South Whittier School District held their monthly board meeting Tuesday, January 16, at the district office. Jan Baird, newly appointed Board President, led the meeting where they discussed feedback about what is taking place in the South Whittier Community.
Phoenix Awards
Graves Middle School principal, Dr. Fraijo, presented the Phoenix Award to 8 students. These students were recognized for “beating the odds”.
Some students that were recognized recently moved to the U.S. with little to no english and have quickly excelled to having a 3.8 and 4.0 GPA. Other students were a part of the intervention program and have greatly improved and were able to transfer into elective courses.
Loma Vista Presents Focus Areas & School Goals
Interim principal at Loma Vista, Jan Tyrone, presented to the school board Loma Vista’s statistics, test scores, goals and focus areas.
Loma Vista is the largest school in the district and has the highest number of students, 57%, who are english language learners. With this high percentage she shared what their school is doing to help their students be successful.
Tyrone went on to share that their site is focused on great instruction the first time subjects are taught, professional development for teachers, teacher collaboration, and building a leadership capacity.
Loma Vista has also already implemented Lexia, which is a computer based program that diagnoses student’s needs. This type of instruction does not take away from student/teacher instruction, but is an above and beyond method to help engage students. They have also implemented teacher PDAR which stands for Plan, Do, Analyze, and Reflect.
Aside from classroom instruction, Loma Vista is also offering their students outdoor science school, 6th grade content and area rotations, 3 intervention teachers, accelerated reader, character education and celebrations, and more.
The next board meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 20, at 6PM at the district office.