"You don't chose the times you live in, but you do chose who you want to be. And, you do chose how you think."

- Grace Lee Boggs

Good morning Ochoa Families,

Thank you to all of our families for attending the Parent Workshop Series with Familia Adelante. We will miss this coming Friday, due to spring break, but we resume the following week. If you missed the first three, that's okay. Join us for the next one; Link to Flier_English / Flier_Spanish

Last Wednesday's Career Day went smoothly. Speakers were assigned to rooms which allowed students/staff to rotate and listen to various presenters throughout the day. Thank you to Ms. Coney and Ms. Lewis, 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 your time and efforts do not go unnoticed. Thank you to everyone who was able to invite a presenter and or be a presenter for us, You helped to make the day possible for our students. Student feedback was positive, 80% of students were pleased with the presentations and the talk around campus all day was about the careers they learned about. Students also gave us insight as to what careers they might like to see in the future. Student comments were positive and introspective in nature. We love that!

Also, last week we had our first Talent Show in many years. Clap it up for 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Mr. Naidu and our Leadership class, they worked hard and put on an exciting show. Students were MCs, stage hands, sound engineers and performers. Our student performers were nothing less than spectacular! It took a lot for them to be vulnerable and put their talents on display for an entire school to see; our amazing Bulldogs had the courage to do just that; in spite of issues around nervousness and stage fright. We are so proud of them, what a beautiful show! Teacher performers allowed our students to see us all in another light, more lighthearted and just having fun! Thank you all. Thank you families for joining in on the fun times with us!

As a reminder, our schedule is different this week as we lead into spring break. We have a four-day week, Monday-Thursday. No School on Friday as we observe Cesar Chavez Day. Wednesday and Thursday are minimum days this week. This means students dismiss at 1:30PM, students not in YEP, must be picked up within twenty minutes of dismissal. Spring Break officially starts 3/28-4/4. We return on Monday, April 7th. **Parents please do not pull students for appointments or early starts to vacations this week, it impacts their learning and our school funding.

Have a wonderful week! Thank you for your continued partnership as we support our student through a successful middle-school career.

Warmly submitted,

~Principal Rowe-Andrews

February/March 2025

As you have heard me say many times, the primary responsibility of school staff, is student safety and learning. As Ochoa staff and I supervise the parking lots at drop off and dismissal, there are serious safety concerns that we must not ignore. Please help us to keep our students safe by adhering to the following:

• Do remember there are children walking/crossing; they may not be alert always
• Do always yield to school busses
• Do adhere to ALL traffic signage (example: stop signs/no u turns/right turn only/directional arrows)
• Do drive less than 10 mph while inside the loop and our parking lots; be ready to stop
• Do travel the state mandated speed limit of 25 mph (or less) when driving in a school zone
• Do drive one way in and one way out allowing a more efficient flow of traffic
• If you are in the rear parking lot, and there are no spaces, please exit to allow the school buses sufficient space to move/ingress/egress
• Do not block the entrances to either lot

Click the link below to order:

All Interested Students must apply:

The Hayward Youth Commission (HYC) advises the Mayor and City Council, and the elected boards of the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District (HARD) and Hayward Unified School District (HUSD), about issues that affect young people in the Hayward community. Members may also work on projects and activities throughout the year such as identifying youth needs, organizing youth conferences, and more. Serving on the HYC counts towards community service hours. This is a Two-Year Term opportunity.

The Hayward Youth Commission meets monthly on the 2nd Monday of each month from September to June at 6:30 p.m., except holidays. Meetings are held at City Hall, Council Chambers.

APPLICANTS MUST MEET THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA:

1. Live in the City of Hayward or within the boundaries of the Hayward Unified School District.
2. Be between the ages of 13 and 20 years old.

APPLICATION PROCESS:
Applicants are interviewed by a committee of representatives from each of the three elected bodies who then recommend the new members. Selected members are appointed by the City Council at a Council meeting. Commissioners are eligible for reappointment to additional terms if they continue to meet the criteria for membership and have actively participated in Commission meetings.

The Office of the City Clerk will notify qualified applicants of the date and time of the interviews.

Applications must be completed and submitted to the Office of the City Clerk no later than Friday, May 9, 2025, either online or to:

Hayward City Hall

Office of the City Clerk

777 B Street, 4th Floor

Hayward, CA 94541-5007

cityclerk@hayward-ca.gov

Interviews to be held on: Friday, May 30, 2025

QUESTIONS: Please call the City Clerk’s Office at (510) 583-4400.

