La Mesa Update

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break. We are excited for our newest project at La Mesa. We are opening a food pantry on campus to support our families in need throughout the school year. Thanks to a generous donation from Boston Scientific, we are able to purchase the shelving needed to store the food and other items available to our families. Please be on the lookout for opportunities to support this new project.

We are looking forward to having students back on campus. We are all committed to finishing the last three weeks of the semester strong. Please be sure to check in on the Infinite Campus app to see where your child is at with their academics.

Sincerely,

Michele Krantz, principal

While we work hard in the classroom to meet the academic needs of our students, the last year has had an impact on student reading and math skills. All of our students have access to a wonderful tool that they can use at home to grow their reading and math skills towards grade level proficiency.

iReady is accessible to students through their Google waffle. The pdf file below walks you and your child through how to access i-Ready and navigate it for home use. 30-50 minutes per week will allow your child to see significant growth. You can also see your child's current levels by opening up the program.

Teachers will be using this tool at school at times as well.

On Tuesday, November 9th, after school around 03:30pm, when one of the home owners was driving through the American Beauty Classics community, a few teenagers were seen taking letter A and letter B off the walls to the entrance to the community. Letter A is missing, letter B was hanging and has recently been placed back. Given the time of day, it is very possible that these students attend La Mesa. They have asked us to send out a message to parents and students of La Mesa regarding this issue.

The HOA has been in contact with the city to paint the curbs red along Via Princessa and the few streets entering their community. Hopefully, this will solve some issues with parents illegally stopping on Via Princessa, parking at the No Parking signs, and making U turns in the middle of the streets. There's been reports of near misses of accidents with cars and kids from homeowners.

Many of these same issues are happening on May Way.

Please, let's not wait for an accident and an injury to get us all working together to keep kids safe. We understand everyone is busy and has places to be, but with 1,000 students picked up each day, we must follow the traffic rules and not take risks.

We thank you for your immediate attention to this.

As you should be aware from our last La Mesa Update, we will begin a double lunch schedule starting tomorrow. Students will be split into two lunches based on their period 4 class for that day.

While some have interpreted this as an unfair punishment for the behavior of a few, it is in fact a safety measure for the support of all. Students who have broken school rules have been addressed according to our school and district progressive discipline policies. You can review these policies in your child's La Mesa school planner or online HERE. You can review the District's Rights, Regulations, and Responsibilities policy HERE.

Being out of school for over a year, had an impact on students. We will be using the next three weeks to teach appropriate behavior for students while at school. Some of the issues we will be addressing are:

• Seeking out the support of adults for conflict resolution
• Cleaning up after ourselves
• Appropriate language use at school (including profanity and racial and ethnic slurs)
• Tolerance and respect for people who are different then us
• Our school personal device policy
• How to handle oneself when a conflict occurs on campus

Please support this work by discussing the above topics with your children at home. We are hopeful to return to a full school lunch period for semester two. We are grateful for your partnership.

We cannot stress enough how important it is to complete the CrisisGo health certification each morning for your child. Students who do not have it completed have to be screened by staff which is very time consuming and can result in your child being late to class.

It is also very important that your child has their school ID each and every day.

Having a the student ID and the completed CrisisGo allows us to move the lines quickly and have less staff at the gate, freeing up more staff for student supervision.

We appreciate you support.

Hello Families! We will be conducting our second i-Ready Diagnostic of the year next week starting December 6th. Students will have the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned thus far and identify areas of growth. Please remind your scholars to take advantage of the free food offered by the cafeteria to fuel their minds for the test. Click HERE to view an introductory video of our i-Ready program.

Please use this opportunity to recognize La Mesa staff members that have made a difference for you or your child by clicking HERE to fill out a message.

Thursday, December 16th - Last day of quarter 2

Friday, December 17th - Teacher Work Day - No School

Monday, December 20th - Friday, January 7th - Winter Break No School

Monday, January 17th - Martin Luther King Jr. Day - No School

Friday, February 18 - No School

Monday, February 21 - Presidents' Day No School

Monday, April 4 - Friday, April 8 - Spring Break

William S. Hart District Calendar 2021-22

Email: mkrantz@hartdistrict.org
Website: www.lamesajuniorhigh.org
Location: 26623 May Way, Santa Clarita, CA, USA
Phone: (661)250-0022
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaMesaJHS/?ref=bookmarks
Twitter: @lamesajhs

Non-Discrimination Policy

The William S. Hart Union High School District prohibits unlawful discrimination against and/or harassment of any student, employee or job applicant on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, national origin, immigration status, ancestry, religion, age, marital status, pregnancy, parental status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, military or veteran status, political affiliation, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, sexual orientation, or any other basis prohibited by state and federal nondiscrimination laws respectively at any District site and/or activity. All inquiries regarding discrimination, civil rights, and/or Title IX should be directed to the Director of Human Resources and Equity Services, William S. Hart Union High School District, 21380 Centre Pointe Pkwy, Santa Clarita, CA 91350, or by phone (661) 259-0033, ext. 316, or by email: UCP@hartdistrict.org