Dear La Entrada Community,

Some End-of-Year Reminders:

Closures:

Homework Center: Last day is Tuesday, May 31

Late Bus: Last day is Tuesday, May 31

Library Materials are due back now. (The library will allow summer check outs beginning June 6)

Hot Lunch: Last day is Tuesday, June 7

Emergency Forms:

Emergency Forms (printed on green paper) were mailed home to current 4^th-7^th grade families on April 27th. It is imperative that these forms are filled out, signed, and returned to us (even if your child is not returning next year). These forms were due on May 18.If you have not yet returned the form, please do so as soon as possible.If you need a new form, please contact Suzanne Mitchell at smitchell@llesd.org .

Yearbooks:

Yearbooks will be distributed beginning Monday, June 6.Yearbooks will be held for students who have not met the following obligations:

1. All textbooks returned (or paid for, if lost)
2. All library books turned in (or paid for, if lost)
3. Blue emergency form (see above) turned in.

8^th Grade Recognition Event:

On June 6 from 2:50-3:45pm, the 8^th graders are invited to the gym for a recognition event.The event is for students and staff only, and it is our opportunity to recognize the class of 2011.

There will be late buses available for those students who need one.Please make sure that your child has transportation plans.

8^th Grade Graduation:

We are excited that this year's graduation will again be held in our gym. Please remember that seating will be first come, first served.

Also, please keep in mind that the gym will have limited seating capacity. We have almost 130 graduates and about 660 seats for the audience.

On a more personal note:

It is hard to believe that the 2010-11 school year is coming to a close!It seems as if we just started a few weeks ago, but by the time you receive this, we will only have eight days of school left.

As I reflect on this year, so many positive things come to mind. First and foremost, we our students are amazing. I hope you had a chance this year to witness the outstanding work they did (both in the classroom and outside the classroom). They have achieved in so many ways this year. The community feel on campus is amazing, and our grade level groups are ready to take on the challenges of the next grade level, including moving on to high school (the 8^th graders), and the leadership responsibilities of welcoming and integrating a new class of students into the school.

I would also like to take a moment to thank all of our staff.La Entrada's staff put in countless hours this year to make sure that our students would have a rich academic and extra-curricular experience. This has been no small task, and they absolutely deserve a summer break full of rest and relaxation!

Of course, we could not do what we do without the thousands of volunteer hours donated by our parent community. Your contributions helped support our staff and students in phenomenal ways!In addition to the volunteer hours, I would also like to thank those parents that served on the PTA, Site Council, Foundation, and Las Lomitas League for all the ways that they add to La Entrada.

New 2011-12 Daily Schedule for 6^th - 8^th graders

This year, we took our first steps in adapting our 6^th-8^th grade schedule.Those modifications included:

• A morning break (brunch).
• A rotation of classes so that students and teachers experienced different classes at different times of the day.
• Wednesdays switched to a regular dismissal time.

These changes have been quite successful.However, we have continued to be constrained by 42 minute teaching periods.

To remedy this, we will be moving to a new schedule next year that will provide:

• A rotation of the period lines so that students will not always have the same subject at the same time of day.
• Longer periods. While the school-day start and end times will remain the same, the new schedule will lengthen periods from 42 minutes to at least 56 minutes.
• Fewer classes per day. As you can imagine, it would be impossible to lengthen the time per period and keep the same start and end times (if you are continuing to go to 8 classes each day). Students will only go to 6 out of 8 periods per day (on Tuesday through Friday). Not only does this allow the periods to be longer, but it also provides students with more flexibility in completing their homework. (Since students will not go to every class everyday, they will be able to make choices on when to get homework done.)

Here is a sample of what it will be like:

Mondays:  2 classes, brunch, 3 classes, Lunch, 3 classes (all 8 classes meet on Mondays)

Tuesday through Friday: 2 classes, brunch, 2 classes, lunch, 2 classes (six, 56-minutes classes each of these days).

All families will receive a copy of the new schedule in August.

Speaking of August:

Here are some dates to know for August (for those of you that are planners):

August 12: Class assignments mailed home

August 19: Meet the Teacher at 9:30am

August 22: First Day of School

August 25: Parent Information Night

August 26: School Picture Day

I hope you are able to fill your summer with fun and exciting experiences.

Have a great summer!

Warmest regards,

Larry Thomas

PTA News 

School News 

ERTOLA'S SUMMER MATH CAMP

The positive feedback from both parents and students regarding my three years of summer math enrichment programs, prompted me to once again offer another year of camp. This summer's camp is June 20-July 15th at 9-10am for incoming sixth, and 10-11am for incoming seventh graders and held in at LE in room 22. The goal of the program is to reinforce, develop and preview math skills and concepts for the upcoming school year. As LE's current Pre-Algebra teacher, its deepens the teacher-student relationship while improving their math skillsets. Flyers will be sent home April 29th. I welcome the opportunity to facilitate this continued learning experience and can be contacted for pricing and more information at jertola@llesd.org, or called at 650-386-5686 (home).   

NEW DIGITAL CAMERA FOR SUMMER TRIP?

If you have upgraded your vacation camera and would like to put your "old" one to a great use, we would love to get more cameras into the classrooms!
Please drop them in the school offices, or email Suzanne Mitchell for pickup!   

• Email submissions by Wednesday 12 Noon to be published the following week;
• When submitting an article, please refer to our newsletter policies.
• Put all content in the body of the email, do NOT send an attachment;
• Do NOT send flyers but provide a link to them;
• Do NOT send pictures but provide a link to them;
• Do not use embedded links in submissions: be sure all email addresses and URLs are visible, not hidden behind linked text;
• Please write concisely and proofread your submission.