Cheetah Chatter, May 12, 2020

May 12, 2020

From the Principal's Desk

Hello to my Fabulous Theuerkauf Family! 

It was so amazing to see so many of you at the Principal’s Coffee last Friday. I miss our daily interactions so much! I almost felt like a child in a candy store...so many of our wonderful Theuerkauf families were right there in front me..virtually, yes, but there and I could talk to them, see them. It makes me so happy and that's what I call, “Principal Happiness” - seeing our community again! 

At the coffee on Friday and in my Mother's Day Facebook Message, I shared with our families, how there is no perfect parenting. We all struggle to find what works for our kiddos. One day it works, and the next day it doesn’t. Guess what, it's absolutely fine!  Below are some strategies that we could use to support students at home as they engage in academics and feel some frustrations setting in: 

  • Struggles are normal in life...we  encourage this in our Cheetahs at school all the time. It's ok to fall down...we all go through struggles in various stages of our lives...staying down there and not making an effort to get up...that is NOT ok! Get back up and work through the struggles. Productive struggle increases perseverance and builds growth mindset. 

  • Find opportunities to have conversations with your children on what struggles they are going through - What is bothering them at this time? Let them share their thoughts when they are ready to have the conversation. Talk about what struggles mean to you and give them examples of some struggles you may have gone through as a child and how you overcame them. Giving them examples from your life so they know we went (and still go) through struggles. 

  • Allow your child to take their time as they process a problem at hand - Time to play around with a problem breeds familiarity (and lessens anxiety around it) 

  • Praise, praise, praise...small steps ---> small failures---> big successes

  • Most importantly, spend time together...real quality time as a family...away from devices or Netflix or Disney+, etc. 

As you may be aware, our district is starting work on school reopening plans and is looking for parent and staff volunteers from each school site for focus group planning. We are so grateful to have many of you volunteer, post Superintendent’s messages and our Principal’s Coffee. At the end of this week, we will shortlist a 4 member representative school group composed of parents and school staff members for the school reopening plan. Even if you are not a part of the group, I encourage you to provide your input and share thoughts with me during our parent community outreach meetings going forward. You know your feedback and input is so valuable to us and really helps us formulate next steps as a school and as a district. (Signup link is in the section below). 

Can you also relate to the range of emotions I go through as I watch the daily newscast? Feelings of unrest, anxiousness of ‘what next’ or ‘what if’, etc. keep coming to my mind. Like you, I miss the normalcy we had (minus the traffic on Highway 85 coming in to work!)  before this worldwide pandemic but am working through finding our new normal. We miss our kiddos and would love to hangout with them virtually. Please  have them join us to say hello on Wednesday, May 13th, @ 3:00- 3:20 pm via Zoom. Our office staff members  - Ms. Mary Colon, Ms. Sherri Minor, Ms. Cristina, Mrs. Gallagher, Mr. Simmons, and Principal Dagar (aka me) will be on the Zoom call to say hello to our Cheetahs. (Zoom meeting link will be shared via a separate school email sent to parents on Tuesday). Looking forward to seeing our Cheetahs for our “Hangout with Office Folks!”

Even in this unprecedented and uncertain time, one thing is for sure - We have each other - Our Theuerkauf Family- to stand together with kindness, compassion, support, and love! We can and we will get through these times. Together. 

Sending love and light your way. 

 

Your Principal Dagar 

District News

Seeking members: School Reopening focus groups

MVWSD is seeking representative groups of parents, students, teachers, and staff members for school reopening focus groups. Four volunteers are needed per school site. The focus groups will explore desires and concerns for school reopening. 

Focus groups will meet twice (once in May and again in June) and each group will focus on a stage:  Schools closed, Targeted opening, Open with Restrictions, Full opening. To apply to be a focus group member, please complete an application found here by May 16 or contact your school principal.

 

Distance Learning Tips

Here are a few tips that might help you and your student with Distance Learning. Do you have any tried and true methods of helping your students’ school days be more efficient and your family’s life a little easier? Share them here. http://mvw.sd/37PbG

 “Caught you being good!”  Set a timer for yourself (15-45 minutes, depending on the age of your kids).  When the timer goes off, positively reinforce your child by noting their focus, independence, and/or perseverance through a challenge.  If you can periodically name, celebrate, and give attention to what they are doing right, they are more likely to keep it up, and less likely to get our attention with undesired behaviors. 

Multiple kiddos? Go incognito! If you have multiple kids or are trying to access your own Google account while checking out theirs, here is a tip: Hold down COMMAND + SHIFT + N when you are in Chrome. This creates an incognito window, where you are not signed in. This means you can sign in with one account in one window and another account in another. You can do this for as many accounts as you like so that you can flip between windows to look at information from multiple accounts simultaneously.

Ask your student for high & lows for the day. Not everything is fixable, but asking and talking about schoolwork will help your student feel supported and understood. 

 

SCCOE webinars

The Santa Clara County Office of Education has developed a Parent Support Webinar series just for parents who have questions on how they can support their kids with learning. 

Free Parent Support Webinar series:

May 14    Episode 2: Reading Comprehension Support

May 21    Episode 3: Writing Development Support

May 28    Episode 4: Academic Content Support

 

Audience: Parents & Educators

Dates: Thursdays in May 2020

Time: 1-1:30 PM, PST

Join Live: bit.ly/sccoeparents

Cost: Free

 

Child Care and Resources

SCCOE Announces New Online Portal for Essential Workers to Access Childcare

Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) in partnership with county and city leaders, community organizations and agencies throughout Santa Clara County has announced a new online portal to provide essential workers, as defined by the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health, access to childcare during the shelter-in-place order

In addition to this childcare resource, we have a list of resources for families developed by our School Community Engagement Facilitators. Sheltering in place and not being in our regular routines of work and school can be hard on our emotional and mental health, in addition to making access to meals, rent payments and other typical activities more difficult. Click here for info about help with meals, rent, legal issues, emotional support and more.

 

Chess Tournament

17TH ANNUAL MVWSD INTERSCHOLASTIC CHESS TOURNAMENT

17AMICT is forging ahead and will be held this year despite COVID-19!  The tournament will be online this year and will be held Sunday, May 31, 2020, from 11:30 to 5:00.  Full instructions and registration are at tinyurl.com/mvwsdchess.  The registration deadline is May 29.  Come take part in one of the few events this school year going on as scheduled.  Contact Mark Ruzon, Tournament Director, at [email protected] with any questions.

 

InPlay Home Activities

With extended time sheltering-in-place, InPlay, MVWSD's partner for out-of-school learning, has created a list of home-based, instructor-led programs offered by your favorite local providers to keep your students active and engaged! Please check it out. https://www.inplay.org/r/mountain-view/discover

 

Food Benefits

Due to Coronavirus (COVID-19), children who are eligible for free or reduced-price meals at school will get extra food benefits. These food benefits are called Pandemic EBT or P-EBT benefits. P-EBT benefits help families in California buy food when schools are closed because of the coronavirus emergency.

Families will get up to $365 per eligible child on their P-EBT card to use on food and groceries. Families with children who get CalFresh, Medi-Cal or Foster Care benefits do not need to apply. Most will get their P-EBT card in the mail during the month of May. P-EBT cards will begin arriving sometime this month(May).

Families with children who are eligible for free or reduced-price meals and who do not get their P-EBT card in the mail, must apply online before June 30, 2020. The online application will launch in late May. https://www.cdss.ca.gov/home/pandemic-ebt

Attachments

Pandemic Benefit 

Social Service Agency 

Community Resources for Parents 

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