City College and EVMCHS Partnership Align Students to Earn College Units While in High School

East Village Middle College High School (EVMCHS) is San Diego’s best kept secret. Formerly known as San Diego Early/Middle College, EVMCHS is a small, middle college high school located on the campus of San Diego City College (SDCC). As part of the Middle College National Consortium, EVMCHS benefits from a unique partnership with SDCC. Eligible EVMCHS students are dual enrolled at the college, earning weighted college units while still in high school. This partnership provides students with a challenging, non-traditional high school experience in a college learning environment. 

“East Village Middle College High School gives its students a unique opportunity to earn their high school diploma and earn college units at the same time,” said Dr. Ricky Shabazz, president of San Diego City College. “And having EVMCHS on our campus, students have direct access to our comprehensive student support services, excellent faculty, and state-of-the-art facilities.” 

Once enrolled, EVMCHS students have the opportunity to earn in excess of 45+ college units at no cost, with all courses, books, materials, and fees paid for through specific state funding. These units fulfill high school graduation requirements, are directly transferable to all University and California State University systems, and afford students an extremely competitive academic résumé. As an atypical school of choice, EVMCHS is able to enroll students from all over San Diego County at any time during the school year. Total enrollment does not exceed 160 students, which helps our staff focus on the needs of individual learners. The average student to teacher ratio per class is roughly 20:1. EVMCHS leverages available resources and utilize the small school environment to provide eligible students with a distinct advantage in the financially and socially challenging world of higher education.

Kindergarteners, Cows, and STEAM Learning on the Farm!

Mrs. Husted and the Carson STEAM Magnet Kindergarten team brought inquiry to the farm. “Oma’s Farm was the perfect end to our STEAM Unit on living and non-living things,” Mrs. Husted explained. Kindergarteners spent their day learning about how we take care of dairy cows and about how their milk is shipped out to stores so that we can drink it to take care of our own bodies. “Every time I drink milk at school, I’m going to thank a cow and a farmer!” exclaimed Luxe. But students didn’t stop learning there. They got a chance to visit a pumpkin field and to learn how we grow, harvest, and prepare pumpkins. So much to discover on a farm!

Painting from the Inside Out!

“Listen to this wall, the world needs who you were meant to be.” Those are the words above the newest art installation created by students at Montgomery Middle STEAM Magnet. The exhibit is titled “Inside Out,” and refers to the way we as humans have an outer shell that protects and hides our inner workings. The imagery remind us of the many ways we are all the same. Our skeletons are not different colors. They do not operate or look differently depending on race. 

WE have so many things in common. The student’s artwork incorporates symbolism and icons that give deeper meaning to the subject matter. Flowers that surround and enlace themselves in the skeletal frames represent our personalities. The overlapping petals illustrate the parts of ourselves we are comfortable letting people see. The petals that recede to the background represent the aspects of ourselves that we don’t always reveal. 

On the inside we are all the same. Twenty-four ribs, two hundred thirty-one bones, thirty-three vertebrae and one heart!

Students visit Raytheon’s Innovation Lab

Raytheon is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with military and commercial electronics, and a valued partner to San Diego Unified.

Have you ever wondered how Sonar navigation works? San Diego Unified Middle Schoolers can explain how!

Each year Raytheon hosts students from across the district to their Innovation Lab at their Kearny Mesa campus to learn directly from engineers while simulating real world scenarios.

The Innovation Lab is designed for 8th grade students to learn about engineering and participate in robotics experiments to promote the importance of STEM skills and opportunities for all. Students gain a unique perspective of how Raytheon is supporting humanitarian efforts around the globe. Students work together and utilize 21st century skills to manipulate code that allows a robot to navigate multiple scenarios.

During the 2019-2020 school year students from Wilson MS, Riley K-8, Mt. Everest Academy, Farb MS, Mann MS, Bethune K-8, Monroe Clark MS, and the Language Academy will be participating!

Shore Buddies: Changing the World One Stuffed Animal at a Time

Malte Niebelschütz, founder and CEO of Shore Buddies, a progressive company that creates stuffed animals out of recycled water bottles, is teaming up with SDUSD to raise awareness about human impact for students at an early age. 

