March Parent Newsletter 2024

It’s hard to believe that spring is almost here! As we prepare for the remainder of the school year, please emphasize to students that teaching and learning continues to be the focus at Gascon Elementary. It is important that your child(ren) continue to read daily, practice math skills, write, utilize critical thinking skills, use technology effectively, collaborate with peers and use communication skills to articulate what they are learning etc.

Although February was a short month, we had so many special learning opportunities. March is following the same trend. When you glance at the calendar below, you'll see so many special educational events that we will be celebrating/recognizing. March is Irish American Heritage Month, Women’s History Month, Music in our Schools Month & Read Across America Month. There will be many opportunities to integrate these themes throughout our lessons. We also have lots of exciting events happening in March such as our Read-a-Thon, our Science Fair, various field trips, the second trimester closing, parent/teacher conferences, our 3rd i-Ready testing window and the first day of Spring.

Parent/Teacher conference dates are also quickly approaching this month and we look forward to meeting with you to discuss your child’s progress. This year conferences are the week of March 18-22, and evening conferences are on Thursday, March 21st from 5:00-7:00pm. The time for your conference is limited and we want to be sure you leave with as much information as possible. Coming prepared with questions will help to focus the conversation and give you the answers you need. We want the discussion to be centered on your child’s strengths and areas for growth and will be anxious to hear ideas you have for supporting your child. Teachers will be reaching out mid month to schedule your conference.

As always, thank you all for your continued support and GOOOOOO TIGERS!!!!!

Women's History Month: March 1 - March 31

Vision Test for 5th Grade: March 1

Tiger Television: March 1 @ 10:30a.m. (Students Only)

Read Across America: March 4 - March 8

Fire Drill: March 4 @ 8:15a.m.

JGE Science Fair: March 5

Coffee with the Principal: March 6 @ 8:15a.m.

ELAC Meeting: March 7 @ 8:30a.m.

MUSD Science & Engineering Fair: March 7 @ ATC 3:00p.m.-7:00p.m.

iReady Testing Window: March 11-28

School Site Council Meeting: March 12

Eastmont Open House: March 14

3rd Annual Educational Equity Conference: March 16 @ ATC

Parent Conferences: March 18-22

5th grade visit to Eastmont Intermediate: March 18 @ 8:30-10:00

Evening Parent Conferences: March 21

Saturday School: March 23

Student of the Month Assembly: March 25 @ 8:15a.m.

Spring Picture Day: March 26

No School: March 29 (Non Instructional Day)

Easter: March 31

Lunar New Year is a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of a new year on the lunisolar calendar. It is the most important holiday in China, and it is also widely celebrated in South Korea, Vietnam, and countries with a significant overseas Chinese population. This year is the year of the dragon and the holiday was observed on February 10th.

The term "Lunar New Year" is used to be more inclusive of the numerous Asian cultures that celebrate with a lunar calendar. Also known as "Spring Festival", the Lunar New Year festivities continue for up to 16 days, but only the first 7 days are considered a public holiday (February 10th-February 16th). Below are a few pictures that show how our school and students celebrated during Lunar Year school parade!

Ahoy JGE families, join us as we set sail on the Tiger Read-A-Thon Fundraiser adventure, anchored by our PTO. This year's theme is "Dive into Reading," and we invite our students to embark on a deep dive into the ocean of books. Our fundraiser began the week of February 26th and will conclude the week of March 8th. We have set an ambitious goal of $15,000 and we have already collected over $5,500! The funds will continue to support on and off and on-campus activities.

Read Across America’s big celebration of National Reading Month in March is a great opportunity for us to focus on igniting students' interest in reading. This day was created in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday to get more kids excited about reading. Proper reading skills help children develop better communication skills as well as improved comprehension across all school subjects. Please encourage your children to take a look at the flier and participate.

On Friday, March 8th, we are also bringing back our Guest Reader Day and our Book Character Parade during our Read Across America Week.

Guest Reader Day: If you would like to come and support us by reading to one of our classes, our students and staff would appreciate it. If you sign up, you can either bring a book or we will have some books available. Thank you and hope you can make it.

