Sunset P-TECH News

Coming together is the beginning

Keeping together is progress

Working together is success

Happy Holidays from the Leadership Team of Sunset P-TECH

We are so proud that one of our 1st cohort students has received their bachelor's degree from the University of North Texas at Dallas. Congratulations Cristian Acosta for your accomplishments. Cristian received his degree in Education and plans to become a teacher. Trust the Process!!

It is "Recruiting Season" in Dallas ISD and Sunset P-TECH is no different. We will be recruiting the next cohort of young, talented and eager individuals. If you know of a young person wanting to join the P-TECH program there's still time. We will be accepting applications through January 31, 2023. Currently Dallas ISD has 18 P-TECH schools with a variety of career pathways. Students and parents should take the time to research the many options (https://www.dallasisd.org/collegiateacademies ). The best part of our recruitment efforts is though we have students who have graduated and moved to the next chapter they still want to help us. Graduate Crystal Vergara and Maria Sanchez were eager to assist at Rosemont Middle School.

Our Public Health students have the unique opportunity of working with industry partner, Dallas County Health and Human Services to get hands on experiences as a public health servant. On December 10th, our students volunteered at St. Philip the Apostle Church at a health fair. The students were able to help community members sign up for COVID and flu vaccinations. Many of our students are bilingual which is an asset when assisting. Dallas Police Department, another industry partner, was also present and Kevin, a criminal justice student volunteering was able to get first hand information on how to become a police officer.

We are in INTERNSHIP season. Many may ask what is the difference between internship and a job. Our program want every student to strive to get an internship while they are in the P-TECH program. An internship is a short-term work experience offered by companies and other organizations for people—usually students, but not always—to get some entry-level exposure to a particular industry or field. It is as much of a learning experience as it is work.

Ideally, interns spend their time working on relevant projects, learning about the field, making industry connections, and developing both hard and soft skills. Internships sometimes even lead to full-time job offers.

Summer internships are typically 40 hours a week over 10 to 12 weeks. Fall and spring internships vary, but are almost always part time. Some are paid. Some are not. We’ll talk more about that later (Zhang, 2020).

We are in INTERNSHIP season so that means we must prepare for the opportunities. Our first goal is to is to ensure each student has a well polished resume. This year Baylor Scott and White hosted our first Resume Workshop in the MAPS course. Ms. Shenique Williams and Maritza Zuniga, BSW recruiters, taught the students about the do's and don'ts of a good resume. The students participated in pre-brainstorming with the Workplace Learning Coordinator to ensure they understood the parts of every resume.

The administrative staff requires all students to complete 40 hours for the 2022-2023 school year. Each year we participate in an Annual Community Service Project. For the past three years we have had an Angel Tree, during this time we have blessed 6 families with a Christmas which otherwise may not have been able to have a holiday. We were able to help two families who lost one of the parents during COVID or families who just fell on hard times. During COVID, we hosted a can food drive to help a Food Pantry whose shelves had gone bare due to an overwhelming amount of families in need. Our goal is to not only teach our students about academics but to teach them how to give back.

This year we are partnering with Arturo Salazar Elementary, a Personalized Learning Choice School in Dallas ISD for the school-wide “Grinchmas” program, in which they share gifts with every student from Pre-K to fifth grade. This year’s Grinchmas at Salazar Elementary will take place on December 21, 2022. We want to support our school partner to bless every student with a toy. Our goal is 458. Sunset P-TECH students can donate up to 3 toys to earn community service hours.

1 gift= 5 community service hours

2 gifts=10 community service hours

3 gifts=20 community service hours (bonus for donating an extra gift)

Before COVID, every year we would take students to the George Bush Library. While visiting the students will participate in the "Situation Room". The Situation Room Experience are technically integrated role-playing crisis simulations. In these high-intensity, collaborative decision making scenarios, information moves quickly and every individual choice has consequences. Because participant input shapes the experience, no simulation is ever the same. Due to COVID, The Situation Room Experience has not yet returned but we still have students tour the George Bush Library. Our freshman were able to receive a detailed tour and participate in interactive simulations at the museum. One stated, "I never knew I would have so much fun at a museum". Exposure is everything!!

STARS (Science Teacher Access to Resources at Southwestern) was developed in 1991 to improve the quality of science education in North Central Texas by making UT Southwestern Medical Center’s vast educational resources available to middle and high school science teachers. STARS will custom-design tours of UT Southwestern Medical Center to fit the needs of the teacher or the program.

On December 6th, our 10th grade students traveled to UT Southwestern for a tour of the labs and received a lecture on "What is Public Health" from Dr. Rasmi Nair, an Assistant Professor from the Department of Population and Data Sciences. They learned about new career emerging in Public Health such as specialized Public Health lawyers. The students were able to observe Hela Cells and participated in a cool experience of making ice cream from nitrogen.

This year Sunset P-TECH added the Criminal Justice Pathway to our program and with that came industry partner, The Dallas Police Department. The Dallas Police Department engages the students every other Thursday with presentations on being careful with social media, how to become an officer and the Explorers Program. On this day, the students heard from a homicide detective on how he steps through solving a crime. The students were given the background of the crime then he tested their instincts on how they would start to solve the crime. Students learned they must be detailed oriented, question everything and have a strong stomach (lol).

Just as it is "Internship Season" it is also College Application Season. Our seniors are now working to complete their final requirements such as: completing their FASFA, college applications and Dallas County Promise. We are working with ASP (Academic Success Program) which is housed in Sunset High School to provide professional comprehensive college counseling to high school students in 9th through 12th grades. ASP representative, Maylee Castillo, works with our P-TECH students to ensure they are ready for the next steps in their life journey. On this day, our seniors were applying for Texas A&M College Station and University of Texas at Austin. Way to go students!! Almost there.

As our students are applying to colleges it is also time to narrow the choices. The P-TECH seniors are now done with college classes for the semester so it was a perfect time to have a college tour. On December 14th, our students participated in a guided group tour at University of Texas at Arlington. They were able to learn about the various academic programs, admissions process, scholarship opportunities and the many resources available on campus. We ended the trip with a great lunch on one of the many restaurant options on campus.

The Texas Association of Future Educators or TAFE (pronounced "taffy") is a co-curricular statewide non-profit (501 c3) student organization created to allow young men and women an opportunity to explore the teaching profession. The organization was created in 1984 to provide the best and brightest high school and middle school students in Texas with the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions about pursuing careers in education.

As a part of TAFE (Texas Association of Future Educators) must participate in TRAFLES. TRAFLES is the framework TAFE uses to ensure every Chapter has a well-rounded, successful program for future educators.

• Teaching/Training: Tutor and become a positive influence to younger children.
• Recreation: Have fun with others who have similar career goals and make lifelong friends.
• Appreciation: Join in teacher appreciation activities to make a difference.
• Fundraising: Work together with your peers to raise funds to support the projects in which the local organization participates.
• Leadership: Develop leadership characteristics.
• Educational Awareness: Learn about educational issues and/or methodologies.
• Service: Connect with the community by addressing the needs of others.

Our TAFE officers decided to host a Coffee Bar for our teachers to satisfy "Appreciation". They wanted to show appreciation to the teachers of P-TECH as they end a hard semester. The officers were responsible for setting it up, sending out invitations and greeting the teachers. The teachers were able to pickup a cup of coffee, tea or hot cocoa and a sweet treat.

We try to capture great educational moments.