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  • Sarah Perkins
    • Nov 21, 2020
    • 8 min read

Selma Weekly Update | 11.21.20


Important Dates at Selma

NOVEMBER

November 23-27 - Thanksgiving Break


DECEMBER

Virtual World Fair coming mid-December!


Tuesday, December 1

Wednesday, December 2

  • Selma Assembly | 8:30am on Zoom

  • Parent Coffee - Presentation on Mental Health w/LCS Counselors Alison & Val 9:00-10:00am on Zoom

  • Lunch pickup @ Hollygrove Campus | 11:00am-1:00pm

  • Lunch pickup @ Fairfax Campus | 12:00-3:00pm

  • LCS@LFP Virtual Open House for 8th - 12th grade | 5:00-7:00pm on Zoom

Wednesday, December 9

Thursday, December 10

December 21-January 4 - Winter Break


MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL


Dear LCS Selma Families,

During Kindness Week and this season of thankfulness, we wish to express our appreciation for the support families are providing during these times. Distance learning can be stressful and overwhelming, but our community is strong and always pulls together during challenges. We can’t thank you enough for your patience, trust, and support. We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving Break with your family. School will resume Monday, November 30.


Staff Update

We are sad to share the news that Jenna will no longer be teaching 5th grade. Please click this link to see her letter to parents. Jenna is a wonderful teacher and will be greatly missed. We wish her the best. Keaton, who has subbed for LCS prior to and during distance learning, will be a long-term sub until we are able to hire. Keaton works collaboratively with the 5th grade teachers to ensure a strong, consistent curriculum. We are currently in the process of interviewing candidates and will keep you updated as soon as we find the right fit for LCS.


Parent Education: Suicide Prevention

Here is the information that was presented during our parent education night regarding suicide prevention: Parent Ed - Suicide Prevention 11.17.20.pdf

Click here for access to the video recording. (Parent Ed - Suicide Prevention.mp4)


Nov 18 LOOP Meeting

Check out the video recording of our latest LOOP meeting: Nov 18 SLM LOOP.mp4

Read the LOOP Meeting notes at larchmontcharter.org/selma-loop.

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Winter Breakfast - Wednesday, December 16: Wednesday, December 16th, just before winter break. This LCS Selma tradition will continue this year with a Drive-Thru celebration. Parents and the school will collaborate to make it fun and festive. Out of this brainstorming session a number of ideas emerged: play holiday music, stations of things such as hot chocolate, apple cider, candy cane giveaways, holiday snacks, wear ugly holiday sweaters/masks, toy donation drive, holiday photo op with a winter wonderland backdrop (with your pet too). The class schedule for that day may need to be adjusted. Separate celebrations may go on at the different campuses that everyone could go to. It will be great for students and teachers to get to see each other in person. Doing a drive-thru celebration is an all-new experience. Parents interested in helping out should contact Kaili Hollister at kailihollister@me.com.

World Fair: This year’s virtual World Fair will launch the first week of December and will go live by December 15. Jason, a parent from Hollygrove, introduced and explained the idea for this year’s virtual World Fair. It will be an engaging site with digital content from our community sharing different cultural experiences. People can add their own recipes, videos, updates for the holidays, etc. Information on how to submit videos and how to get subscriptions will go out shortly. Access to visiting the site will be subscription-based, with a sliding scale option as needed. There may be a pre-sale to families ahead of time. People from all campuses can get creative and make it fun. Let Jason know if you can help with any of the following: Graphic Design: Help is needed to create invites, sponsor one-sheets, and the downloadable PDF's. WordPress Population of Pages: Help in populating some of the site’s pages if you have any experience or are quick and tech-savvy. Translations: We would love to offer recipe translation - which will be on the downloadable PDF's - in as many languages as possible. Video Editing: We'll be getting in videos that we'd love some help adding consistent bumpers too, maybe cleaning up any audio, etc. Also looking for help on an explainer video that can go both to families to participate and as an ad for selling the passports. Sponsorship: We're able to put ads on the site, and selling ad-space would be great to cover costs/bring in even more money to the school. If anyone has any companies they think would be interested in advertising on our site, please let Jason know. Additionally, if anyone has any desire to help putting together a 1-sheet for sponsors, holler at Jason. Share: We will provide invites for the actual sales-part, where you can ask your friends and families to "EXPERIENCE OUR WORLD OF CULTURES FROM HOME." Please send out when you receive - these make great holiday gifts and are year-long subscriptions. AND we can add new content year-round and share updates with subscribers, emphasizing certain recipes or traditions on special holidays and notable days. Organizational assistance: Anyone who can lend a hand on some of the admin and operation-type stuff would be awesome. Contact Jason at jason@jasondaleykennedy.com if there is something here that you would like to do!

Holiday gifts for teachers: Betsy will coordinate a collection across all campuses for teachers and staff for holiday gift cards. An email will go out after Thanksgiving to parents at all campuses. Donation is voluntary and there will be a suggested sliding-scale amount. Details for distribution are to be determined.

Clubs for 7th grade: Teachers will ask students their thoughts about clubs, but likely students will stay in the same clubs unless they request a change.