Book Character Parade: At the end of the day, students and staff can dress up as their favorite book characters. Prizes will be awarded for best costumes.

At Joseph Gascon Elementary, we teach the AVID strategies in all of our third, fourth and fifth grade classes. By teaching academic language, responsible behavior and higher-level thinking at a young age, we are helping our students develop and solidify the academic habits they will need to be successful in middle school, high school, college and beyond. On Mondays we hang our college flags outside every classroom and throuhout the year, students create projects around different college campuses. Our goal is to provide an academic foundation the students will need to be on a path for college and career success.

District Wide Strategy for the Month of March is Critical Reading

In critical reading, students are taking the next step by asking what a text means more than just what it says, and making judgments of their own, questioning an author's assumptions through a process of analyzing and evaluating. Critical reading can serve many functions. Sometimes you examine a text critically to analyze it, sometimes to compare it to other texts, and sometimes to evaluate it. As you get more advanced in your studies, you read for all of these simultaneously.

Steps in critical reading:

1. Before you read, scan the piece to get an idea of what it is about.
2. While you read, annotate by recording your thoughts, ideas, and questions.
3. After you have read, respond to the text.

“Often the hardest thing about holding space is that it can feel like you’re doing nothing.” - Heather Plett

Dear Families/Caregivers,

As we continue to invest in our students, we are promoting the usage of Community Circles. Using circles allows educators to give equal voice to all students so they may share what they’re feeling or thinking in a particular topic. This is part of our initiative to develop the whole-child. To support this initiative, we would like your support in helping our students know the value of their voice and being able to express their feelings. This can be done by asking about their day, asking how they feel about a certain subject in school, a certain situation that may be happening in the family, or asking them about their future. The important piece as family members and caregivers is to allow them the space to process. This means that you do not have to offer advice or a solution. Keep the following in mind:

Open Ended Questions - Questions that allow your student to give more information including their feelings, attitudes, and understanding.

Affirmations - Point out the strengths and successes in their conversation and provide empathy.

Reflections - Capture what your student may be thinking and feeling by rephrasing it back to them in your own words. Add a feeling to their conversation so they can build their emotional bank of words.

Summarize - Paraphrase the conversation back to your student while highlighting some of the key points.

The Science and Engineering Fair will take place on Thursday, March 7th at the Applied Technology Center. Our school is able to submit 3 projects (1 engineering, 1 science and 1 computer science/mathematics) per grade band. The grade bands are K-2 and 3-5 for a total of 6 projects. Each project can be composed of 5 team members for K-2 and 3 team members for 3-5. We will be having a schoolwide JGE science fair on Tuesday, March 5th in the library. Our students have been working diligently to prepare not only their boards, but also their presentations. Below is a link for a family fun science project that your whole family can enjoy.

Science Project Click Here ---------> Science Rocks <--------------

General mathematics improvement strategies

• Have your child help measure ingredients for recipes
• Give your child change to count out to pay for small purchases at the store; have older children calculate the change
• Ask your child to compare prices of items by asking things like, “Which can of beans costs more?”

Computation

• Review math facts at home, in the car, waiting in line, or during other downtime
• Provide your child with verbal math problems. “Take the number five; add six; multiply by three; subtract three; divide by five. What’s your answer?” Speak slowly at first until your child gets better at solving these mental problems

Geometry

• Help your child recognize and identify real-world examples of right angles (e.g., the corner of a book) and parallel lines (e.g., railroad tracks)
• While driving together, direct your child to look for objects with the same size and shape

Measurement

• Encourage your child to incorporate terms such as “whole,” “halves,” “thirds,” and “fourths” into their everyday life

Statistics, probability, graphing

• Open a pack of Skittles or M&M’s and make a bar graph showing the number of each color found inside the pack
• Track the scores of games played by your favorite team, then graph them over a period of several weeks

Problem Solving

• Encourage your child to figure out answers to real-life situations: “We have one can of tuna and we need five. How many more do we need to buy?”
• Ask questions that involve equal sharing. For example, “Seven children share 49 baseball cards. How many cards does each child get?”