Malte visited the STEAM first grade training to share his company’s story and goals. Shore Buddies mission is simple: “save marine life and keep plastics out of the oceans.” They’re inspiring children to help with stories that highlight the amount of single-use plastic items such as plastic straws that people use once and then throw away. Shore Buddies invites students to ask for paper, bamboo, or steel straws instead of plastic and to swap their toothbrushes from plastic to an eco-friendly bamboo brush.

Shore Buddies has created five stuffed animals to help remind students of the dangers plastic can cause in our oceans. If you would like to purchase Shelly the Sea Turtle, Emma the Whale, or find out more about Shore Buddies’ mission and process visit https://shore-buddies.com/.

Alumni Day

What can you learn from different generations? This is the essential question that Morse asked their student body as they kicked off their inaugural "Alumni Day." On October 23rd, instead of attending their regularly scheduled classes, Morse students got to experience something entirely innovative.

Seventy-six alumni returned to campus as guest speakers and conducted workshops discuss their life post Morse graduation. Weeks before the event students read about the alumni and their backgrounds and self-selected four workshops that they felt would be meaningful to them. On Alumni Day students picked up their lanyards with their schedules during 1st period and attending workshops during 2nd-5th periods. Finally, during 6th period they had a debrief with their teachers and discussed what they learned throughout the day.

When asked what they learned and what they enjoyed student responses showed that this was a truly meaningful experience. Students said:

• "Everyone was so engaging and shared their stories and it was overall an incredibly helpful day."
• "I learned the mistakes you make can be a lesson, and you can come back and be better at it."
• "I already know my potential but I think one thing I learned today is that if they can do it, then so can I...and maybe even 100 times better. I can achieve so much and make a bigger impact."
• "I learned that once a tiger, you are always a tiger."

The entire event was catered by Morse's very own Hungry Tiger that is a CCTE culinary pathway. Morse is grateful to each alumni that gave their time to give back to the community, especially Liki Porotesano who generated this idea as part of his fellowship project with RISE San Diego. It was a powerful day that Morse students will remember forever.

Discover Your Purpose

In 2018, Kearny High School created and piloted an Education to Employment Lab (E2E) for teachers and students to come together and reflect on the designing principles of agility, collaboration, connectedness, and transparency in order to develop agency in an environment that welcomes creativity and critical thinking. This lab was first featured by KUSI at that time, and is now moving onto an even larger stage. The curriculum will now receive global recognition through a partnership with Community Alliance for Youth Success (CAYS).

Recently, Kearny was presented with the opportunity to partner with New York Times best-selling author, Stedman Graham, and President of the Quantum Learning Network, Bobbi DePorter in order to share the work that they are doing on a broader scale. Stedman and Bobbi were at Kearny last week for a Youth Success Week (YSW) launch along with KUSI.

For this program, students gathered in the auditorium and shared with professionals the process they are going through to work on discovering their purpose--a concept that is difficult for many adults to articulate. However, Kearny students shined as they have been practicing these skills throughout the curriculum. At Kearny, student work culminates in mid-year interviews and end-of-year formal defenses of learning that showcase not only academic achievement but also personal learning successes and challenges. Through this model, students are able to discover their purpose and articulate their journey to their teachers in a way that builds trust and elevates learning.

Youth Success Week is a movement that brings communities together in support of youth as a part of Stedman and Bobbi's foundation: Community Alliance for Youth Success (CAYS). Curriculum writer Daina Weber wrote on her Facebook page: "Their vision is very similar to my reason for teaching: to empower students to discover their purpose in life." The free curriculum, available on the website, inspires youth to discover their purpose, explore their success, and engage with professionals through an annual celebration. For more information about this movement please visit youthsuccessweeek.org.

Kearny's annual celebration, “Success in Adulthood,” will take place in June as a professional development conference for students. At this event, industry professionals and alumni will present in classrooms as guest speakers, while students select workshops to attend that align with their purpose, strengths, interests, and values. This year, Kearny will be celebrating 5 years of this innovative approach to education with its 2020 conference.

CBS Innovate 8 Partners with STEAM Innovation

Kindergarten students from Lafayette Elementary School had a special opportunity to visit CBS News 8 Meteorologist Heather Myers for “Heather with the Weather” as an extension of their “Wild About Weather” STEAM project.

