AWARDS & ACCOLADES
MVLA STUDENTS NAMED SEMIFINALISTS IN THE 2022 NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
Congratulations to the 38 MVLA students named among the approximately 16,000 semifinalists in the 67th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $30 million that will be offered next spring. Read more here. Congratulations to the following students:
Los Altos High School
Lillian Aronovitz, Isabelle Baker, Helen Branson, Gavin Cartier, Cedric Chan, Justin Chou, Esha Gupta, Henry Huang, Arhan Jain, Jade Lu, Derek Meng, Tara Pande, Akilan Rammohan, Yvo Sadjideh, Richard Shi, Alexander Shkolnikov, Natasha Tanabe, Dylan Tran, Ada Tur, Jeannette Wang, Joshua Yin, and Jerry Ying.
Mountain View High School
Sonav Agarwal, Wyatt Cowley, Jessica Gao, Landon Gaviria, Katherine Healzer, Allison Huang, Emma Lee, Angelina Ma, Eliana Montgomery, Natalie Perrochon, Anthony Pertsel, Marika Ragnartz, Ian Shiu, Saahil Sundaresan, Clara Umminger, and Catarina Yang.
MVLA STUDENTS WINS NATIONAL SPEECH & DEBATE AWARD
Congratulations to Kaavya Butaney and Kiefer Tierling, seniors at Los Altos High School, for earning the National Speech & Debate Association's (NSDA) Academic All American Award! This coveted award recognizes academic rigor, competitive speech and debate success, and personal excellence.
From more than 141,000 student members of the NSDA, fewer than one percent of students earn the Academic All American award every year. This tremendous accomplishment places Kaavya and Kiefer among the top one percent of all student members across the country.
MVLA STUDENT JOURNALIST RECEIVES NATIONAL RECOGNITION
Los Altos junior Ernest Leong, a student in the New Media Lit program, has been honored by Student Newspapers Online (SNO) as one of the country's top student journalists.
The Best of SNO includes 21 stories from over 20,000 submissions, considered the best examples of student journalism. Ernest was honored for his photo essay, "Crisanto Street: A NML Photo Essay," depicting the daily lives of people living in rental vehicles, trailers, and vans of Crisanto Street, as well the nearby Day Worker Center that offers them work opportunities and living assistance.
SNO has previously published works from LAHS student journalists - enter Los Altos High School in the search engine, and you'll see a long list!
MVLA is pleased to recognize Gay Krause, former local teacher and principal, and founder of the Krause Center for Innovation (KCI), with September's Spotlight Award.
A longtime proponent of professional development and tech innovation, Gay has provided training to more than 23,000 educators since 2000, providing professional development on best practices for classroom technology, high-quality math instruction, and other team-building work. KCI hosted our administrative two-day retreat and school site retreats for WASC and departmental leadership work this summer and fall.
The Krauss Center has state-of-the-art classrooms, a maker’s space program and serves our Middle College students in partnership with Foothill DeAnza Community College.
Gay also serves on several community boards, including the YMCA of Silicon Valley. Children Now, and the local Challenge Team. View the recognition event from the September 13 board meeting here, starting at approximately 1:14.
SEPTEMBER IS SUICIDE PREVENTION AWARENESS MONTH
September is Suicide Prevention Month, and we wanted to share with our community some of our school-based and community-based resources and upcoming suicide prevention training opportunities. (View list here)
We know that this month may bring up many emotions, and we would like to take a moment to remember those who have lost their lives to suicide and support those who are survivors of suicide attempts and those bereaved by suicide. As a community, we continue to focus on suicide prevention to ensure that all of our students feel a sense of belonging, safety, and connection and that they have the tools and resources to seek help when needed.
ENGLISH LEARNERS TO GET EXTRA SUPPORT FROM NEW CASE MANAGER
A new partnership between MVLA and the Santa Clara County, Community Services Agency (CSA) is aiming to provide much-needed support for students learning English.
County Supervisor Joe Simitian sponsored the partnership, which will allow CSA to station a case manager on site at MVLA’s schools for three years to provide targeted support and social services to MVLA’s English Language Learner (ELL) students and their families, with a particular focus on students that entered the U.S. within the last three years. The County has awarded $250,000 to CSA for this effort.