Ochoa is a restorative practices school. We open each school year with a school-wide assembly during which, we speak with students about school expectations as well as what to do when they have differences of opinion and or conflict with friends/peers. This message is reiterated in our student handbook, presented by staff, in morning announcements and reiterated at the mid-year mark usually through a March/April assembly. Historically, behaviors tend to uptick during this time. Families, I urge you, to closely monitor your student's interactions via social media as well as remind them that when conflicts arise, fighting is NOT the solution. We have a responsibility to model for our students pro-social conflict management; fighting never resolves the issues. We ask that students and or families notify trusted staff so that we can allow the students to have a mediated conversation. Through our investigations, we have seen in many cases, conflicts begin with "he say/she say" from other students, who are not otherwise involved. They do not want to get into trouble themselves, and so they may sometimes unintentionally, take information they heard back to others. This often instigates and further fans the flames of conflict. Families, we ask you to notify us when you have concerns. The Ochoa staff and I will always do our best to get to the bottom of things, hopefully in a way that there are no fights or continued animosity between peers. Our students are part of a feeder pattern and need to even go to High School together. Lots of conflicts begins with evening or weekend activities- social-media posts, group chats, and other messaging (SnapChat, Tik Tok, InstaGram, Discord, Youtube, video game chats etc). From time to time, conduct a periodic/unannounced check of your student's cell phones so you know what's going on. Once again, we are asking for your partnership with these type of issues. Please take a look at the resources below to help you with this.

1. How to Lock Apps on iPhone-while this feature can be helpful for adults to maintain privacy of confidential documents such as banking information; in the hands of a teen-ager they can lock your access.

2. Access Hidden Apps on iPhone

3. How to Use the Search Function

4. Hidden Folder Access (Photos/Videos)- allows you to hide images and videos under a secondary password. (Vault/Calculator Vaults)

5. 5 Ways to Hide Apps

6. The Three Best Parental Controls to Manage Screen Time

FYI: You can find anything online. This is how the kids learn!

Message for Family Newsletter -

Ramadan Observance

Ramadan begins at sundown on February 28 and is observed through sundown on March 29. Some of our Muslim students will be observing Ramadan and we would like to invite families to communicate with your child’s teacher, counselor or principal to let us know if your child will be fasting or other things we should know about. Here is a page about Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr with essential facts that can increase our cultural awareness.

At Ochoa each year we provide a safe space each year to allow students who are observing Ramadan. We will include this in the morning announcements for any student who would like to participate. They would simply need to alert the main office, site admin, AP Ms. Pisa or myself, Principal Rowe-Andrews and we will ensure they have the appropriate details.

Thank you.

What is LCAP? The Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) serves as the spending plan that accompanies the District's budget. The LCAP is a three-year plan that describes the goals, actions, services, and expenditures to support positive student outcomes that address state and local priorities.

LCAP Presentation: Presentation_English or Presentation_Spanish

SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED==> LCAP Survey: Click ==> to Take Survey_English/Spanish

Thank you to those who took the survey.

UPDATE: At the last Saturday HUSD Budget Town Hall, our Superintendent, Dr. Reimann expressed that every student absence district wide, not only costs valuable learning time for our students, it also costs HUSD approximately $86 per student, per day. Our Assistant Sup of Business Services, projects "just a 1% increase in attendance, can yield as much as $2 million" back into the district to be used to better support student learning and development. That is a significant amount of possibility that our students are missing out on. How can we make changes at Ochoa with our student population to improve these outcomes? We are at 91.21% for December (👇from November 92%) and our goal is 98%.

Check back often for updates on our current budget shortfall.

Let's talk about the upcoming assessments for which students are responsible.

English Language Proficiency Assessment of California (ELPAC) Testing-begins in March. This assessment is taken by our multilingual students, who speak a language other than English as their primary language in the home. The goal: reclassify as English Proficient

Parent Guide to understanding the ELPAC Test_ENGLISH and IN SPANISH

STARTING SMARTER PRACTICE TESTS & SAMPLE SCORE REPORTS

CAASPP Testing Begins- April 28, 2025

C.A.A.S.P.P.- ELA & Math Tests (7th & 8th Grade) This assessment is taken late April into May by all 7th and 8th grade students in California and assesses student reading comprehension, writing skills, and research skills

Parent Guide to Summative CAASPP_ENGLISH and IN SPANISH

PRACTICE TESTS FOR STUDENTS

C.A.S.T.- California Science Test (8th Grade) This assessment is taken April into May by all 8th grade students; it covers all of the sciences from earth and space, physical, and life sciences.

Parent Guide to Understanding the CAST_English and IN SPANISH

PRACTICE TESTS FOR STUDENTS

*Click here to link to a current (2023-24) sample of the CAASPP student report.