If your child is going to be absent, please call the school office at (323) 721-2025. If you child is going to be absent for more than three days or you have a planned vacation lasting 5 or more days, your child may qualify for Independent Study . They will receive credit for their absences upon returning assigned work on their first day back.

Gates open at 7:30a.m. and school begins at 8:00 am. If your student arrives after 8:00 am, please have them check in at the office to be marked present and for a pass to class. Thank you for your cooperation, it is important to have accurate attendance for student safety.

TIGERS for Change was created in 2012 by a group of motivated leaders in grades 3rd to 5th. These students went on to create their own clubs at Eastmont Intermediate and Schurr High School. The main focus of the club was to learn about environmental science such as recycling, pollution, and marine life. The club has also helped clean the school, educate our student populations, and support the school community. Twelve years later, our Gascon students continue to inspire us all! Just recently in February, Heal the Bay Guest Speaker Ms. Kayleigh also came to talk about water pollution and how we can be “Drop Defenders”. 21 students attended and were gifted notepads!

Our LEGO Robotics club has been going strong since since January. This club meets twice a week and our students are learning basic engineering and programming skills. All students in the program have experience with coding, building and maneuvering thier robots, and have been doing this while working as a team and problem solving along the way.

Our Esport Gaming Club runs twice a week with a passionate group of students that compete using various games and systems. These students are building social skills while working collaboratively and learning to manage success and failures. This year we have three systems running at the same time and we hope to increase that in the future.

Our Music and Art Club meets twice per week and is one where our students share a love of art, self-expression, and a passion for creating their own personal style.

Over the past few weeks, the Little Explorers Science Club has been gaining hands on experience about the wonderful world around them, getting a better understanding of what they are learning, and discovering that learning is part of their lives and it’s a lot of fun. Our students have shown great enthusiasm while discovering and learning about science!

Joseph A. Gascón Elementary is honored to celebrate students who were nominated for either the PBIS Award or the Tiger PAW Award.

Students who received the PBIS award were nominated because they displayed excellent citizenship and followed our ROAR initiatives.

Students who were nominated for the Tiger PAW award demonstrated high academic achievements and are our Students of the Month. This does not happen without the support and guidance of excellent parents, teachers, and friends!

Thank you everyone!

Action Youth America (AYA), formerly known as ICES Education has been serving California families for over 30 years, providing top quality service in academics, sports, and other areas of education. Our programs are built upon the foundation of excellence and time-tested methods that have allowed us to be one of the leading providers of before and after-school programs in the United States.

The AYA program is academically driven as we understand the need for providing complementary academic support to the instructional day in order for students to meet their full potential. Our academic coordinator Stefanie is responsible for assuring optimal academic alignment to school and district needs. The AYA staff is formally trained on Common Core learning expectations and write, or can assist in writing a curriculum around the principles of Common Core. Additionally, the AYA staff works with interventions, state testing prep camps, and modeling/training.

ELO Link: https://sites.google.com/montebello.k12.ca.us/eloafterschool/home

ELO Application Link: rb.gy/g4h8n

The Montebello Unified School District is providing advanced technology and increased access to learning opportunities for the District’s learning community. The District has installed an intra-net “MUSD-Net” providing networked computing with an Internet gateway.

MUSD Vision Statement

Empowering Students to Achieve Academic Excellence as Model Citizens.

Joseph A. Gascon Mission Statement

The learning community of Joseph A. Gascon Elementary is committed to cultivate excellence in Language Arts, Mathematics, English Language Development, Science and Physical Education. We emphasize on opportunities for all stakeholders to be critical thinkers, communicators, creators, and technology integrators. We are committed to providing a safe, stimulating and caring learning environment. Our goal is produce self-motivated, ethical, and successful individuals that can compete and succeed in a global setting.

Address: 630 South Leonard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90022

Office: (323 )721-2025 Fax: (323) 887-3034

Office Hours: 7:30am - 3:00pm