Weekly News - April 16

From the Head of School

This past week I have been very impressed by the amount of student engagement that I have seen on campus. This has taken many forms, and while we are careful to follow all of the safety protocols that will keep our students safe and healthy, we have found ways to engage students in meaningful learning activities. An example of this was the Grade 4/5 Poetry Café this afternoon. To celebrate the end of the 4th Grade unit on poetry, Ms. Green transformed her classroom into an atmospheric café environment where our 4th and some 5th Grade students presented their original poems as well as some poems from well-known authors. The program included guest appearances from teachers and even an original poem written by parent Dean Purvis. Following the latest Department of Health guidelines, parents who were vaccinated or had a recent negative COVID test, where able to participate, albeit at a distance of 6 feet. Here is one of the many excellent poems that were read today: Reba By Aidan SP I loved her so much, she was the best, she filled me with joy, and happiness, I loved petting her and scratching her ears, she was a good dog, the best dog, well at least to my ears, I always feared that she would die, but I was never ready to say goodbye, Why can’t they just stay with us forever.

Another example of great student engagement involved a presentation by some 8th grade students to our Kindergarten and Grade One class on cleaning the Los Angeles River. This is the community project that Zachary, Makaio and Arlene are undertaking and they presented this topic to our younger students to educate them on this issue. The presentation involved a demonstration of how water is cleaned through filtration and a video that they created to explain the problem. Our K/1 students were very impressed by these soon-to-be graduates, who did an excellent job in role-modeling good presentation skills.

To round out a week of activity, and keeping in the theme of springtime, Juliana Price, our Preschool on-line teacher, gave our Preschoolers a presentation on bees. And today, the entire school had fun dressing up as their favorite animal. This was inspired by the Student Council as one of the various fun/spirit days organized to make coming to school a fun experience for our students. On another topic, I am also sorry to let you know that the vaccination clinic being offered by Capitol Drugs at the GPS campus has been put on hold. This is due to the stop placed on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by the CDC until a determination has been made of a possibly very rare side effect. We hope that this will be resolved soon as we are eager to help our community get vaccinated.

Parent Satisfaction Survey (JK-8th Grade) With things starting to get back to normal, we would like to continue with our annual parent IB satisfaction survey for families in JK - 8th grade. In order for the school to evaluate its progress in implementing the IB program, we would appreciate your taking a few minutes to complete a brief survey. There is a comment area at the end where you can expand on your thoughts if desired. The survey will run for one week through to Friday, April 23. Click here for the survey. Your feedback is very important and I thank you in advance for your time!

GPS Summer Camp For Students in Grades K-8 We are happy to announce that this summer we will be offering a Summer Camp for students in Kindergarten through Grade 8 on the GPS campus. The Summer Camp is being run in collaboration with The Green Leaf Academy, which has been running this very popular summer camp for many years in our area. The camp will run for 5 weeks starting on June 14th and will focus both on providing courses on improving core academic skills, as well as a variety of fun and interesting topics to engage students in this age group. Registration is now open to our community as well as students from all of the surrounding areas. For more information visit the Green Leaf website. Daily Schedule For Grades K-8 - Reminder Please remember that school starts at 8:00 a.m. for all Middle School classes and 8:15 for Lower School classes. Please plan your trip to school so that students can be in the classrooms by these times and factor in the extra time it might take for the morning screening.

Weekly News - April 9

From the Head of School

I am happy to see that our students have come back from Spring Break well-rested and with renewed eagerness to learn. We are now down to our last two months of the 2020-21 school year and with the ever-improving situation in LA County we are busily planning some end-of-year events for our community. These include our 8th Grade Graduation, 5th Grade Promotion, 5th Grade Exhibition presentation, 8th Grade Community Project presentation and the Middle School performance of “The Lion King”. As we move higher in the COVID tier structure and review the guidance from the LACDPH, we will provide more details in the upcoming weeks.

One of the highlights for our Junior Kindergarten class this week was to build their own house. This was a fun activity to end their unit titled “Home Sweet Home” whose central idea was that “Homes differ due to environment, needs, and resources". Helping the students was actual home-builder, Kevin McCann, father of Jr. Kinder student, Damian. We are grateful to the McCann family for sharing their time and talent with us for this project.

