Arts Magnet Weekly News

Dear Altadena Eliot Arts Magnet Families,

We enjoyed a wonderful October that culminated in a fun Friday with our Book-O-Ween costume parade at the elementary and our lunchtime Costume Runway Contest at the middle school. Both campuses enjoyed bags of treats to take home at the end of the day, courtesy of our friends at MonteCedro.

We all participated in Red Ribbon Week and had an excellent fall play of spooky scenes at the middle school campus. It was beautiful to be able to bring families together in person on campus again. I look forward to many more of these events in the future!

Our Social Committee Chairs at both sites helped me to honor all teachers and staff with treats and cold drinks delivered to their classroom doors and a classified breakfast party at the middle school campus. Appreciating our staff is one of my favorite things to do!

Although none of us knew about our K-8 articulation a few short months ago, it has been really heartening to see the way our families are coming together. Many of our families already have students on both campuses so it's great to keep our connection going. Then there are the AAM Cougars who are now Huskies and I am so enjoying their cooler and more detached middle school vibe :)

The other aspect that is unfolding organically is the love the kids are developing for Mr. Maynard at the elementary school and the deep appreciation that is blooming for Dr. Hill at the middle school campus. Kids are seeking them both out and getting to know the three of us as their admin team. We have definitely had our growing pains, but we are finding our footing and hitting our stride.

Big Dreams!

We have big dreams for what's possible when we bring both communities together. I will be putting together an Altadena Eliot Arts Design Team made up of parents, staff and community members. We will start meeting in the spring as a think tank to plan together for this BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal!). Look for a call for volunteers in January.

Annual Funds!

When we work to support each other, we can achieve anything! I ask all of you to please consider supporting each site's annual fund. For the elementary site, I am asking all families to please purchase your holiday tree, wreath and garland from our Annual Fund tree sale. The trees are really fresh and beautiful and they can be delivered right to your door for a $25 fee. You can also purchase a tree for our troops! There is a flyer below but you may also just visit https://fundraiser4us.com/shop/AAM/ to purchase yours today! All proceeds will go to support our arts programming at the elementary site.

For the middle school site, I am asking ALL our families to purchase tickets to our annual Gala and Silent Auction at the Altadena Town and Country Club on February 23, 2022. We have great food, wine and amazing prizes. All proceeds will go to support our arts and French program at the middle school campus. We are working on a special celebrity guest who you won't want to miss. Please see the flyer below for more information. Tickets will go on sale in January!

Great things are possible when we work together!

Both Campuses:

Make Up Picture Days!!!

Elementary - Tuesday, November 2nd

Middle School - Wednesday, November 17

PEN Poker Tournament! Let's have AAM and Eliot tables! Please see the flyer below for more information.

Sibling & Priority Registration for Fall 2022 begins Monday, October 25th at 9AM.

All sibling/priority applications will be online on https://schoolchoicepusd.com/ and an application button will also be placed on our website pusd.us/enrollment.

Dates: October 25, 2021, 9AM - November 15, 2021, 4PM

The Office of Family and Community Engagement will offer a series of workshops for Parents, on Welcoming Schools. Our goal is to provide knowledge and tools for families to rebuild/restore trusting relationships, and how to collaborate with schools and work as equal partners. Dates & times: November 2, 2021, 6:00 - 7:30 PM and February 15, 2022, 6:00 - 7:30 PM Reflective Wrap-up Session: April 27, 2022, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

Here is the link for details and registration information. https://www.smore.com/v2dkr-welcoming-schools-training

Save the Date! Our holiday shows will be on Thursday, December 16!

Science Night is coming for our whole community! Please see the flyer below.

ELEMENTARY ONLY

PTA Reflections Celebration will be Thursday night at 6pm. Please join here:

http://meet.google.com/rjz-oewt-hhc

Wanna see our Hispanic Heritage performance? Click here: https://youtu.be/KCSndv7MouQ

Check out The Monster Mash https://youtu.be/1N3UwcTOe6A

Movie Night!!! Don't miss our drive in movie night on Friday, November 5. Gates will open at 5:45pm and the movie will start at 6:30pm sharp. Only 50 cars so first come, first served! Please see the flyer below for more information.