The CBS Innovate 8 program introduced students to Heather and her work as a meteorologist. In this interactive program, students got an inside look into how meteorologists help us prepare for the weather and got to be meteorologists and forecast the weather. Students learned how Heather gathers data from multiple satellites and weather stations. Heather shared the magic behind the scenes by showing how the green screen effects work and students got to experience what it’s like behind the camera.

This experience really resonated with the goals of the San Diego Unified STEAM Initiative which aims to prepare students for college, career, and life readiness and inspire them by sparking curiosity and career awareness at a young age.

Kindergarteners are Lucky to be in SDUSD!

Want to know what causes the weather? Ask a kindergarten student from Jones Elementary and you’ll find out. Meteorologist Jodi Kodesh visited Jones Elementary to kick off their Wild About Weather STEAM project. Kindergarteners will observe the weather throughout their school year and look for patterns in the data they collect. They may come to find patterns of the weather being cooler in the morning and warmer in the afternoon, and they’ll be sure to find that we are lucky to live in San Diego, where we have a mild climate and the weather is often sunny.

Not only are students in SDUSD lucky for living in a city with amazing weather, but they’re also lucky to have direct contact with weather scientist, Meteorologist Jodi Kodesh. Through her sponsorship with San Diego County Credit Union, she is able to visit two elementary schools a month to share her knowledge about the weather and the story that inspired her to become a meteorologist. Jodi will be visiting Clay Elementary and Sunset View Elementary in the month of November. If you’d like to follow Jodi and her activities around San Diego, connect with her via Facebook.com/JodiKodesh or Instagram.com/JodiKodesh. There, you can find her weather reports and you may even find out what causes the weather.

Kearny DMD STEM Stories (Continued from last week)

After completing their mock interviews last week, this week, 11th grade students from Kearny Digital Media and Design interviewed underrepresented STEM professionals in the Education to Employment Lab as the next step in their interdisciplinary project. 

In teams of 4-5, students gathered information for their biography by conducting personal interviews. Students and professionals engaged in meaningful conversations about their backgrounds and experiences, how they see themselves in the STEM field, who they admire, and what inspires them.

 Students said they valued this experience greatly as the personal interviews gave them an accurate picture of who their interviewee was; an experience that could only be achieved through hands-on learning. After this interaction, students feel confident accurately telling another's story through print media and written narrative. We will continue to follow this story at the production process continues.

From Small Beginnings

A labor of love is sprouting in the Emalyn Leppard Community Garden in Linda Vista! Supported by the San Diego River Park Foundation and the Forestry Dept., Montgomery Middle STEAM Magnet 6th graders planted acorns in their school garden to counteract a blight that is devastating our local oaks. The gold-spotted oak borer is an invasive pest contributing to the on-going oak tree mortality occurring in many areas of San Diego County. Isolated areas of infestation have been confirmed in Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties in Southern California. The goal of this project is to raise saplings from seeds that will eventually be planted in the mountains of San Diego. Our entire 6th grade class is determined to help save our oaks from this dreaded pest! We will do this! Our 6th graders are determined and committed. “An Oak tree is a daily reminder that great things often have small beginnings.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo

Discover Your Passion

On October 4th, SDUSD’s CCTE Child Development pathway students attended a “Discover Your Passion” event hosted by San Diego Miramar College. The school’s Child Development program offers certificates and degrees to those interested in the field of Child Development and Early Childhood Education (ECE). By attending this event, high school students learned about the various career possibilities within the field of ECE as well as educational pathways to help students become qualified for future careers. 

High school students spent time interacting with Miramar students and faculty and were also able to experience what it is like to be a child development student at Miramar College. Students toured the on-campus child development center where college students complete field hours for their degrees by planning preschool curriculum, conducting observations of children, and implement their curriculum. Through this near-peer mentoring experience both groups of students grew academically and socially.

Click here to view a highlight video of the event.

32 CCTE Students Earn OSHA 10 Certification!

The Office of College, Career, and Technical Education partnered with a Business and Community Partner, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), to host a two day Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) certification training for SDUSD students. 

Upon completion of the 10 hour training workshop, CCTE Building and Construction students from Twain and the Hoover SABE academy will receive a lifelong certification. These students will then have the ability to access construction job sites, and have an advantage when entering the workforce. Way to go students!