Families, at our last District English Language Advisory Committee meeting, our MLL department shared a new resource that you may use to help your students prepare for the English Language Proficiency Assessment for California (ELPAC). Summit K12 is an online application that students now have available to them to help develop their reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in English. Please take a look at this video to learn more about Summit K12_English or Summit K12 _Spanish. Summit K12 is a great way for your student to practice and build their skills to become English language proficient.

Parents, you can learn English along side your student, as this program allows up to four sign on's per family. Here are the instructions to access Summit K12_How To Access_English or Summit K12_How to Access_Spanish

ELAC Meeting

1. Next ELAC meeting is March 13th

__________Additional Resources:_____________

Click here to: Visit our Multilingual Learner Department's Webpage

Resources for Families of Multilingual Learners

Parents: Get Involved

District English Language Advisory Committee (DELAC)

Site Level: English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC)

Board Policy 6020: Parent Involvement & Family Engagement

*EL Spec Schedule: at Ochoa the 2nd and 4th Wednesday/every Thursday and Friday.

We hope to see you in attendance for the budget meetings continuing this week.

📕Update: This week, Admin will be meeting to ge additional information about decisions around the budget. We will keep you posted as information develops. Also a special Board of Education Meeting to share the plan with the public has been added to the calendar for Tuesday, January 14th at 5PM (open session only). Please follow this link to log in by Zoom (to offer your input) or by You Tube (simply to observe/listen)

SBDM meets: **Tuesday, April 8, 2025 Meeting Agenda (Eng/Span)~Hybrid

Submit Meeting Agenda Items by clicking the box below Due: 3/31/25

I feel it important to share with you the urgency of getting students to school each day. Ochoa, like all schools sets an attendance goal for each month. Although we strive for 98% monthly attendance rate, we have not been able to reach 95% as of yet this year. We are noticing patterns of absences, Monday, Wednesdays, and Friday each week. If your student has appointments, we ask that you make them at the end of the school day whenever possible. We especially are noticing patterns of absences around holiday weekends. More than anyone, we recognize the need to enjoy a little family time, however doing so may come at a cost to your student's learning. Take a look at our attendance rates so far this year.

Our monthly Attendance goal: 98%

**February attendance= 89.48%

January attendance= 91.78%

December attendance=91.21%

November attendance= 92.17%

October attendance = 93.5%

September Attendance = 93.3%

August Attendance = 94.19%

When our students miss instruction, they are still responsible for the work and mastering the content. Repeated absences over time (days, weeks, months, years) has the potential to create learning slide. This can make children fall behind their grade-level peers and create a level of anxiety, when they are unable to perform in the classroom. Help your student move toward the path to success this year and make sure they are in attendance daily and for the duration of the school day. Quarter 2 starts this week, let's turn our attendance rates around. Help Ochoa achieve a 98%!

Keep your Child on Track in Middle School_English

Keep your Child on Track in Middle School_Spanish

• The N-word+ ban policy translated into Spanish for easy access and understanding.

• A document outlining the history and harm of the n-word, also translated into Spanish, to help families discuss the significance of the policy at home.

• A link for families to provide their input on the policy, ensuring their voices are heard.

• A resource guide on how families can support at home (Spanish here and English here) with practical tips on fostering conversations about respect, inclusivity, and the importance of eliminating hate speech.

• Slide decks from the presentation: English presenter and Spanish presenter

• Spanish Words That Are Anti-Black & Anti-Indigenous video

Ochoa Families, there are many interventions that we put in place here at Ochoa to support all of our students; some are especially for those students who may be struggling academically and or behaviorally:

• Attendance incentives & programs (AC Transit Free bus pass)
• COST- Counseling supports (individual/group)
• Tutoring Support (Lunch/ After school/Weekends)
• Focal Student Progress Monitoring
• After school Programming (YEP)
• Restorative Circles & Mediations
• Academic Counselor Check Ins
• Student Success Team Meetings
• Progress reports (weekly)
• Check In-El Spec

This is a non-exhaustive list, however these supports are put in place to ensure your student gets the help they need to be successful and thrive here at Ochoa Middle School. When students do not meet academic or behavioral requirements, they are in danger of being placed on the 1) Risk of Retention List (Academics) or 2) The LOP List (Behaviors). I want to share with you what being placed on either of these lists might mean for your student. Please know that I am sharing this information proactively with the best of intentions for us to work in partnership.

