A message from Principal Rowe-Andrews
Happy Sunday Ochoa Families,
Last week we held our first Coffee with the Principal. I hope everyone in attendance found it to be informative. Here is a recap of some of the important discussions:
1. Parental Involvement- How can we get more parents involved to hear what's happening at schools?
We offer all meetings in person and virtually, hybrid at varying times to make the meetings convenient for families to attend. We are open to other suggestions.
2. Feedback about Back to School Night
During the teacher meetings portion, many parents who speak other languages, were unable to engage fully with the teacher presentations. How could we better support them? It was suggested to offer student volunteers to earn community service hours for Puente and other programs for interpretation. Also suggested to use Google meets and the new district provided resource Proprio to support interpretation for meetings.
3. Support for our Multilingual Students Learners/New to Ochoa
Ochoa had been facing declining enrollments, as have most HUSD and California schools. Families are expressing the challenges with the cost of living in the area. At the end of each school year our Budget Department provides projections for enrollment for each site, based on those enrollment projections, we receive allocations of FTEs (number of staff needed to support enrollments). Because our enrollments had been continuously declining we as a staff, made a huge push to work to increase our enrollment numbers, by inviting families to various meetings from the elementary schools, going to promote our school and the elective offerings we have and telling folks about the great things we are doing at Ochoa. It worked! We successfully increased enrollment for the 2024-25sy. At the start of the year were over projections. This left us with a delima, not enough staff. Therefore we began the process of creating vacancies and recruiting staff to support students. One of the things we had to do was create an English Language Development class to support our students who speak other than English as their first language and those who have been in the US for less than three years. We are currently working on rostering this class and students eligible for the World House Program are in the process of joining that program. Families, please check your emails frequently for communications.
4. District Language Advisory Committee Rep
We are looking for parents of multilingual learners who are classified as ELs and recently reclassified as english proficient (RFEP) to attend the DELAC meetings each month and act as representative of Ochoa.
5. English Language Advisory Rep (SSC Position)
We are also looking for parents of ELs and RFEP students to represent the our multilingual students on the School Site Council for Ochoa.
6. CSI & other Site Funds that support student learning and experience
Over the past three years Ochoa has been the recipient of grant funding called Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI). We used those funds to a) roll out a MAC computer lab for students b) offer interventions such as after school tutoring programs with Sylvan Learning Center and PEL Tutoring Center. These opportunities were passed onto our incoming 6th graders. c) we upgraded our library to improve student engagement.
7. ELD3 Class & World House Program
Families shared that students are feeling pushed out of Ochoa. We want to keep all of our students! However, we have a legal obligation to make students/families aware that they are eligible to receive a higher level of services to support their English Language Development. The students who are invited to meetings about the World House (WH) Program (Chavez MS) typically speak another language as primary and have not yet mastered reading, writing, speaking, and listening in the English language. The WH program has additional support staff who are able to work with students in smaller ratios. Families may opt out, but there are some instances where WH is the better option for students.
8. COST (On Site Counseling for Students)
Mr. Shearead, in attendance for this meeting explained the COST services and how the needs for support for things like anxiety and depression have increased post COVID. He also shared with parents that the prefrontal cortex of the brain isn't fully developed until age 25. This is often what causes impulsivity in students and risky behaviors. He further confirmed my explanation about students inevitably making mistakes during these formative years. A question of school discipline arose: I explained that Ochoa takes a restorative approach to discipline. We know students will make mistakes, but we counsel them and help them to think through their choices so if given a similar situation or decision, they can make a more informed choice that will have a positive outcome for themselves.
9. Prizes awarded to families for participation
Families won books to questions, suggestions etc. The goal is to promote a community of learners that includes our families. Parents/guardians who read, influence students to read. With this we encouraged that all families have their students read a minim of 30 minutes daily. It doesn't matter what they read, but anything that is highly interesting for them. sports, hobbies etc. will encourage vocabulary development and reading comprehension.
10. Hispanic Heritage Month Donation/Activities
Families had the opportunity to participate in the daily Hispanic Heritage month trivia questions. Detailed the ways in which we learn about and honor the contributions of Hispanic peoples past and present.
11. Campus Safety Precautions
What precautions are being taken to maintain a safe campus for students? We have one way into the site. Guests are escorted to the main office where a visitor badge is provided. Staff work on a rotational basis to ensure safety by rotating and checking the access doors to campus. HUSD will soon role out the Raptor system to families and we explained that that has the ability to search for anyone on the offenders list and court order documentations.
12. OCHOA REMAINS OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT
A few years ago, under the leadership of the previous superintendent, there was discussion of the possibility of closure. Students, families and the community came out made their voices heard at the Board meetings and there are no plans for closure. Ochoa remains open and taking new students. As a result of the low projections, funding was also reduced by just of 53K, these funds may not return to Ochoa even though we have increased our students.
Remember, attendance matters. Students should come to school daily and stay for the duration of the school day. They should arrive between 8-8:15 AM daily; those with a zero period PE class will arrive by 7:15AM. On Mon, Tues, Thur, Friday, students will dismiss at 3:05PM; every Wednesday they dismiss at 1:30PM. Please do not allow students to wait longer than 15-20 min. after dismissal. Families, when we take extended vacations during the school year, it reduces funding to the site. Please coordinate vacations and extended weekends around our school holidays, listed on the HUSD traditional school calendar. Our attendance numbers are headed in the wrong direction and it's only September. Please, please please consider the loss of instructional time and funding for students.
The Quarter 1 progress reports will be completed by September 25th. Please encourage your students to check their Student Portal/Infinite Campus regularly to make sure all assignments are appropriately submitted. The first quarter ends on, October 18th.
Our SSC Parent representatives will be announced soon.
Current Membership:
Adrian Estacio, Staff member- Member through 2025
Sumeet Naidu, Staff member- up for reelection
Sarah West, Staff member -up for reelection
Sonia Heister- "Other/Non-Teaching" Staff member through 2025
Emmeline Tibon, Parent Member- up for reelection
Jacob M-Student Member 2025
Vacancy-Student Member- Do you know a student who might want to represent on our SSC? Encourage them to pay close attention to morning announcements this week.
Finally, Anthony Ochoa is being considered as a School to Watch. Are you a parent who would like to volunteer to be part of our documentation and writing team? Please email Ms. Andrews with STW in the subject line.
Warmly submitted,
-Principal Rowe-Andrews
Smore โค๏ธ Back-to-School
Website: https://ochoa.husd.us
Location: 2121 Depot Road, Hayward, CA
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