Tag: K8

Hello Everyone,

It has been great to get a chance to talk with so many of you during our Parent/Teacher Conference week. If you were unable to make your scheduled time, please be sure to reach out to your child’s teacher to schedule a new meeting time. Parent/Teacher Conferences are a great time to hear about your child’s progress and to set goals for the rest of the year. We will have Student-Led Conferences in the spring where students will share samples of their work and tell you about their class.

On Friday, October 29th our school will have our annual Harvest Party at 1:00 p.m. We will have fun activities and snacks for everyone to enjoy. Students are welcome to wear costumes to school, and we will have a photo booth set up to capture some of the fun. Please leave any toy weapons at home. Please let us know if you are able to provide healthy treats/snacks for our harvest party, or if you would like to lead an activity!

Happy fall everyone. Stay safe and healthy. I will be looking forward to the rain.

-Mr. Todd

Some of our recent outdoor learning days included a middle school kayaking trip at the Arena Cove and the 2nd-3rd graders returned to Windy Hollow Farm. A new van will help us continue to offer and grow these outdoor programs! Read the Full E-Newsletter

It has been such a busy summer at the K-8 site. We have been working hard to prepare our school to have students return for in-person classes. School starts on Wednesday, August 18th at 8:25a.m. I think that the first day of school is a special day and it can be fun to dress “up” for the day. It is one of the few days all year that I ever voluntarily wear a tie. Another first day tradition we have at the Pacific School is Stone Soup. Please read the story with your child and talk about what it means to you. Everyone is encouraged to bring something from home to contribute to our collective lunch. We will have a very special volunteer chef for this fun meal.

Our meal program needs parent volunteers to help prepare breakfast, and our Wednesday hot lunch. Please reach out if you can commit to a day to help keep our meal program going. Many hands make for light work. We will provide the menu, the recipes, and ingredients. All we need are the smiling volunteer faces. Thank you so much for your help!

This summer we have made many changes to our building and our playground. We have done lots of painting and reconfiguring our classroom spaces. One dramatic change on our playground is we removed the climbing wall! We were awarded a grant to purchase a brand-new ADA accessible play structure. We anticipate the construction to be completed in the middle of September, so until then, kids will have lots of extra space to run around and play.

Please take the time to review the Covid-19 protocols. Everyone will wear masks while indoors and wash their hands frequently. Masks will be optional whenever we are outdoors.

Also here is our initial schedule for the fall semester. We will begin our Outdoor Learning, Afterschool Reading and STEAM programs in early September. Additional information about these programs will be sent home soon.

I know that many of you have questions, concerns, and suggestions for the year ahead. Please plan to attend the Virtual Family Forum on Monday August 16th at 5:30 p.m. We will share information and answer any questions about the upcoming year. We encourage all families to participate!

Thank you for choosing the Pacific School. I am looking forward to an outstanding year!

-Mr. Todd, K-8 Director

Wow, I can’t believe that it is already May! Before we know it, June 11th will be here, and this wild ride of a school year will come to a close. Thank you everyone for all of your hard work, patience and flexibility. Please keep it up for a few more weeks and then soon we will get a well earned summer break.

Thank you everyone for helping your students to complete the NWEA assessments. We complete computer based assessments in order for us to generate data that gives us a glimpse into how our students are doing after this year of hybrid/distance learning. In the last two weeks of May, our 3-8th grade students will complete the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASSP) during their in-person time. These assessments are mandated by the state, and allow us to see how our students are doing relative to other students in California.

Work on our yearbook has begun. We have been photographing students during in-person days, and collecting photos from our outdoor learning sessions throughout the school year. If you have fun photographs of your child learning at home, please feel free to email them to the school to be possibly included in this year’s yearbook. We will send out ordering information soon!

Planning has started for our 8th grade promotion ceremony. If you have an 8th grade student, and you would like to be on the planning committee, please let me or your child’s teacher know as soon as possible.