MIDDLE SCHOOL ONLY

Contribute to our Library Wish List here: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2YK0O5469PBJY?ref_=wl_share

We need 4-5 parents to join our School Site Council asap! We have decisions to make and want your voice. If you're interested in joining, please contact Dr. Erica Peters, our SSC Chair at peters.erica@pusd.us

It's a great year to be an Altadena Cougar and Husky!

Yours in Service,

Dr. Scheckel, Principal

Lauren is our new Community Advocate! Her role is to work alongside our bilingual Community Assistant to provide resources and positive experiences for all students. Lauren has this to say, "I am so excited to be a part of the Pasadena Unified team. I cannot wait to showcase everything this school has to offer. A couple things to know about me is I am an absolute foodie, there is not a single food I won't eat and I am a huge disney fan." Welcome to the Eliot family Lauren!

Wondering where to send your student to high school? Please join our College and Careers department for this virtual event where you will have the opportunity to hear from each of our high school principals and learn more about our academies across PUSD.

Heartbeat will provide your student with a more in-depth language and knowledge-base for introspection, Heartbeat™ equips students with essential tools for success in school and beyond. Studies have shown that students who develop skills for self-reflection and awareness have more success coping with stress and managing difficult emotions. Recent research in neuroscience, for instance, shows that simply having a more effective vocabulary for identifying and translating emotions into words reduces stress and enables students to understand their feelings in intrinsically more empowering terms. Heartbeat™ goes even further: By providing students with new and healthier ways to frame perceived challenges as potential superpowers, Heartbeat™insights are designed to actively prevent against the potentially harmful tendency to personalize and internalize challenges as fixed “character flaws” or inherent weaknesses. Students who develop greater self-awareness are also better able to communicate their needs and self-advocate for support. And by facilitating self-reflection as a regular practice, Heartbeat™ helps students develop cognitive skills that support deeper, more reflective learning.

OVERVIEW

We are proud to offer The Shmoop Heartbeat™, a simple, non-intrusive student engagement solution that addresses the mental health, social emotional learning (SEL), and cognitive insights of students at scale. This research-based classroom technology is designed to tie a student’s emotional health, cognitive position, and background to their ability to achieve academically. The technology was built in conjunction with teachers, counselors, education technology experts, child psychologists, child psychometric experts, technology developers, and Digital Promise (a nonprofit national center for research in advanced information and digital technologies originated by the U.S. Congress as part of the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Opportunity Act).

HOW DOES IT WORK?

While implementation can look different at every campus, the functionality of the Shmoop Heartbeat™ is simplistic and non-intrusive to the school day.

● Students spend 5-10 minutes, 2-3 times a week engaging on the Heartbeat board.

● Insights across 2,000 factors are securely collected

● Teachers and students use actionable recommendations to improve individualized learning.

● (Optional) Students and teachers leverage the “Handraise” feature to close the feedback loop and drive conversation around a students’ individual recommendations.

FEATURES

The Board:

Heartbeat™ is designed to be a familiar and comfortable environment that students will be willing to engage with in order to provide important responses at scale. The experience is completely customizable by students. They can adjust the background, colors, animation, shapes, and contrast.

Students engage in questions and interactions designed by child psychologists and psychometric experts around their academic, emotional, cognitive, and personal background. The amount of time students & teachers spend in the platform is completely flexible. Shmoop recommends students spend 5-10 minutes, 2-3 times/week & teacher/counselor time dependent on advisory periods and available time dedicated to support SEL & whole-child programs. The responses are analyzed real time in the tool. On average, a student who completes 50+ interactions in a week results in hundreds of counseling & teacher cognitive processing hours saved on a monthly basis.

The Pulse:

Heartbeat™ evaluates over 50 factors to provide insights into capability, mental health, social skills, emotional skills, literacy skills, cognitive skills, and student backgrounds that produce over 120 unique student dimensions inside their “Pulse”.

