ready for you on the morning when you show up. On the registration link will also be the opportunity to sign up for workshops so that we can make sure we have enough space for all who want to attend.

More detailed information will be coming soon via email and through the website.

We look forward to seeing you then!

Click HERE to register for Take Your Parents to School Day

Our staff has noticed an increase in the number of lunches dropped off for students by parents/guardians/siblings and fast food delivery services such as Uber Eats and Door Dash. This poses many safety concerns including campus security’s attention is diverted away from their primary responsibility during lunch which is to supervise students and monitor who is coming onto campus. Additionally, our office staff is inundated with deliveries making it difficult for them to focus on more critical issues such as helping students, checking in visitors, assisting parents on the phone and in picking their children up for appointments, etc.

As a result, we are in the process of reviewing and updating our current food/beverage drop off policy for the upcoming school year.

Beginning immediately, we will no longer accept deliveries from food delivery services such as Uber Eats, Door Dash, etc.

Lunch deliveries from parents and guardians will be accepted for now on an emergency basis only. Students are responsible for going to the office to retrieve dropped off lunches. Notifications or reminders that food/beverages are waiting in the office will not be sent to students.

The cafeteria offers a variety of options and the lunch period is long enough for students to purchase food. I ask that you assist your student in either purchasing lunch from the cafeteria or bringing a lunch from home. This is to protect your student’s health, safety and welfare and maintain the security of the campus.

Thank you for your help!

The Elk Grove Unified School District requires that all volunteer candidates who work with students be fingerprinted as part of a criminal background check. Even volunteers that work under the direct supervision of a District employee need to be fingerprinted.

The fingerprint check is done by the California Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Both agencies provide the district with a record of prior convictions or pending arrests or citations. The district reviews this report with specific interest in the history of offenses, pattern of offenses, time of offenses and for drug crimes, sexual crimes or serious or violent felonies. After receiving and reviewing the fingerprint reports, volunteer candidates may be authorized as volunteers, based upon the discretion of the District, and must be cleared or authorized as volunteers, prior to contact with students. This is the same type of background check that district employees must pass prior to being hired.

Remember, you only need to do this ONE time and when you are cleared you go into an EGUSD database showing clearance for all of our schools.

Due to heavy volumes the District’s Fingerprinting hours at the District office have been extended temporarily through the end of February to help process volunteers needing to be fingerprinted. There is no fee when fingerprinted at the District Office or through a UPS mobile unit.

New Hours:

• 8:30am-4:30pm, Monday- Thursday
  
• *Closed 12:00pm-1:00pm for Lunch
  
• *Closed Fridays
  

Two amazing PGHS students/twins, Ashleigh and Sierra Hardy, are the co-presidents of the GIFT OF LOVE Charitable Organization. Their club organized a Valentine's Day Card and Toy Drive benefiting the Shriner's Hospital of California.

On February 7, 9th Grade Advocacy classes created Valentine's cards for children currently hospitalized at Shriner's Hospital. Additionally, Advocacy classes are currently participating in a friendly competition to see who can collect the most toys by Feb. 13. The winning class will be awarded a pizza party. New toys can also be donated to the front office with your child's name and Advocacy teacher.

Contact Sierra or Ashleigh Hardy

for more info at: admin@giftoflovefoundation.com

Year Of the Pig: Fortune and Personality – Chinese Zodiac 2019

https://chinesenewyear.net/zodiac/pig/

The Pig is the twelfth of all zodiac animals. According to one myth, the Jade Emperor said the order would be decided by the order in which they arrived to his party. Pig was late because he overslept. Another story says that a wolf destroyed his house. He had to rebuild his home before he could set off. When he arrived, he was the last one and could only take twelfth place.

The Pig is also associated with the Earthly Branch (地支—dì zhī) hài (亥), and the hours 9–11 in the night. In terms of yin and yang (阴阳—yīn yáng), the Pig is yin. In Chinese culture, pigs are the symbol of wealth.

Their chubby faces and big ears are signs of fortune as well.

The Mock Trial team has returned to PGHS! This academic competition involves students who wish to experience legal cases in the most REAL circumstances—the case is given to students who are interested in becoming lawyers, witnesses, clerks, bailiffs and compete against other schools at the Sacramento Gordon D. Schaber county courthouse, downtown Sacramento. It’s intense, it’s academic, and it’s as real as it gets.

Our Comprehensive Safe School Plan has been updated and can now be viewed online.

This report include current data and safety practices:

Click here to view the Safe School Plan

Please congratulate our First Semester Tardy Incentive Raffle Winners. These students were on time to all classes every day for the entire semester!

9th grade: Gabriella Glaser – A Yearbook

10th grade: Brodie Rogers – A Yearbook

11th grade: Noah Seville– Prom Tickets

12th grade: Jasmine Viloria – Senior Ball Tickets

Great job being on time every day! The next raffle is in February.

Our annual Multi-Cultural Assembly was held on January 16 and was a huge success! The gym was completely filled with students, staff, and families who celebrated the cultures represented by 14 groups of talented and dedicated students. The event was such a success that the Multi-Cultural committee is working on ways to expand this event to include more student performances as well as integrate cultural information so the students and staff benefit from learning about the heritage of each group.

The Academic Decathlon has been working long hours for months in anticipation of their competition last Saturday. The results are in and our team did great! The team scored third place overall in Sacramento County.

Our team did a superb job representing PGHS. The coaches heard from multiple people about how well our team worked together and how supportive they were of each other-we are so proud of our Academic Decathletes and their teacher/coaches!

Thank you Jerry Bandy, Shelley Walker, Russ Young, Lisa Bjorgum, and Jon Wehner for spending hours preparing the team.