I am also happy to announce that GPS will be hosting a vaccination clinic that is being put on by Capitol Drugs. An email went out to the entire GPS community this week letting you know of this opportunity, which is open to all GPS families, their relatives and friends. We will hold the clinic in Lee Hall as soon as we can get an estimate of the numbers that would like to get the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccination. Getting vaccinated is critical in our fight against COVID and I urge you to take this opportunity offered by Capitol Drugs. Getting everyone in our community vaccinated is in the best interests of our students. In writing this I am reminded of the very articulate piece on the community fight against COVID that 8th grader Arlene L. wrote in the magazine, “Humanism Now”. If you haven’t read it here is the link.

During the month of April we are focusing on the IB Learner Profile of being a risk-taker. Students who are risk-takers are able to approach unfamiliar situations and uncertainty with courage and forethought. They have the independence of spirit to explore new roles, ideas and strategies. Risk-takers are brave and articulate in defending their beliefs. There is also a close correlation with the ability to take risks and having a growth mindset, which you have probably been hearing a lot about. Growth mindset is a valuable attitude that encourages children to have perseverance, to approach difficult tasks with confidence, and to focus on what is achievable with hard work. Below are some suggestions on how parents can help to develop students who are Risk-Takers at home.

• If your child is feeling uneasy about trying something, encourage them to attempt it and have them reflect on how it felt.

• Set short-term goals. Consider activities that push your child out of their comfort zone. Encourage them to offer their opinion, spend time learning a new activity, try a different food, learn a new game or even to spend time with someone they don't usually spend time with.

• Explain the difference between being a risk-taker (trying new things) and engaging in dangerous activities.

• Ask, "What's the hard part?" to identify the challenge and brainstorm ways to fix it.

The following link gives some ideas for Elementary school children's picture books that exemplify the IB PYP Learner Profile trait of being a risk-taker.

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Staff Spotlight

Genevieve (Jenny) Ellena joins the GPS Team

We are happy to announce that Miss Jenny has joined the GPS Preschool team. Jenny has had a long relationship with this campus, having worked as a Preschool teacher with the First Presbyterian Preparatory School for 32 years and this year helping to run the POD, which supports students in various distance-learning programs. With our growing Preschool program, we are excited to have added Jenny to the GPS faculty.

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Our Preschool camp will run from June 7 to August 6. Here is the link for more information and registration forms.

Weekly News - March 12

From the Head of School

This has been another momentous week at GPS with second trimester report cards going home, a once in a decade hail storm in the middle of the day, parent teacher conferences, and the return of many of our Middle School students for in-person instruction. With the imminent advancement by LA County into the red tier from the purple tier, and the vaccination of the GPS faculty and staff, we are moving ever closer to the conditions that will result in a more normal school environment. While we now have all of our grade levels able to come on campus for instruction, we are still offering the hybrid program that allows students to attend lessons on-line. We are also still following all of the CDC and Department of Health protocols to ensure that our students and staff learn and work in a safe environment. These measures, such as face masks, group separation, hand washing, etc., will continue on into the future until we put the pandemic behind us.

One of the consequences of the ever-improving situation in LA County has been the exponential increase of tours and applications for the next school year. Some of the families that have applied were recommended by current GPS families and we thank you for getting out the word about our great faculty and academic program. Looking forward to the summer, we have now set the dates for our Summer Camp program. The Preschool camp will start on June 7th and the K-8 camp will start on June 14th. Look for more details and registration forms in the coming week.

Our next on-line school assembly will take place on Friday, March 26 at 8:30. In addition to the learner profile awards, we will also have our traditional Pi Day competition. Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, which is approximately 3.14159. Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point. As an irrational and transcendental number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern. Pi’s infinite nature makes it a fun challenge to memorize, and during our Friday assembly we will have a competition to recite the most number of digits of Pi. The prize for wining the competition is, as you will have probably guessed, a piece of pie!

New Pick Up Procedure For Middle School Students

With the rainy days this week, we moved the Middle School afternoon pick up to the covered area in front of Nursery Room. We have decided that this is a better place and we will continue to do the afternoon Middle School pick up from this new location.

GPS Spirit Wear

With our students back on campus, we are delighted to see all the new GPS branded polo shirts and sweatshirts. Here is the link for ordering your GPS spirit wear.

Summer Camp 2021

Student Council News

Community Project