Families in need/gift cards for our community: Early on in the pandemic, LCS families donated over $10,000 in gift cards to other LCS families in need. Students at LFP recognized that many families are still in need and are beginning a student-run project to collect additional gift cards. Stay tuned for more details if you would like to consider contributing, or if you are in need.

Virtual tours for Selma: Sarah has already had zoom meetings with parents from Hollygrove and Fairfax to introduce herself and the Selma experience. Additional ways to reach out to 4th graders and 4th grade families are being discussed to help them with the transition, since usually they come visit campus. One idea is to invite them to a Wednesday morning virtual assembly with Dave. Two virtual tours are scheduled for prospective parents (December 10th from 10-11am, and another one in early January). Contact Sarah if you are a current Selma parent who would like to attend the virtual tour and be available to answer questions from prospective parents during the tour. And if you think your child may be interested in attending the tour and giving their input on what their experience is like at Selma, please let Sarah know. Also, the 7th grade Leadership Club may be a place to find students interested in participating and helping answer questions from prospective families. Also, we need to do more outreach to people outside of our community.

LAUSD Board Election Update: Tanya Ortiz Franklin was elected and is replacing the current Board president. She is a great choice and will work with everyone; she doesn’t just have the interests of one party but wants to represent kids, parents, and teachers. Flips the board in favor of charter schools so now there is likely to be more thoughtful thinking with regard to charter school reform. Tanya is good for charter renewal and will help create ways we can advocate more for charters.

Support for Selma parents: Current counselors Allison and Val at Larchmont might be able to help provide regular support to our parents who are struggling to support their kids especially during the pandemic. Allison and Val have already presented at 2 parent morning coffee meetings and parents have been able to share tips and gain support. Do parents feel like they want something more? Should we schedule something on an ongoing monthly basis with counselors? Do we need an evening meeting? A suggestion was made to have a support group for parents with kids with anxiety or depression. Parents then don’t have to feel like they are alone. Should there be a monthly meeting or bi-weekly meeting for any or all of this? We could set up something regularly with counselors – and Drea will do another parent council – right after Thanksgiving break. There is already a session scheduled on December 2nd where Val and Alison will give a presentation on mental health. Sarah will check to see if they can present in the morning and evening.

Counseling Resources for Students: The school has partnered with the Southern California Counseling Center, and they have free counseling slots available for students in our community. Contact Val, Alison, or Sarah and they can help connect you.

Annual Giving Drive: We are at a race to the finish through Friday night, November 20. The $75,000 matching grant is available if we raise an additional $10K from our community. We need to get the word out.

Party Book: Too much is going on in the fall to start parties, but we are hoping to start launching parties in January/February. Preliminary ideas for fun zoom parties for parents and kids around things that would be fun to do -- making crafts, learning how to knit, cooking, yoga, etc. More ideas are needed.

Enrichments: Parents are wondering if we can invest in supplies and have real hands-on art? Sarah can be in touch with our new art teacher Jasmine to see if that is possible. LFP had a great art class with a pick-up for supplies. Kaili will ask Maria T about getting donations for the school. Other thoughts for new enrichments/7th grade clubs are a community service group, debate, girls’ leadership.

Yearbook – How are we going to do one? How can we get student portraits? Can we do zoom photos? Can families send in photos? Drive-through idea for portraits – can kids jump out and we have it timed by class or grade with professional parent photographers? Maybe have kids jump out with mask, take off the mask for the photo, and have parent photographers 6 feet away? Maybe we can rely on kids submitting additional photos? Sarah wants to schedule a yearbook meeting with Janet and other people who said they were interested in helping with yearbook. Janet has a designer mom (Debbie) who knows how to use the yearbook program online. It may be helpful to collaborate with the other campuses to make it more manageable. Contact Janet at jkyerrid@gmail.comt if you would like to be help and be in the loop on yearbook.


Diversity, Inclusion, and Outreach Parent Committee

We held our first meeting, where we discussed past experiences with groups and what we want our main focus to be at LCS Selma. Our next meeting will be held December 9 at 4pm. Please join us if you are interested!


Wednesday, December 2 Assembly

Please join us from 8:30-9:00 with the zoom link in the calendar. Our Parent Coffee will be with Val and Alison! The topic will be supporting your child’s mental health.


5th Grade Materials Pick Up

On December 9 from 10:30-12:30, we invite 5th grade families to drive through our carpool lane off of Selma Ave to pick up copies of two novels.

I know with my parent hat on that this unique time in our world has meant a lot more heavy lifting for parents of school age kids. Thank you for your patience, your partnership and for generously investing in our school and community...

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READ AMY'S MESSAGE.

LCS@LFP VIRTUAL OPEN HOUSE

Information about LFP

Grade 8-12 Program



December 2, 2020

Time: 5:00pm-7:00pm

ZOOM: https://larchmontcharter-org.zoom.us/j/84399035207

Passcode: 198741



NEED TECH SUPPORT?

Email techabee@larchmontcharter.org

CC: terence.bow@larchmontcharter.org & (insert your email address)

Call/Text: 925-494-2101


STUDENT ABSENCES

If your child will be absent or miss a class, please contact our Office Managers: Chris, Danielle, and the teacher. Please complete the Distance Learning Attendance Form daily if your student is unable to attend the live zoom sessions but participated asynchronously.