FEBUARY 17 2017

Mock Trial Champions! Arroyo Grande High School Mock Trial Team won its 4th consecutive San Luis Obispo County Championship. They had to overcome a very tough competitor in Templeton High School. AGHS will represent San Luis Obispo County at the State Championship competition which will be held next month. According to coaches Amber Derbidge and Steve Dorsi, the team plans to work very hard for the next month to prepare. Good luck Eagles!

The mock trial team from Paulding also competed last week. The Patriots made it all the way to the finals. Coaches Emily Green-Hilford and Larry Hart were proud of their accomplishment.

Congratulations Kristen Curran!

Congratulations to Kristen Curran of Lange Elementary for being chosen for the Spotlight on Employee Excellence. Principal Michael Flushman says that Mrs. Curran has shown incredible leadership, dedication, caring, selflessness, and humor. Students, parents, and staff at Lange love working with her. Mrs. Curran’s lessons are well prepared and her classroom is rigorous, yet fun and engaging. Thank you Mrs. Curran for being such a valuable member of the Lange staff and for being a model of positivity and dedication!

We are so proud to have this hard worker as a part of TEAM Lucia Mar!

As Lucia Mar continues to plan and prepare for new construction and modernization in the coming years, the district will be well served to establish specific criteria for what will come to be known as “The Standard Lucia Mar Classroom.” While there will certainly be deviation from the standard classroom when designing libraries, science classrooms, Maker Spaces, etc., we are now in the planning stages and are looking for input. Decisions such as windows/window sizes, whiteboards/placement, technology, and cabinetry will be long-lasting decisions and must be arrived at with input and feedback from teachers. If you are interested in providing input, please email Andy Stenson at andy.stenson@lmusd.org to request a document that will allow you to provide your advice. Two small groups of teachers have already formed to begin this project, but we continue to look for as much input as possible.

Upgrades | Repairs | Enhancements

FACILITIES

Poetry Out Loud! Nipomo High School junior Graciela Maldonado will compete in the state Poetry Out Loud finals next month in Sacramento. Maldonado will be representing San Luis Obispo County at the competition. She has already won a $500 scholarship and will now compete for cash prizes and an all-expenses-paid trip to the national Poetry Out Loud finals in April in Washington, D.C. This year more than 4,000 students from San Luis Obispo County schools took the challenge.

Student ...featuring student work from CENTRAL COAST NEW TECH HIGH

Geoffrey Smith & Ryan PfarrArchitecture Team Design

Rebecca ChapmanRed Dragon Toy Design

Alex Campas Black Futuristic Box

Matthew RichardsonSpace Needle

LMUSD Students in Honor Band

Students from our middle schools and high schools auditioned and were chosen to take part in the San Luis Obispo County Honor Band. San Luis Obispo County Band Directors Association has a junior band made up of middle schoolers and a senior band made up of high school students. Our teachers helped prepare the students for the auditions. The students that were chosen learned the music, rehearsed together and then put on a concert. The concert was held February 15, 2017 at the San Luis Obispo Performing Arts Center and conducted by Timothy Smith and Corey Nordal.

TEAM Lucia Mar

California is currently in the process of transitioning from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) national education law. As part of ESSA, a California School Dashboard has been created and is planned for public release in early March. This new multiple measures dashboard is part of California’s school accountability program as outlined in ESSA. This dashboard includes state and local testing to measure student academic growth. This time of year we all become mindful of “testing.” The state will soon release the data from our state test, the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP). These tests are designed to provide important information that can be used to monitor student progress and ensure that all students leave high school ready for college and career. The largest component of this test is the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA), a technology based program with students performing the assessments in English and Math on computers. Lucia Mar is in our third year of this testing model. These tests measure some important things. Are our kids progressing in math and english sufficiently? Are they not only learning the subject matter, but also developing the skills required for success in our world - critical thinking, analytical writing, and problem solving? This assessment will be used by many to “grade” our effectiveness as a district, along with the MAP scores and other growth oriented measures. We have developed goals at each school around preparing our students, not for this test, but for their future. The test simply is one measure of how that is going. Teachers have a formidable job. At the end of the day, the job of our teachers is to be faithful to authentic student learning. If “testing” is gathering data on how kids learn, we are doing it ALL THE TIME! It is easy to become fixated on results from one test, from one day, given near the end of the school year. And, yes, that is data that can be useful, but it must be viewed in balance. Teachers spend the entire year collecting all sorts of immediate and valuable information about students that informs and influences how we teach, as well as where and what we review, re-adjust, and re-teach. We are a data-driven district, and it is important to remind ourselves that teachers collect data and use it in a variety of ways. Please consider the following ways.