As we begin to think about the end of the year, please plan to return your child’s school issued tablet or Chromebook beginning on June 7th. All students must return their school issued device prior to the last day of school on June 11th. Please be sure to return all headphones, and chargers as well.

Thank you everyone. Have a great month!

-Todd

It is so exciting to feel the seasons start to change and to feel that we are heading in the right direction with Covid-19 here in California. A huge thank you to everyone for all of their efforts to maintain physical distance, wear masks and to get vaccinated. Working together will help us to see the other side of this challenging situation. Please keep it up!

Now that Mendocino County has moved into the Red Tier, we here at the Pacific School have been working hard to modify our schedule to get students together for in-person learning as much as possible. When we return to school after Spring Break, our TK-Kindergarten students will be in class five days a week, and our 1st-5th grade students will have in-person learning three days a week. We are very excited to welcome our 6th-8th grade students back to campus for in-person learning two days a week. With the change in weather, the warm days feel very festive, and our in-person days have been a lot of fun. I look forward to discussing our new in-person schedule with everyone at our Family Forum next week on Wednesday April 7th.

I am very excited to announce the opening of the virtual Gualala Arts in the Schools exhibition on April 16th. The theme for this year’s exhibition is “Staying Connected in the Time of Covid-19”. Please make sure you check out the show and admire the amazing work that students have created.

On another note, I know that some parents have been asking whether or not we are going to have a yearbook this year. We will be taking student pictures during our in-person days. Your child’s teacher will notify you when their class is scheduled to be photographed. If you have photographs of your child learning from home, please send them to me at torenick@pacificcharterschool.org so that we can document this past year of Distance Learning and Outdoor Education.

If you haven’t already filled out enrollment forms for your child for next year, please do so as soon as possible. We appreciate each and every one of you and look forward to everyone returning next year.

Lastly, please be sure to fill out our latest family survey. We truly value your input and use it to guide the decisions we make at the Pacific School. Your opinion matters!

Take care everyone. Happy Spring. Peace!

-Todd

The Pacific Community Charter School embraces real-world learning at school, in the community, in the field and out in the bigger world. How does that translate during the pandemic? Outdoor learning. The Pacific School applied for a waiver from the State in the beginning of the 2020-21 school year to provide weekly outdoor learning days for K-5 students (the waiver was available for K-6 grades; Pacific School 6th graders are part of a mixed middle school class). Outdoor protocols, such as facial coverings, distancing and health screenings, were developed and are followed by participating students, staff and families. Choosing to hold classes outdoors also aligned with studies that indicate being outdoors reduces the risk of COVID-19 transmission: according to an initial Japanese study the risk is reduced by as much as 19 times.

K-8 Director Todd Orenick also teaches 1st-2nd grades and supported the initial push for in-person outdoor learning days “to support his students’ well-being by providing time for face-to-face interactions.” Orenick has been joined by Ann Lytle, Instructional Aide and ACORN Partners in Education Educator, who has been assisting in leading weekly classes at Windy Hollow Farm where the garden is used as a teaching tool. Recently students have been busy planting a spring garden which is complemented with storytelling, journaling and games that dig deeper into science concepts such life cycles and botany. Second grader Ray Whiteside “likes to plant plants” and says that is his favorite part of outdoor learning days. On March 8th, students will be adding another day of in-person learning at the Pacific School’s new outdoor classroom at the K-8 site. Grants from the Community Foundation of Mendocino County and the Redwood Coast Education Foundation allowed the purchase of materials while school families and community members volunteered to help create the outdoor space for students and teachers to participate with in-person learning.

Isabel Kuniholm, a self-described outdoor enthusiast and Pacific School teacher, also meets at Windy Hollow Farm with her 3rd-5th grade class. Instructional Aide Tressla Sarra has brought students to Windy Hollow Farm for garden-based field studies pre-COVID and now provides support with reading, writing and spelling while on the farm. Kuniholm has noticed that “learning outside enables students to constantly be moving and exploring. A math lesson can be quickly diverted by a student’s discovery of a centipede, passing hawk, or a huge gust of wind but this allows for learning to be fluid, flexible and exciting!” Teaching outside is not without its challenges though. As Kuniholm can attest, “the weather can make pencil and paper activities challenging at times, especially during times of heavy rain or wind. Sometimes I feel like students cannot hear me, or everyone’s papers blow away mid lesson. Still, these challenging weather days can also provide great social-emotional and science-oriented learning opportunities for students.” She looks forward to bringing students outdoors for academics on a daily basis post-pandemic.