Student responses are assembled into a graphical environment tailored to either students or teachers, which makes results easy to digest and take action on. Students are driven to explore the “Pulse” as it’s applicable to their individual growth while teachers can view the “Pulses” that are having the most impact on their groups of students.

Within each “Pulse” are specific Actions and Insights. Teachers can customize their “Pulse” dashboard to view specific groups of students, filter by specific competencies and trends, or hone in on individual students.

These Insights are provided directly to the students in the form of “I feel” statements, recommendations on what behaviors to stop/start, and relational commentary expertly designed to create “lightbulb moments”.

Greetings friends,

AAPC is excited to welcome Chris Chatmon, Co-Founder of Kingmakers of Oakland to lead a discussion around proven success strategies and tools PUSD can take on to transform educational and life outcomes for Black students. Kingmakers of Oakland (KOO) originated in Oakland Unified School District’s Office of African American Male Achievement and after 10-plus years in the district, have expanded to support school districts around the nation, by collaborating, coordinating and convening folks, "...who are inspired to create a healthy, affirming learning environment for Black students in the public school system…Kingmakers helps each unique district transform their school environment (KOO).” This is about all students thriving and not just surviving or adapting to practices shown to be unsuccessful for the majority of Black students.

This is a lean in opportunity. We hope you will join us, for a conversation you do not want to miss! As a community, we believe that our students futures are not up for debate. To learn more about Kingmakers of Oakland please check out their website at: https://kingmakersofoakland.org/

The credentials to join the November 2nd virtual meeting are as follows:

Link to join the virtual meeting:

ZOOM: https://tcsedsystem.zoom.us/j/98406697777?pwd=UGQ3YWVWWXA2dU9rcDg3T2ZPaHVYQT09

Join by Phone: US +1 669 900 6833 or +1 408 638 0968

Meeting ID: 984 0669 7777

Passcode: 376194

*TO JOIN BY PHONE, YOU WILL NEED BOTH THE MEETING ID AND PASSCODE

This meeting space is for us, by us. Your voice and presence are always welcome. We look forward to fellowship, sharing wins/challenges and having a good time!

In Gratitude,

Nia, Nate, John, Toutoule, Natasha, Denise and Nicole

African American Parent Council

Black Children are Our Business

Participants or their parents/guardians can register one of two ways:

1. Using their own device
• Email registration links to students (and parent/guardians) and staff so they can register at home before testing.
• Turn registrations links into QR codes to print and post at the collection site. To create a QR code, head to qrcode-monkey.com, enter your URL, click “Generate QR Code”, then “Download PNG”
2. With assistance
• For participants or parent/guardians without access to technology or who need additional assistance, set up a device on site on testing days.

Here's the registration links for Altadena Elementary:

1. Staff URL
2. Student URL

Here's the registration links for Charles W. Eliot Middle:

1. Staff URL
2. Student URL

Questions?

• Walk through the site setup process at www.color.com/cdph-site-setup
• Join Zoom office hours Wednesday and Friday at 10:00am PT
• Fill out the form at the bottom of this page to reach Support

The Great Kindness Challenge for 2021-2022 has arrived! This year both campuses will participate. Please visit https://thegreatkindnesschallenge.com/ for more information.

Dear Families,

Now, more than ever, attending school on time, daily is a must! Students have lost so much time in school, they really need to be here every day. We understand students may be quarantined due to COVID exposure, but that's not what this is referring to. Please acquaint yourself with this program so you know what it is when you receive notifications. Thank you!