• Classroom Data◊ Checking for understanding, exit slips, brief quizzes, and thumbs up/thumbs down are a few of the strategies I see in our classrooms. These formative assessments help us gather information on where students are and where we need to go next.◊ Walking around as our students are learning. In observation mode, the teacher as a fly on the wall, gathering data on individual students - how well are they making sense of the content? Interacting with others? Are they struggling with a learning activity? Observation data then allow us to adjust pacing for the whole class or scaffold for those students who are still struggling.◊ Summative assessments as in a literary analysis essay or an end-of-unit science exam, allow us to measure the growth of individual and whole-group learning. If a large number of students don’t do well on a high-stakes assessment, we then reflect back on the teaching and make necessary adjustments in the future.

• Cumulative Files◊ Reviewing cum files allows us to develop a picture of the child in context of what has happened in their life over time. This may provide the opportunity to provide empathy, acknowledge their hardship, and then set some goals together for the child to improve academically.

• State Test◊ Provides a way for us to see how we are doing as a whole, how our kids are doing compared to other students, and is a source of information.

Let’s take a moment and ask ourselves these questions…..What are ways in which the student data collected has benefited the instruction and learning in our classrooms? How should we use the data collected to talk with our students about their growth, their goals, and the development of a growth mindset?This is hard work. A special thanks to our teachers for their thoughtful approach to figuring out how the kids are doing, what they need to learn, and how best to facilitate their learning. Thanks to all of our staffs for supporting our students, in so many ways, during this time of learning and growth.

Bee Great at Shell Beach ElementaryCongratulations to all of the amazing spellers at Shell Beach Elementary. They took part in the Annual Shell Beach Spelling Bee. These impressive kids spelled some hard words!

Winners: 1st Place 2nd Place 3rd Place Winning Word 1st: Justice Eggers Aiden Ballard McKenzie Byars print 2nd: Jace Anderson Owen Hoffman Madison Bortoluzzi friend 3rd: Tane Kurth Joshua Evans Joaquin Couch vanity 4th: Lilly Newton Jalynn Fetterolf Ella Snyder waddle 5th: Evan Nichols Mia Martin Dylan Keith tongue 6th: Jadyn Acker Ian Beard Kyliegh Quaresma magician

Skills USA! Arroyo Grande, Nipomo and Central Coast New Tech high schools sent 27 students to compete in 14 SkillsUSA contests. Nipomo competed in CSI, Firefighting, and Criminal Justice; CCNTH in Computer Programming; and AGHS in 3D Animation, several Drafting contests, Culinary, Photography, MIG and TIG welding, and Shielded Metal Arc welding. For Nipomo and CCNTH, it was their first time competing in SkillsUSA.

Here are the medalists:Vicente Reyes & Marco Giovacchini, Gold, 3D Viz & Animation

Garrett Hahlbeck & Miriam Schenck, Silver, 3D Viz & Animation

Thomas Hayden, Intro To Drafting B, Gold

Danielle Camarillo, Intro To Drafting A, Silver

Nate Harrison, Tech Design, Advances To State

Cooper Hill, Tech Design, Advances To State

Marco Specchierla, TIG Welding, Bronze

Celebrating Margaret Harloe Day Margaret Harloe’s birthday is February 18th, but Harloe Elementary celebrated a bit early on the 16th. Each year they celebrate their namesake’s birthday with fun and trivia. The students especially look forward to visiting with Margaret’s daughter Norma who visits each year to celebrate her mother’s birthday with the students. This year the students even got a special visit from Margaret’s granddaughter Lynn who flew in from the East Coast to celebrate.

The Five Cities Beach Classic Robotic Tournament, hosted by the NHS Titan Robotics Team, was a great success. Huge thanks to the Titans for doing such a good job organizing.

Paulding Middle School had 3 teams qualify for State/Regional Championships. Mesa Middle School and Branch Elementary also had teams qualify for State/Regional Championships. Nipomo Elementary, Ocean View Elementary, Harloe Elementary, and Fairgrove Elementary all won awards.

We have many teams going to state, and some that qualified for Nationals taking place April 3-9 in Council Bluffs, IA. We hope they all qualify for the World Championships in Louisville, KY.

ROBOTI S

National Recognition!

Congratulations to Central Coast New Tech High School on being

one of only two schools in the nation to be named a “Demonstration Site” three years in a row! Being given a “Demonstration Site Status” with the New Tech Network means that the model at CCNTH exceeds expectations for the New Tech Network. CCNTH is 1 of only 13 schools of the over 170 schools in the Network to reach this status. They have been chosen as a demonstration site every year they have been eligible. Great work CCNTH!

EmployeeFamily BBQ

Save the date!May 19, 2017

Students create 3D designs using a 3D printer.