KAMSC Newsletter
August 30th, 2024
It was great to see all of the smiling faces this week! As school gets into full swing, please check in with your student at home to see what methods they are using for keeping track of all the assignments and assessments for their classes. One of the most important learner behaviors for our KAMSC students is to keep some sort of a planner. A great activity would be to sit with your child and plan out their evenings as well, how much time are they at their extra curriculars and how much study time can they devote to KAMSC and their "partner school" work . We want to also stress that play time, family time and down time are also very important for our students. Play time might be that sport or after school activity, down time might look like them in their room reading or watching tv and family time might look like dinner or other events where they are with the family unit. These are aspects of a program we use here at KAMSC called Challenge Success (from Stanford University) that focuses on reducing stress for teenagers and increasing learning through optimum balance in life. I will continue to share more about Challenge Success throughout the year but I wanted to start by introducing "PDF" (play time, down time, and family time) to you. KAMSC has a 10 person team including students, teachers, myself and parent representatives that are in charge of implementation planning for Challenge Success. Our full staff spent time this summer studying it and working together to share ideas on how we can lower anxiety for our students in order to increase optimal learning.
Heather Kortlandt
Director, KAMSC
Student Senate co-presidents and advisor
Student Senate co-presidents David Li, Gwen MacEwen, and advisor Mr. Sinclair and I met this week to discuss exciting new ideas that the student senate would like to try this year at KAMSC!
Meet Officer Johnson
Officer Johnson will be posted downstairs at the Vine street entrance during our entry and exit times for all programs. Students are to show him their KAMSC I.D.s on their way in each day.
On Thursday, I met with both the morning and afternoon groups to let students know some key things about KAMSC. Before we started with our agenda of etiquette, rules and Challenge Success topics, we had a quick (took less than 2 minutes) full student body Rock, Paper, Scissors competition. It went like this: Find someone, play a round, if you lose you sit down if you win, keep going. We quickly found our AM winner to be Poojani Attanayake and our PM winner to be Qihan Davis! Congrats to you both for now holding the title of Rock, Paper, Scissors Champion! It brought us joy to see the smiles on their faces as they played.
Open house will run in two sessions, one for parents of the morning students and one for parents of the afternoon students. The format will include parents getting a copy of their student's schedule and then following that schedule for a specified period of time as the teachers each discuss a little about their classes and expectations with you. You will move through each of the three rotations and then will end up with an opportunity to join Mrs. Joyce in the presentation center to learn about how she helps students with research and college and career readiness. We hope to see you there. Your students are welcome to join, but do not have to if they would rather catch up on work or have other activities going on. Times for each group are:
9th & 10th grades - 6-6:55 pm
11th & 12th grades - 7-7:55 pm
If you student is going to be absent from school you must notify both your partner school and KAMSC (if they are gone all day) and always KAMSC if they are gone during their KAMSC classes. Please remember that attendance is vital as the content moves fast and we want students to have as much of their classroom experience as possible. To notify KAMSC call (337-0004) or email kamsc.office@kamsc.org.
If you are dropping off or picking up your student at KAMSC, please do so at the Vine Street entrance. Please find a safe place to pull over and then have you student proceed to the Vine street entrance. If students are driving themselves:
1. They need to acquire a parking pass from the KAMSC office - please fill this out
2. They need to park by the El Sol playground off of Dutton Street (but then walk to Vine street entrance)
3. They should be reminded to not keep anything valuable in their car and to keep their cars locked at all times.
4. The building will have a campus security officer at the Vine Street entrance during times of arrivals and dismissals.
KAMSC follows the KPS code of conduct for student discipline. Please be advised of it. Specific behaviors we would love your help with talking with your child about at home are:
- Academic Integrity - cheating is rampant in many high schools today with the influx of AI tools at the disposal of students. We need students' own authentic work being handed in. Keep in mind that the real lesson here is that the person who does the learning is the person who does the work. Students ultimately cheat themselves out of learning in these scenarios.
- Bullying- We know that with so many human interactions happening from class to class and in between that students will be navigating their interpersonal/social skills. Please remind them that choosing to be nice is always the best choice. True bullying is pervasive in nature and is disruptive to the learning environment, but if we all treat each other with kindness daily, we won't venture into this territory.
- Name calling/inappropriate language - Words matter. At KAMSC we are so lucky to come together from so many different households, partner schools and backgrounds. We must be very thoughtful about the words we use so that everyone here feels safe and welcomed.