The holidays are quickly approaching, and before you know it, Christmas is here! Despite the hardships of the pandemic on students and families, one of our local community partners, the Salvation Army, in collaboration with the PUSD Families in Transition, has come alongside many of our families with food boxes and other basic necessities. For the holidays, the Salvation Army is opening its annual Christmas Gift registration program available to PUSD families. This is an opportunity for parents/guardians to make an appointment to pick out a Christmas gift for their children, ages 0-12, at the Salvation Army - Pasadena Tabernacle during the week of December 13th through December 17th. The Salvation Army has four (4) registration partners in the greater Pasadena community including PUSD Families in Transition at the Center for Student & Family Services. All parents or guardians need to do is call PUSD Families in Transition at (626) 396-5782 or one of the other agency numbers on the accompanying flyer to register. All registrations go into one database so repeat registrations will be voided. If you have any questions, please call PUSD Families in Transition or the Salvation Army directly. 'Tis the season for family and giving so let's make this holiday season better than ever!

Dear Families,

We have a strict mask mandate on both our campuses to keep all students, staff and families safe from infection with COVID-19. We understand the masks can be uncomfortable for students to wear all day long, but they are necessary. We will follow the process below for students who do not/can not wear a mask over their nose, mouth and chin:

1. First time, Verbal warning to wear their mask
2. Second time, Phone call home
3. Third time, Recommendation for PUSD Independent Study for 3 days

Student will be placed on our regular independent study program for 3 days. This program keeps the student enrolled at their present school with work delivered on Canvas. After 3 days the student returns to their home school and the process starts all over. Each time we get to step three, we add an additional day of independent study until we reach the maximum which is 15 days. After that, student will be referred to our district's CIS program for the rest of the school year.

If you have any questions about this policy, please reach out to principal Scheckel.

We are excited to kick off our annual fund activities and goals at both campuses and to share the vision as we move forward as one school, two campuses!

For this year, both annual funds will remain separate, but both school communities will have the opportunity to support each other, knowing that each fund will support all our children in arts and French!

Elementary Annual Fund

Our Annual Fund Chair is Tasiah LeConte

Tasiah has an executive board who assists in reaching the goals of the fund.

Fundraising Goal: $100,000.00 per year for post magnet grant art sustainability

Major Fundraising Events

Free Dress Fridays

Holiday Tree/Wreath Sale

Altadena's Got Talent

Capital Campaign

Middle School Annual Fund

Our Annual Fund Chair is Felicia Lee

Felicia has an executive board who assists in reaching the goals of the fund.

Fundraising Goal: $100,000.00 per year for arts and French program sustainability

Major Fundraising Events

Silent Auction @ Altadena Country Club on February, 25, 2022!

Capital Campaign

My vision as your principal is that all elementary families will buy tickets and attend the Eliot Gala at the Altadena Country Club and all proceeds will go to Eliot's annual fund to support our arts and French programs and in turn, all Eliot families will participate in Altadena's holiday tree and wreath fundraiser with all proceeds going to support Altadena's arts sustainability plan.

When we work together, all our children benefit!

A big thank you to our parent and community leaders for coming together to make our fundraising efforts successful!

As you know, PUSD was running low on testing kits. We expect this situation to be resolved shortly. Please read below how testing will work on both campuses, when we have enough kits.

What kind of COVID-19 test is given?

The COVID-19 test is a nasal swab PCR test that the students can self-administer under the supervision of a PUSD nurse. Testing materials are provided by Valencia Lab and results will be received within 24-48 hours.

Who will be tested?

Students with informed consent will be tested. Any interested staff can be tested.

How can parents give informed consent?

Parents can provide informed consent through two ways:

• Register through the online platform: https://home.color.com/covid/sign-up/start?partner=cdph094
• Complete the hard copy registration forms in English or Spanish which will be provided for you by the COVID-19 Response Team.

What do parents and staff need to do prior to testing?

We encourage parents and staff to register with the COLOR system prior to arriving for testing, however, the Color system currently is available only in English. Therefore, we will provide hard copies of an informed consent form in English and Spanish at the registration table. If the student or staff member has tested with PUSD before, they will not have to register again.

To register for COVID-19 testing, please use this link:

https://home.color.com/covid/sign-up/start?partner=cdph094

The COVID-19 Response Team will also bring posters of the QR code that connects directly to the testing link.

When does the COVID-19 Response Team come to my school?