Students at Risk of Retention (ROR)

Identified during the 3rd-4th qtrs

When students are unable to maintain their academics and have three or more "Fs" on their quarterly report card, we begin to hold a series of student success team meetings, academic check ins and start a process of progress monitoring your student. We offer one or a combination of the interventions listed above. If there are no improvements in their grades from Quarter 1 through the middle of Quarter 4, we will make a recommendation for retention. Students with three or more "Fs" on their report cards, will then be placed on the LOP list, where they become ineligible to participate in school related events such as: clubs, games, dances, end of year field trips, end of year fun school related activities up to and including 8th grade promotion. These lists apply to 7th and 8th grades students.

Students on the Loss of Privileges List (LOP):

Students can be placed on the LOP list for a number of reasons. The first, described above for academics and failure to perform. The second reason is based on violations of school rules and policies outlined in our student, district handbook, and california education code. This non-exhaustive list of violations may include:

• attendance
• any disciplinary action (Suspensions, In School Suspensions)
• poor attendance (includes tardies/absences)
• poor behaviors (any disciplinary actions)
• failure to serve consequences (i.e. detentions, community service, study halls, progress reports)
• failure to adhere to dress code
• failure to adhere to cell phone policy
• failure to maintain grades (less than two Fs)

Students appearing on this list will not be able to participate in any school related activities.

Families, this doesn't mean students can't make mistakes, we expect them to, however as we move toward the end of the school year, we do not expect to have to reiterate expectations, especially when there may have been an obvious disregard for the school and district policies. We are here to work in partnership with you and want ALL-100% of our students to participate through year end. Please have a proactive conversation with your children so that they fully understand this process.

Our meetings this year are:

SSC Meets as follows: Meetings held virtually at 5:30PM

10/17/2024- Hybrid Mtg, 5:30PM

10/22/2024- SSC District Training (mandatory), 5:30-7PM @ The HUB

12/5/2024- Topic: CAASPP Data review, 5PM Virtual

1/16/2025- Topic: Planning for 2025-26 & Budget Updates, 5:30PM Virtual

3/20/2025- NEXT MEETING TOPIC:review draft of the 2025-26 SPSA

***Meeting Agenda posts 4/17/2025 (Here, Website, Calendar)

5/22/2025- if needed to finalize the SPSA for 25-26

Board Policy 6020: Parent Involvement & Family Engagement

🔻🔻All students must be picked up within 15 minutes of school events end.🔻🔻

Student athletes must maintain a 2.0 GPA with no more than one "F: Grades will be monitored regularly and students will be advised by the athletic director. School games and evening events must follow school expectations.

• dress code is enforced
• students must attend school; If absent and or on suspension during the day may not attend events/sports etc
• school appropriate language required
• school appropriate behaviors required

*Agenda is posted 72 hrs in advance.

Next Meeting: March 4, 2025

Meeting Agenda :To be published

Join Here: Google Meets Link or In person

Site Based Decision Making (SBDM) was introduced to Hayward USD in 1996 as a strategy for ensuring that staff, parents, and students at individual school sites had a vehicle for engaging in the decision-making that most affected their own sites. Over the years, HUSD board and district leadership have affirmed the importance of SBDM as a means of exchanging ideas, data, and other information necessary to improving educational opportunities for HUSD students.

These are public meetings any member of the Ochoa community is welcome to join meetings, submit agenda items, voice concerns, support process improvements and spending (MAA funds), and offer input to the School Site Council (SSC) team at Ochoa Middle School regarding suggestions for spending that supports student academic achievement.

Board Policy 6020: Parent Involvement & Family Engagement

Monday, March 24, 2025

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

• CCGI Presentations, (History Classes)
• District Safety Committee Mtg, 4PM

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

• Minimum Day, 1:30PM Dismissal for Students
• College Day, Wear your college gear
• Department Collaboration, 1:45PM
• Soccer Teams (girls/boys), (Link to Soccer Schedule_2024-25)
• Softball , (Link to Softball Schedule_2024-25)
• HUSD Bd of Education Mtg, 6:30PM

Thursday, March 27, 2025

• Minimum Day, 1:30PM Dismissal for Students

• No School, Cesar Chavez Day Observed

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March 28-April 4th

• Spring Break; students return 4/7

Does your student require public transportation? If you would like to apply for a free AC transit card for your student please click the link below. This is not transportation specific to students with IEPs, but is available for ALL students.

Students should plan to arrive to school each day between 8 and 8:15AM, unless they have a zero period class. Students with a zero period PE class must arrive at school daily no later than 7:15AM. The first bell rings at 8:20AM and students must be in their seats or on their PE numbers by that time. Even if a student arrives "just 1 minute late," they legally must be marked tardy according to the law. Help us to achieve our daily and annual attendance goals this year and help us to get to 98% or better.

Website: https://ochoa.husd.us
Location: 2121 Depot Road, Hayward, CA
Instagram: coming soon

Facebook: coming soon
Twitter: coming soon