CSA and MVLA are currently working to hire a case manager to fill this role and hope to begin offering services within the next few months. Read more about this partnership here.
SAT and PSAT TESTING
DEADLINES FOR PRELIMINARY SAT AND NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLARSHIP QUALIFYING TESTS
This year, MVLA will be offering the PSAT/NMSQT to ALL 10th, and 11th-grade students and the school-based SAT to all seniors. Juniors may choose to take either the SAT or the SAT/NMSQT. Juniors who plan to try to qualify for the National Merit Scholarship must take the PSAT/NMSQT. The MVLA High School Foundation will pay exam fees.
The tests will be administered on October 13, 2021. On this day, 9th-grade students will remain at home and have a remote learning day. Learn more here. The schools sent letters to families earlier this month with sign-up forms (LAHS | MVHS). Sign-ups for the test were due September 14. Students who did not sign up but would like to take the test should contact their school administrators; students will be added on a space-available basis.
Students are encouraged to take advantage of practice tests available on the CollegeBoard site - SAT | PSAT/NMSQT and PSAT 10
SURVEY ABOUT HOMEWORK EXPERIENCES
MVLA is inviting all members of our community to share information about homework experiences on a new ThoughtExchange. On this digital platform, you can share your feedback and view other stakeholder experiences transparently and constructively.
ThoughtExchange allows participants to provide information confidentially and rate or "star" ideas they like, also privately. The ratings will help us understand the most critical areas to focus on.
The ThoughtExchange will be open for input from the community through October 6, 2021, and is available in over 100 languages. Simply open the link and select the language of choice.
FOUNDATION UPDATE
MVLA FOUNDATION PHONATHON
The MVLA Foundation Phonathon is coming up -- we need your support! The Foundation is governed by parent volunteers who work hard to raise supplemental funding to ensure that our children have an exceptional learning environment. Please pitch in to help us meet our goal of raising $2.068 million. We will need every family's participation to get to our goal, and any amount is appreciated.
How can you help?
Donate Now or Pledge to Donate Later before September 30th to save our volunteers a call.
Volunteer to make calls on Wednesday, October 6, from 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. at the Mountain View Community Center. Volunteers are required to be vaccinated, wear masks, and maintain a safe social distance while indoors.
Questions? Email us info@mvlafoundation.org or visit our website MVLAfoundation.org.
MVLA PARENT EDUCATION SERIES
Join us for our first two live, online Speaker Series events of the season with award-winning author and New York Times “Your Money” columnist, Ron Lieber, offered at no cost to all attendees:
The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Roadmap
Tuesday, September 28, 2021 - 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Based on interviews with college presidents, financial aid gatekeepers, and other research, Lieber shares insights on the complicated financial aid system and merit aid, a new form of discounting that many colleges use to compete with peers. He offers guidance on evaluating college costs and comparing what is worth paying extra for by considering various attributes such as size, programs, access to professors, the strength of the career center, and engagement of the alumni network. Register here.
The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous and Smart About Money
Thursday, September 30, 2021 - 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Ron offers parents a blueprint for talking openly and intentionally with our kids about money.
Combining his values-based philosophy and stories from families with a range of incomes, he'll discuss how to embrace conversations about money and explores effective ways to approach money basics such as allowance, chores, charity, saving, birthdays, holidays, cell phones, checking accounts, clothing, cars, part-time jobs, and college tuition. Register here.
Friday night lights are back at MVHS! Our choir and principal sang the national anthem to kick off the season's first game, with the Spartans victorious over King’s Academy.
Twelve enthusiastic and talented students from Los Altos High School, advised by their art teacher, Christine An, tamed a variety of the colorful, clever bears populating downtown Los Altos. Read more at http://losaltosbears.losaltosrotary.org/
The bears are available for purchase through an online auction. Winning bids supports local charitable organizations, which receive 75% of tax-deductible bids. The artists and groups who painted the bears receive 25% of your bid.
ABOUT US
Email: communications@mvla.net
Website: https://www.mvla.net/
Location: 1299 Bryant Avenue, Mountain View, CA, USA
Phone: 650-940-4650
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mvlahsd
Twitter: @MVLAHSD
