Superintendent Newsletter

To ensure all students have an excellent science education, LASD adopted a new, exciting, hands-on science curriculum. This year, our 6th and 8th graders will begin experiencing the new Elevate Science curriculum for the first time.

The curriculum is much more than a textbook, it is a phenomena-based, hands-on science curriculum immersing students in the inquiry process. Elevate Science is aligned with NGSS standards to ensure that our students are exposed to essential scientific concepts and skills. It uses California-based, real-world phenomena to anchor students in their learning, to engage students, and to spark their curiosity. The phenomena provides space for students to generate questions about what they observe. Students begin asking questions such as, “Why does that happen?” and, “What’s causing that?” Students move beyond rote memorization to deeper understanding around how and why things work.''

One example of hands-on science learning can be found in Elevate’s “quests.” Each quest threads together lessons containing lab experiences where students investigate and explain real phenomena. Quests begin with a story, followed by a challenge. Students are challenged to identify the problem, collaborate with peers to generate ideas, and ultimately come up with their own solutions. Students learn how to analyze information, form hypotheses, and draw evidence-based conclusions. Elevate takes science beyond simply reading about content. Students have multiple opportunities to ‘do’ science deeply by exploring, designing, building, and testing solutions to real-world problems.

We're thrilled our students are engaged in deeper, hands-on learning to truly experience and understand science through this new curriculum.

To empower our students to create communities of kindness, all of our elementary schools are participating in what we're calling, "The Kindness Kickoff." The Kindness Kickoff is two weeks of lessons and activities in all elementary classrooms to help our students understand what kindness is and engage in authentic experiences to practice and reflect on kindness.

For example, at Almond school, students discussed how their names are important. They shared their name and how to pronounce it with others. They shared how they got their name, one thing they like about it and other people they know with the same name. Students also talked about kindness and came to a common understanding about what kindness is. Students also made a school mural of paper hands at Almond to go along with the schools' theme for the year: Helping Hands. The idea is based on a quote from Audrey Hepburn that we have two hands, one to help ourselves and one to help others.

During the first few weeks of school at Santa Rita, all people on campus were challenged to see kindness in others. Students helped create "catching kindness cards" to tell an adult who was kind and how. After letting the adult know about these acts of kindness, the adult fills out the kindness card to be read at a school wide assembly. It seems many assemblies will be filled with kindness card readings since staff has collected over 500 cards!

We are so proud of all of our students who are creating cultures of kindness at each of our elementary schools.

Do you, your friends, neighbors or family have a new student who will be entering Transitional Kindergarten or Kindergarten next school year? Or, do you know anyone new to our area who is interested in learning more about our schools for their child?

If so, please join us or pass on the invitation to our New Family Information Night, hosted at each one of our elementary schools! At Info Night, you will meet our principals, parents, teachers and staff to learn more about:

• Our student-centered, personalized approach to education
  
• Our experienced, top-quality educational staff
  
• Our excellent academic programs, from STEM to the Arts
  
• Our after school programs
  

New Family Info Night Details

Where: Each of Our Elementary Schools

Almond, Covington, Gardner Bullis, Loyola, Oak, Santa Rita and Springer

When: November 2, 7:00pm

What: Your school principal, teachers, parents and staff will provide a presentation and answer questions about your neighborhood school

For more information, please visit the Registration page on our website.

LASD staff and I are so passionate about this learning journey that we have developed a podcast to shine a light on learning and instruction in our classrooms. It’s a wonderful deep dive into the work that your students are doing every day and how our amazing staff supports their learning.

Visit our website to learn more and check it out our latest podcast.

Email: superintendent@lasdschools.org
Website: lasdschools.org
Location: 201 Covington Road, Los Altos, CA, USA
Phone: 650-947-1150