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Education
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Beginning Saturday morning with check-in and light breakfast at 8:30 a.m. and ending at 3:30 p.m., this low-cost, high-interaction conference is designed to explore a variety of topics of interest to teachers across disciplines from kindergarten to community college.
The Foundation Skills Teaching and Learning Committee hosts this important local event to bring educators together to share ideas, build collaboration, and learn about current practices and projects in the community.
“This is always an exciting day for us. While the focus is on local educational communities, educators from all over Northern California attend and present. Really, it’s all about engaging students and instructors. There is something powerful about a middle school teacher sitting with a college professor and their shared narrative of ideas and engagement,” said conference coordinator Ginny Buccelli.
This year’s conference session topics will include addressing climate change, helping students develop their English language skills, improving literacy, teaching with compassion, volunteer and project based learning, and addressing challenging student populations.
Presenters represent elementary, middle school, high school and college level professionals.
Pre-registration and ticket purchase is strongly encouraged.
From now until Feb. 22, pre-admission tickets are $27. Tickets can also be purchased at the door for $30.
Admission includes a light breakfast, lunch and a raffle. Continuing Education Credits through Dominican University can be earned.
For more information, please contact Ginny Buccelli at
The Mendocino College Ukiah campus is located at 1000 Hensley Creek Road, Ukiah.
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- Written by: Crystal Quezadas
LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Carlé would like to take the time to thank the following women for their generous donations and contributions made to our school.
Thank you to Cheri Johnson, Donna Sage, Dori Guest and Linda Luger, may she rest in peace.
Dori Guest was the neighbor and dear friend of Linda Luger. Linda Luger passed away and left all of her jewelry and jewelry making supplies to be donated to Carlé High School by Dori Guest.
Carlé staff and students appreciate everything they have done for our school. Johnson, Sage, and Guest have been gifted mugs made by Marisa Wynn and Desiree Krebs.
Katie Roath made two special plaques in memory of Linda Luger, “an artist who loved creating unique works through her drawings and crafts,” as a token of appreciation from us. One was sent to her family the other will be mounted on all the jewelry supplies so students can see why they have this wonderful opportunity.
Our fourth grading period will come to an end of Thursday, Feb. 14, with only two more grading periods to go in this school year. This is the perfect time for students to have an end-of-the-year plan to see whether they will have received their credits needed, and if not, how they will accomplish graduation in the next school year. It is important that our senior class stays focused and diligent on graduation. Class of 2019, you can do it!
Congratulations to our most recent student of the week, Sami Strowbridge. Alan Siegel nominated Strowbridge. “She is a excellent student and a great designer. She is very kind and deserved to have student of the week. She is already co enrolled in college and will be a full time college student when she shortly completes her last few high school credits."
A special writing assignment/assessment took place on Thursday, Feb 7. Students were placed in their advisory classes and had to write an essay on the topic of the effects of social media and whether they believe they are negative or positive citing references from articles supplied.
Staff members, and especially Lexi Fredericks, Carlé’s amazing English teacher who organized and created the whole thing, were highly impressed with their students and how hard they worked on their essays.
In return for the students’ great efforts and good behavior they were given an extended lunch, credit in English and an additional extra credit hour.
Thank you to all the students for actively participating, their effort and behaving in the positive Carlé way.
Much more to come next week on the successful accomplishment of hazmat training, student council activities and fundraisers, and our next gold level list of students.
Crystal Quezadas is a student at Carlé Continuation High School.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The Congressmen’s bipartisan bill would also increase transparency so that parents are informed when students are served foreign-produced foods paid for by taxpayers.
“Even in Northern Californian and Central Valley farming communities, some school districts use taxpayer dollars to buy imported foods. Some of those imported foods have been recalled due to safety concerns, when they could have been sourced locally in California,” said Congressman Garamendi (D-CA). “That’s why my American Food for American Schools Act would ensure that our schoolchildren are served nutritious, American-grown foods, produced under the strictest safety standards in the world.”
“Buying and using American-grown food products and improving nutrition for children in our schools should be an issue that both sides of the aisle can support,” said Congressman LaMalfa (R-CA). I’m happy to join with my colleague, Mr. Garamendi, to help ensure our children enjoy fresh, local produce instead of potentially less desirable alternatives from overseas. This bill holds school districts accountable for constantly requesting waivers to purchase foreign food products and helps ensure our tax dollars are used to buy healthy, high-quality, American-grown and made products for school lunches. It’s preferable to utilize food items that are produced right here in Northern California or in the USA.”
The bipartisan American Food for American Schools Act (H.R.1066) strengthens the “Buy American” provisions in current federal law requiring school districts to purchase domestically sourced products for in-school meals.
Under the bill, school districts would be required to obtain a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to purchase foreign-sourced food products funded by the National School Lunch Program.
Any such USDA waivers would only be granted if the domestically produced food was cost prohibitive or simply unavailable.
Congressman Garamendi’s bill would also require that school districts notify parents of all foreign-sourced foods served to students, by posting any such waivers obtained from the USDA on the school’s Website.
This would increase public transparency and provide American farmers an opportunity to seek out school districts that need affordable domestically grown foods.
The American Food for American Schools Act has already earned support from key agricultural groups, in California and nationwide.
“When local school districts use taxpayer dollars to purchase and import food products that are readily available here, it is a real slap in the face to American farmers who are required to comply with a host of laws and regulations to ensure they are producing the safest supply of food in the world,” said Rich Hudgins, president and CEO of the California Canning Peach Association. “Yet China is notorious for environmental, human rights and food safety violations so why are we using taxpayer dollars to buy their food products and risk the health and safety of our children?”
The full text of H.R.1066 is available here.
The bill currently awaits action by the House Committee on Education and Labor, which has jurisdiction over the USDA’s National School Lunch Program.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The Mendocino County Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program had already planned to use surplus funds from the California Department of Public Health to purchase industrial air scrubbers to protect the health of the most vulnerable people in the county – the young, the infirm and the elderly – in the event of future wildfires.
Based on Superintendent Hutchins’ request, Dr. Pace assured some of the scrubbers were intended for county schools.
An air scrubber is a portable filtration system that removes particles, gasses and/or chemicals from the air within a given area.
These machines draw air in from the surrounding environment and pass it through a series of filters to remove contaminants.
Public Health will distribute the scrubbers to key community partners to maximize their benefit.
Five units designed for use around children will be on permanent loan to the Mendocino Office of Education for use in local schools to reduce students’ exposure to air pollution.
The scrubbers will be strategically placed in classrooms and/or gymnasiums for those with breathing issues or who have compromised immunity.
The additional seven high-capacity units may be placed in shelters, libraries, rural healthcare facilities, and/or senior centers, depending on the situation.
“We are excited to collaborate with the Air Quality Management District and the Office of Education to protect our children from the negative health effects of wildfire smoke,” said Dr. Pace. “Since masks are not effective in preventing smoke exposure in youth, we are working with the schools on creating some clean-air rooms to help the most vulnerable people in the county – our kids.”
He explained that children and older adults are more likely to be affected by health threats from smoke than any other age group. Children’s airways are still developing and they breathe more air per pound of body weight than adults.
“It is imperative that we work together to reduce risk and improve indoor air quality for our children who, when in school, occupy more densely populated space than any office, store, or governmental building,” Superintendent Hutchins said.
This joint effort will help reduce the number of days a school may have to close, and will reduce the number of children who may be absent during any wildfire event that affects our area.