It is so exciting to report that our outdoor classroom is finished, and ready for students! I want to say a huge thank you to all of the parents who worked so hard to make our dream a reality. Thank you Nate, Heron, Jeff, Jared, and Jason for everything. We are so excited to be able to expand our goal of having students on campus for high quality in-person learning. We will add more in-person days as we are able. Please remember that we will be wearing masks anytime we can’t maintain 6 feet distance.

Thank you everyone for all of your efforts to remain engaged with distance learning. Consistent attendance is one of the best things that we can do to keep students on track during this challenging time. Please help your child do their best to complete their asynchronous assignments and get their work turned into their teacher. Lastly, please be sure to communicate with the school if your child needs to be absent for any reason, or if you need support in any way.

Deadline for turning in work for the annual Arts in the Schools show is Friday, March 12th. Please be sure to submit your artwork to Ms. Angela by that date, so that she can photograph it for the show. Also, if you child has created any other art or special projects that you would like to submit for the show, please email photographs and a short description to me at torenick@pacificcharterschool.org. The theme of this year’s show is Staying Connected in the Time of Covid-19. We really want to showcase all of the amazing work that students have been creating.

We are celebrating Read Across America Day all month at the Pacific School, by showcasing diverse authors and their stories. Please talk to your students about what they are reading and learning in their classes.

There will be no classes on Friday, March 19th for a staff development day and Friday, March 26th for a scheduled storm day. This is a great time to get caught up on asynchronous work, or to spend some time reading and exploring outside.

As our county continues to show a noticeable decline in Covid cases, it is looking more likely that we will be entering the red tier soon. At that time, we will be expanding our in-person learning opportunities to include our middle school students. I hope to send out more information as soon as I can.

Take care everyone, stay safe. I believe that this Spring will bring lots of good things. PEACE!

-Mr. Todd

I want to start off this month and say a huge thank you to all of our families that have been helping out with school lately. Thank you Jessica Price for spearheading the amazing PCCS hoodie/t-shirt fundraiser. It has been really amazing to see all of the PCCS pride out in our community. I know that my hoodie has been keeping me warm and cozy during these cold and wet winter days.

Another huge thank you I want to send out is to Jody Rose and Aisling, and to Cassie Henderson and Griffin. They came last week to help us prep the location for our new outdoor classroom, and put a fresh coat of paint on the fence in the backyard. The structure will be arriving in the first week of February, and we will need more help from our families to get it installed. We will announce another volunteer day when it arrives. Remember, many hands make for lighter work! Thank you for your help.

Here at the Pacific School, we are doing our best to be informed of the constantly changing guidance on the Covid-19 pandemic. We are listening to sources at the federal, state and county level and are committed to bringing students in for in person learning when we can do so safely. At this time, outdoor learning is the safest option, so we are planning on increasing our in-person learning to two days per week for our k-5 students. Your child’s teacher will keep you informed about when the new in person days will begin.

Lastly, thank you to everyone for your stamina and perseverance with distance learning. Please remember to communicate with the school if your child needs to miss a Zoom class. Additionally, students will do best on asynchronous assignments if their parents are following up and making sure that assigned work is completed. I know that it is challenging for everyone, but you are all doing a fantastic job. This is an unprecedented time, but I feel confident that everyone; parents, teachers and students are doing their very best. As we move forward, we will continue to meet everyone where they are and to help our students rise to their potential.

Take care everyone. Stay safe, healthy and warm. Please reach out if you need any support. We are here to help. PEACE!

-Mr. Todd