Multiple COVID-19 Response Team members are organized to go to each school one time per week. As resources increase, teams will begin to go to each site for more than one scheduled visit.

The schedule to begin on August 30 is as follows:

• Mondays, 7:45-11:00: Marshall, PHS, Muir, Blair
• Tuesdays, 7:45-3:30: Altadena, Field, Washington ES, Norma Coombs, Focus Point
• Wednesdays, 7:45-3:30: Longfellow, Don Benito, Washington MS. Willard/PALS/CIS Jackson, McKinley ES
• Thursdays, 7:45 - 3:30: Webster, Sierra Madre ES, Madison, San Rafael, McKinley MS
• Friday: 7:45-3:30: Eliot, Sierra Madre MS, Hamilton, Cleveland, Rose City

How will testing be conducted during school hours
More information on this procedure will come to you.

What happens if a student is in quarantine or isolation?

If a student is in isolation, then they are confirmed positive and do not need to test for 3 months after they received their lab-confirmed positive result

If a student is in quarantine, then they need to test off-site. They can:

• Test with their medical provider
• Make an appointment with the PUSD Primary Care Clinic at 351 S. Hudson Ave. by calling 626-396-3600 xt 88180.
• Participate in the drive-through clinic on Mondays at 351 S. Hudson Ave. in the south parking lot, enter on Oak Knoll.

When will the student or staff member receive their results?

Results will come in 24-48 hours.

Will Incentives be given to students for participating?

Yes, we will be providing students with various incentives for their participation in the testing program.

https://home.color.com/covid/sign-up/start?partner=cdph094

If you or your child are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, do not come to school for testing. Stay home. You can come to the PUSD Primary Care Clinic at 351 S. Hudson Ave. Please call 626-396-3600 xt 88180 for an appointment.

Individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 within the past 3 months, recovered, and are not showing any symptoms, are not recommended to test.

If you are an elementary family, you received a hard copy of this handbook in the mail in June. If you are a middle school family, please take a look at this digital copy: Altadena Eliot Arts Magnet Academy Family Handbook

The Eliot specific information is not yet complete, but I wanted to make sure you had something before next week.

We will continue to update the calendar of events and other pertinent information this week. This is a live document so added information will be updated automatically.

Before leaving home all students, employees and parents must conduct a self check. Ask yourself these questions:

• Do I have a fever?

• Do I have a cough?

• Am I experiencing shortness of breath or difficulty breathing?

• Am I experiencing any other symptoms?

• Have I been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 14 days?

• In the last two weeks, have I been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19?

If you respond "yes" to any of the questions, you must stay home and it is recommended that you contact your primary care physician for further medical advice. If you have a fever with cough or shortness of breath, you are urged to contact your primary care physician as these symptoms may be attributed to COVID-19. To protect others, stay home, wear a facemask when you seek medical care and follow the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s Home Isolation Instructions. For more detailed symptom self-checker visit the Los Angeles County Public Health Department’s COVID-19 Symptom page.

November

● 11/2 Elementary Make up photo day

● 11/4 Elementary Reflections Celebration

● 11/5 Elementary Movie Night

● 11/8 ELAC Breakfast @ Eliot for ALL parents

● 11/9 Elementary SSC @ 3pm and PTA @ 6pm

● 11/10 Cougar Values Awards Assembly

● 11/11 Veterans' Day BOTH CAMPUSES CLOSED

● 11/12 Cafe con Scheckel @ 8:30am

● 11/13 Middle School Fall Festival @ 2pm

● 11/16 GATE Parent Meeting @ 9am

● 11/17 Middle School Make up photo day

● 11/18 Virtual School Tour @ 9am BOTH CAMPUSES

● 11/19 Elementary Wacky Fun Run

● 11/22-11/26 Thanksgiving Break, Schools Closed

● 11/28 Hanukkah Begins

Email: scheckel.benita@pusd.us
Website: https://www.pusd.us/Page/9
Location: 743 East Calaveras Street, Altadena, CA 91001, United States
Phone: 626-396-5650
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/altadenacougars/
Twitter: @altadenaES