Commended for her groundbreaking documentary exploring the impact of the media's portrayal of girls in Miss Representation, Ms. Newsom now takes on gender stereotypes and the miseducation of our young boys in The Mask You Live In. Only weeks after its national release, Ms. Newsom is bringing her powerful new film to Menlo Park for YOU! Following the viewing of this film, Ms. Newsom will share the story behind the film and answer audience questions. 

The evening will likely run a little longer than most of our Parent Ed events in order to accommodate the film (which runs 90 minutes) and time with Ms. Newsom. We will begin at 6:30 p.m. sharp. Because the event is likely to fill up quickly, we suggest you arrive no later than 6:15 p.m. to secure a seat. 

*A note from Mr. B: In my personal email blast before break, I encouraged parents to bring their children with them to the screening of the Mask You Live In. While I still stand by that invitation, I wanted to provide some additional detail. The film is for mature audiences, but is not rated. On the documentary's website, we found the information below and wanted to make you aware. Before you decide, we recommend you watch the trailer. It will give you an idea of the context of the documentary. Having said this, I still think this is a great film for middle school kids--especially seventh and eighth grade boys--to see. From the website: "The full-length feature deals with difficult topics in a frank manner. As a result, we recommend the film for a 16+ audience although we do not have an official age rating from MPAA or a TV Parental Guideline yet." 

Click here for this year's line up of Hillivew's Speaker Series speakers. These events are open to all district parents and community members and take place in the Hillview Performing Arts Center. Free childcare is provided for all potty trained children.  For more information, contact Jennifer Allen.

6th Grade iPad Update: 6th grade parents are probably aware that we collected the entire Class of 2017's iPads before the February break and migrated them over to a new, more robust Mobile Device Management (MDM) System. Our hard-working district technology team completed this process, which included wiping all the content from the iPads and enrolling them into the new system, which is called Casper Suite, by JAMF Software. Students received their iPads back this past Monday with only a few critical apps pre-installed. We are asking them to add the remainder of their Apps to the iPad by tomorrow, March 2, by using the "Self Service" portal, a new App that connects to the MDM. We did our best to prepare students for this transition, providing them with support in backing up their content to Google Drive or Drop Box.

7th Grade iPad Update: 7th graders will be the next group of students to have their iPads moved over into the new Mobile Device Management System (see the 6th Grade iPad Update for more details). We are currently aiming for early April for this process. Many 7th grade families have already created the Apple ID's necessary for the transition (we actually began the process back in the fall). We will be re-contacting the remaining 60 or so families and asking them to complete this task, which is a prerequisite for moving the iPads over. If you are a 7th grade parent and have not yet created your child's special school Apple ID, wait for the contact. If you have already done so, make sure you know what the Apple ID password is. We will need this information for the transition.

Hillview in the News: So much is going on at Hillview, and sometimes we get some press for all that we are doing to make our students' learning experiences as awesome as possible. We have begun to catalog these "spotlight moments" with a link on the front page of our website called "Hillview in the News." When you visit the page, you will be able to read some brief context about the article in question and link directly to it. If you have other news items you think we've missed, please let us know and we'll get them up!

I Have a Dream Exhibition for 8th Grade Families: This celebration and display of 8th grade student work from the new I Have a Dream unit, will take place on Wednesday, March 11 from 2:30 - 3:30 p.m. at the Hillview PAC. All 8th grade, students, parents and family members are invited to attend. Please help us make the Exhibition special by volunteering to bring refreshments.  If you are interested, please sign up here.