Congratulations to the 2018-2019 Academic Decathlon team:

Nicolas Albiani ----- Prad Ganesh----- Cate Hatcher ----- Ifuy Ifyefobi

Hieu Luu ----- Jonathan Ma ----- CJ Nguyen ---------- Don Nguyen

Kim Nguyen ----- Krystal Nguyen ----- Troy Osborn

Amolak Virk----- Jason Wu ----- Eric Yen

We are nearing the end of the winter sports seasons and a number of teams are preparing for post season play. Many of the girls and boys wrestlers have advanced to Regional and Divisional Tournaments with the ultimate goal to qualify for the State Tournament.

Both the girls and boys soccer teams qualified for the SJS Playoffs which begin next week. Spring sports started this week and the athletic facilities have been busy. Track, tennis, golf, softball, baseball and volleyball all began to prepare for the upcoming competitions.

The heater is the Fox Pool needs repair so the swim team will begin practices next week. For updates and more information go to the PGHS athletics webpage at www.pghsathletics.org.

The girls varsity basketball team earned the Winter Sports Team GPA Award and will be recognized at and upcoming EGUSD Board Meeting – Congratulations Ladies.

Hope to see you at a game soon

Go Eagles!!

PTSO is busy with a variety of events!

We are holding our second fundraiser at Pinot;s Pallette in Elk Grove on March 9th from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm. More information about the event can be found on our Facebook page – Pleasant Grove High School PTSO. Proceeds will be used for senior scholarships.

Speaking of senior scholarships, PTSO will be awarding two seniors a $500 scholarship at Senior Awards Night. Criteria for the scholarships will be e-mail to seniors mid February and deadline for submitting an application is April 1st. One criteria is to be a member (parent of student) of PTSO; members can join through April 1st to meet the membership criteria Membership is $10 for parents and $5 for seniors and can join by completing and returning the form below with cash or check made out to PGHS PTSO.

Our next Sober Grad Night ticket sales will be held Thursday, February 14th during both lunches. Tickets are $100, cash and checks are accepted. A completed Sober Grad Night Permission Form must be turned in with both the parent and student signatures along with payment. Please make checks payable to PGHS PTSO. Click here to access the online form

We are starting to plan the annual Staff Appreciation Breakfast. This event takes some time to let PGHS staff know how much they are appreciated. The breakfast will be on May 9th. PTSO is accepting donations for raffle prizes for the staff members. If you are interested in donating cash or items, please drop off in the PTSO box in the Administration Office by May 3rd.

We continue to have meetings the first Monday of the month from 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the ASB room (located behind the cafeteria). The Sober Grad Night subcommittee continues to meet until 7:30 pm. All members and non-members are invited to attend.

Are you an Amazon shopper? Register at Amazon Smile to support the PTSO

(go to https://smile.amazon.com/ and search for: Pleasant Grove High School Parent Teacher Student Organization)

We are continuing to promote a positive culture and climate on our campus by daily integrating our 4 B's on campus and recognizing students for their part in creating a positive learning environment on campus for students.

At the beginning of this year we introduced PG Platinum, a positive incentive for demonstrating our 4 B's in the classroom and around campus. After only two weeks, over 300 students were recognized by teachers, campus supervisors, and staff!

We will be drawing 6 tickets this week with prizes to thank students for being safe, respectful, responsible, and their best.

·

• February-March- Career Units continue for all 11th grade students
  
• February 8- CRC Steps to Success
  
• February 22- Sacramento Fire Presentation
• March-April- Career Units for 10th grade students
• March 5 and 22- CRC Education Planning Session
  
• March 25- CRC Vocational Certification and Degree Seminar
  
• April 5- Advanced Education Workshop
  
• May 6-17- AP Testing
  
• May 15- CRC Course Registration
  

All seniors should file the FAFSA or California Dream Act ASAP! Please file by the priority deadline of March 2nd!

• www.fafsa.gov
  
• www.caldreamact.org
  

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2019-20 COURSE SELECTION DATES

Students will continue registering for next year's classes. Counselors will present information in student's English or History classes and assist them with the course selection process. This year, students will register for classes online using chromebooks in the classroom.

• Current Freshmen: Jan. 14 – Feb. 7th in English 9
  
• Sophomores: Feb. 12 – Feb. 28 in World History
  
• Juniors: March. 4 – March 12 in U.S. History
  

Incoming 9th Grade Parent Night: March 13 @ 6:00 in the PGHS Cafeteria

Albiani Course Selection March 18th and 22nd in Science classes

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SAT/ACT Information

SAT and ACT test and registration dates can be found on the PGHS Student Services/Career Center Website.

Click here to view upcoming test dates

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EGUSD is recognizing Pleasant Grove High School’s Innovative Design & Engineering Academy (IDEA) for its outstanding work in Career Technical Education. Based on an annual review of 7 essential elements of a high-quality pathway, IDEA has qualified for the top honor of platinum status. Only a few programs in the district have reached this level and we could not be more proud of the hard work of our IDEA team of teachers and students. IDEA will officially receive this honor at the Feb 19th school board meeting.

Tutoring is held every Tuesday and Thursday from 3:30-4:15 in room HJ7 and staffed by peer tutors, teachers, and parent volunteers. Drop-in's welcome!

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Monday, Feb. 11th - Lincoln's Birthday observed-No School

Monday, Feb. 18th - Washington's Birthday Observed-No School

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Be Safe -- Be Responsible --- Be Respectful --- Be Your Best

Email: admin@pghs.net
Website: www.pghs.net
Location: Pleasant Grove High School, Bond Road, Elk Grove, CA, USA
Phone: 916-686-0230
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PleasantGroveHS
Twitter: @PleasantGroveHS