Dear La Entrada Community,

As always, there is a high level of energy and La Entrada during this time of year.  We are starting a new school year, and the teachers have been busy preparing their lessons and classrooms.  Parents and students have been preparing for new schedules. As I am writing this newsletter (just two days before "Meet the Teacher"), I know that we are headed into a terrific school year!

I must start the new year by recognizing some people/groups that contribute so much to making sure we are ready for the start of school: 

• Our wonderful Maintenance, Operations, and Transportation Department. They are dedicated to making sure the campus is ready to go on the first day. 
• Our Technology department for the updating, maintenance and support they give. 
• We couldn't get everything done in the office without the support and assistance of Marja Rudge, who does too many things to list.
• All of our teachers who spend countless hours preparing curriculum and their rooms.
• Our PTA for all of their help in getting calendars and forms, etc. ready.
• And all our wonderful students and parents who will be here on August 22 ready to learn and ready to work in partnership to reach our vision.

New Daily Schedule

We will be starting this year with a new daily schedule for our 6^th-8^th graders.  The schedule was mailed home with the class assignments so that you could review it with your child prior to the first day of school.

The new schedule builds in one major change from last year's schedule:  On Tuesdays through Fridays, students will attend only six classes per day.  This change allows for:

• Classes to be 56 minutes (instead of 42)
• Flexibility in time management.  Because each class doesn't meet every day, students can manage their homework time better.

Brunch/Recess/Lunch Food

Brunch (6-8) and Recess (4-5) are good times for our students to eat a morning snack.  Eating a healthy snack in the morning can have a positive effect on their classroom performance.  A healthy lunch is equally important so that students can focus in the afternoon.

During the first week of school, all students must pack food for brunch/recess/lunch.  Hot lunch service will not begin until the second week of school.

For 6^th-8^th graders, there will be no brunch time on the first day of school.   

Schedule Changes (6^th - 8^th Graders)

There are two reasons that your child's schedule may change in the first few weeks of school.

1. If your child wants a schedule change, s/he should pick up a schedule change form in the main office.  When the form is filled out and returned with a parent signature, Mrs. McDonough(our counselor) will review it and see if the change is possible.  Mrs. McDonough will call your child into office to review whether or not the change is possible.  Please note that many changes are not possible due schedule complexities.
2. Mrs. McDonough may call your student into the office to mandate a schedule change that is necessary to better balance classes. We attempt, during the first few weeks, to move some students out of larger classes and into smaller classes.  If one of these changes occurs to your child, please know that it is to the benefit of all our students to balance the classes as much as possible.

New News at La Entrada
Each year teaching assignments can change.  Sometimes these are due to interests on the part of the teacher; sometimes they are due to needs of the school.  This year, we also have some changes due to increased staffing (thanks to great budget management from the District, and a wonderful gift from the Foundation!) Here are some of our changes/additions for this year:

