Happy Holidays, Conejo Oaks Academy Families and Community Members!

It's a busy time of year, but I hope you'll have an opportunity to relax and enjoy friends, family, and/or travel for the last remaining weeks of 2024.

In this month's newsletter you will find information on the following:

• Holiday Craft Fair photos
• Information from November's Coffee with the Coordinator with Suzanne Lezotte
• Winter Culmination
• Unified Champion School
• Yearbook Survey
• General Program information and last month's newsletter

The next Coffee with the Coordinator will be on January 29th from 12:30-1:30pm in the Conejo Adult Education Multi-Purpose Room. Peter Aguirre, from Ventura County SELPA, will be sharing information about Parent Engagement in the IEP Process. I will take notes and/or share materials provided for anyone who does not have the opportunity to attend.

I sincerely hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and very happy new year!

See you in 2025!

Take Care,

Amanda Glover MS.Ed.

If you have any questions, concerns, and/or compliments for our program, you can always reach me at aglover@conejousd.org or at 805-660-5262.

• December 23- January 3- Winter Break (No School)
• January 6- Secondary Planning Day (No School)
• January 7-District SEDAC Meeting (University Center MPR, 9:15am-11:15am)
• January 20- Martin Luther King Jr. Day (No School)
• January 22- Transition to Adult Life for Parents, Caregivers, and Young Adults (6:00pm-7:30pm at the Oxnard Tri-Counties Regional Center)
• January 23-Minimum Day (students go home at 12:30pm)
• January 27-Second COA Fire Drill
• January 29- Coffee with the Coordinator (12:30pm in the Adult Ed. MPR)
• February 14 and 17- Presidents' Day Holiday (No School)
• March 17-Professional Learning Day (No School)

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to the Holiday Craft Fair! It was a huge success thanks to the hard work of our staff and students.

Thank you to our amazing parent and author, Suzanne Lezotte and Owen for sharing about their journey and providing parents with helpful information for navigating inclusion in the community during transition to adult life. Her presentation is attached below.

Five students culminated from our program on December 20th! We are excited for their new adventures and wish them well. Of course, they are welcome back any time and we hope to see them cheering us on at future Unified Sports games. As I shared with one of our students who was quite emotional today, "It's not good bye, it's see you later."

Congratulations!

• Jennifer
• Nick
• Nathan
• Zahamit
• Sarah

Thanks to our amazing club advisor, Marjorie, we are now a Unified Champion School (program). With Marjorie's hard work, our program received funds from Special Olympics and we will be partnering with CLU in the spring for recreation and leisure activities and hopefully a March Madness basketball tournament.

We are excited to partner with CLU, parents, and community members soon for COA Unified Sports!

Century Academy, the school our program falls within, has graciously offered for our program to have three pages within their yearbook. The Century Academy yearbook price would be $50 and would come out in the spring. Please complete this survey if you are interested in purchasing a Century Academy Yearbook. You can also indicate if you are willing to help COA to create it's own yearbook.

We enjoy having guests at COA. To ensure the safety of our student's we ask that all visitors/volunteers check-in and receive badges prior to coming on to school campuses. Our comprehensive campuses have the equipment needed to print badges in the front office. Since Conejo Oaks Academy does not have a front office on site, we ask that people visiting our program first check in at the District Educational Center (DEC) before coming to our campus. The DEC is located at 1400 Janss Road. Please contact your Coordinator, Mandi Glover, if you have any questions and to arrange a visit.

Please reach out to Mandi Glover if you would like to arrange a time to review the site safety plan or have any other questions about site safety.

We will be practicing safety drills throughout the school year. See the schedule below. More information will follow in future newsletters and from your student and/or teacher.

Safety Drills Schedule

• Fire Drills-September/January
• Earthquake Drills-October/February
• Intruder Drills-November/March

• Occupational Therapist- Rachel Yashouafar
• Psychologist- Shannon Higgoda
• Adapted PE Teacher- Victoria Alvarez
• Deaf and Hard of Hearing Teacher- Karen Mestre
• Speech Pathologist- Jennie McIntosh
• Board Certified Behavior Analyst- Karli Karamanlian
• Nurse- Jill Chen

• VCOE Transition to adult life resources: https://www.vcselpa.org/For-Families/Transition-to-Adult-Life
• Tri-Counties information/link: https://www.tri-counties.org/
  
• Department of Rehabilitation information/link: www.dor.ca.gov

Email: aglover@conejousd.org
Website: https://www.conejousd.org/Page/1724
Location: 1025 Old Farm Road, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Phone: (805) 660-5262