Education Summit Brings Community Together

On Friday evening, Sept. 19, Arroyo Valley High School hosted an Education Summit. The goal of the event was to invite current and future students and their parents to the school to engage and connect with them. Parents, guardians, and community members came together to speak about the plan to ensure that all students are fully prepared for what their future holds by the time they graduate. The event was held in the school’s cafeteria. All attendees were served with dinner and dessert. After everyone finished their dinners, Principal Gordon Amerson took the podium that showed their Mission Statement: “The mission of Arroyo Valley is to provide each student with a safe, secure, challenging, and nurturing learning environment, an educational setting rich in the arts that empowers each student to become a responsible, productive citizen with the necessary knowledge to find success in a highly competitive, technological, and multicultural society.” “It’s very, very important that we capture your voices, we capture the thoughts, we capture the aspirations, hopes, and dreams of not only our students but also our community, our parents, and staff,” Principal Amerson mentioned right before everyone started the “Community Engagement Activity”. Every teacher that attended had to check out an iPod at the front of the cafeteria. Students were encouraged to use them to answer various questions that would give the administration feedback to use to plan their academic strategies for future school years. The purpose of this activity was to implement current technology, for everyone to engage in the questions, and to get feedback from the students so that they have a voice and say in how things go. Principal Amerson said, “They will provide powerful feedback that we can use to raise the level of achievement and engagement of our entire community on the West Side of San Bernardino.” [END] ARROYO VALLEY HIGH CONNECTS WITH CURRENT AND FUTURE STUDENTS AND PARENTS AT SEPTEMBER 19 SUMMIT Arroyo Valley High School has begun charting its course for the future by inviting current and future students and parents to share their voice at a summit on Friday, September 19. The Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) Summit is the start of an ongoing dialogue that will allow students, parents, guardians, and community members to shape the plan for how Arroyo Valley High will ensure all students succeed academically and are college and career ready by graduation. The Summit will be from 5 to 7 p.m. in the school cafeteria and will include participants from 12 District elementary and middle schools that send students to Arroyo Valley High. Attendees will be asked to provide feedback on everything from technology use to after-school programs and teacher development, said Arroyo Valley Principal Gordon Amerson. “We are creating a shared vision for Arroyo Valley High, and we have to engage all our stakeholders,” Amerson said. “They will provide powerful feedback that we can use to raise the level of achievement and engagement of our entire community on the West Side of San Bernardino.” The feedback will be instrumental to building a shared vision for the campus, which serves 2,657 students in grades 9 through 12, and will be a key ingredient of the school’s Single Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA). The SPSA is a state-mandated document that represents a school’s cycle of continuous improvement of student performance. “We are moving from the rubber-stamp approach to authentic parent and student engagement,” Amerson said. “Our schools belong to our community, and they should have a vested interest in all that we do.” Parents who are interested in attending the LCAP Summit should call Arroyo Valley at (909) 381-4295.