From the Head of School
This week, our 8th graders presented their MYP community service projects. These projects involved our students in a wide range of activities to extend their knowledge and understanding and to develop their skills and attitudes.
In these student-planned learning activities, 8th graders worked in teams and over the past few months:
decided what they want to learn about, identified what they already know, and discovered what they would need to know to complete the project
created proposals or criteria for their project, planned their time and materials, and recorded developments of the project
made decisions, developed understandings and solved problems, communicated with their supervisor and others, and created a product or developed an outcome evaluating the product/outcome and reflected on their project and their learning.
The projects that our students choose were
Cleaning up the Los Angeles River
Protecting the native ecosystem, which included planting trees
Helping with the socialization of children impacted by the COVID imposed school closures and stay at home orders.
The presentations were judged by a panel of faculty and administrators and were a pleasure to watch. I was truly impressed not only with the skills and confidence of our soon-to-be graduates, but also their passion for issues that were important to them. A big thank you to Mrs. Shibel, who was the advisor for the Community Project program and to Mr. Mendoza and Mr. Serrano who were faculty mentors. COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic This week we also had our one-day vaccination clinic. Getting our community vaccinated is very important to the health and safety of our students and we thank Capital Drugs for supporting us all at GPS.
Teacher Appreciation Week GPS faculty and staff felt the love this week. Thank you to our wonderful parent and student community who provided treats and reminders that we are appreciated. We thoroughly enjoyed the bagels, donuts, coffee, Portos danishes, empanadas and lunches, among other fun surprises. We have the best community around and we couldn't be more grateful.