• Brenda Nixon returns to us after teaching 2^nd and 3^rd grades at Las Lomitas last year.  Brend will join our 5^th grade team.  This additional staffing has allowed us to move from 5 classes to 6 classes at the 5^th grade level.  The result is that we are able to have 5^th grade class sizes of 25/26 instead of 30.
• David Pickett joins our staff as a 6^th and 7^th grade Core teacher.  David has taught   for 8 years, most recently in Cupertino.  He has a very strong background in writing and technology.  The additional staffing we received to hire David allows us to lower class sizes in our 6^th and 7^th grade Cores.  Instead of classes averaging 26-28, our Core classes will average 23-24.
• Mark Jones joins us as the 8^th grade Physical Education teacher.  He will also teach one class of 6^th grade Physical Education.  Mark has been teaching since 2000, and he has taught Physical Education in grades 4-12.  Most recently, he was at James Logan High School.
• Jean Lamson will be teaching all of our 4^th and 5^th Grade Physical Education classes.  Jean has taught here at La Entrada since 1992.  For many years, she concentrated in 8^th grade, but she is very excited to be able to now focus on 4^th and 5^th grade.
• Cynthia Chui will join us as our Mandarin teacher.  She has been teaching Mandarin since 2008.  Since we only have one class of Mandarin, we will be sharing her with Serra High School (where she also teaches Mandarin).  We received additional staffing allowing us to open this exciting new class.
• Caroline Lucas will join us as our 8^th grade Spanish teacher.  Caroline has taught for 11 years, and she has worked to develop and pilot Spanish programs at the middle school level.  We received additional staffing allowing us to open an extra section of Spanish.
• Christine Evans will be teaching 8^th grade Science.  Christine has many years of classroom experience, but this will be her first full time credentialed teaching position..  Because we received extra staffing, she will also be teaching one section of 7^th grade science.
• Tracey Pinto will be teaching our 6^th through 8^th grade Resource Program.  Tracey comes to us most recently from Abbott Middle School, but most of her teaching experience was at Wesland Middle School, an International Baccalaureate school in Maryland.  Tracey has great experience in working with learning differences and we are very excited to have her join our team.
• Additional staffing has also allowed us to increase some of our other teachers' assignments.  Colin Cooper, Parker Kelly and Heather Ostrom will teach extra groups of 4^th and 5^th graders during specialist time.  This allows for these classes to be smaller.  In addition, John Ertola and Diane Campbell will each be teaching an extra math class, allowing us to lower class size in math.

A Safety Note
Please remember that our parking area can get very congested during drop off and pick up times.  We hope that as many as possible will come to school on a bus, bicycle, or by walking.  If you do have to drive your child to school, please be sure to review the drop off procedures outlined in my previous letter home, or in our handbook (available online at www.llesd.k12.ca.us/lehome.html).

Remember that you can only turn right when leaving our parking lot during drop off and pick up times.

21st Century Learning & Strategic Planning

As our students kick-off their new school year, the Governing Board is excited to share news about two initiatives in the District aimed at supporting and strengthening teaching and learning for all our children.   Working with a team of volunteer parents, teachers, and administrators, we are launching a "21st Century Learning" Speaker Series to better educate ourselves about the sort of educational experiences that can best provide today's K-8th grade students with the skills and knowledge they will need to lead healthy, productive, and meaningful lives when they graduate from La Entrada.  The speaker series is designed to complement the work of another volunteer committee comprised of teachers, administrators, and parents: the Strategic Planning Committee.  Working in concert, the aim of these committees is to help the District develop a new Strategic Plan that will prepare our children for college and careers in this new century. 

As you may know, California along with 43 other states, has adopted the new Common Core State Standards.  These standards-along with new tests that are expected to replace our current state standardized testing (STAR tests) in 2014-focus on higher-order thinking, problem-solving skills and conceptual reasoning, in addition to subject area content.   Like other districts in California and throughout the country, we want to plan for these changes.  We want to look forward as we embark upon developing a new strategic plan that can best serve the needs of our students. 

To that end, we are counting on your involvement in this process and your participation in this important dialogue about how we can continue to improve education in our District.  We encourage you to join the Strategic Planning Committee in reading The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner, who writes about "why even our best schools don't teach the new survival skills our children need and what we can do about it."  And, we hope you will attend the Speaker Series and Strategic Planning events this fall.  The first Speaker Series presentation, "Re-imagining K-8 Education for the 21^st Century," will take place on Tuesday evening, September 13^th in Cano Hall on the Las Lomitas School Campus, given by Dr. Ira Lit, Associate Professor, Director of Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP) Elementary.  Dr. Lit will help us to understand what 21st Century Learning means for elementary grade students like ours.  The Parent Forum for Strategic Planning will take place on Monday evening, September 26^th.  Please mark your calendars.

More details about Dr. Lit's presentation will follow in next week's newsletter. You can find The Global Achievement Gap (2010) at Kepler's or through Amazon at:  http://www.amazon.com/Global-Achievement-Gap-Survival-Need--/dp/0465002307/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313514728&sr=1-1 

Thank you for your support of our schools.