As we close out the Fall 2020 semester, we would like to take time to reflect and celebrate our students, our work and our successes, especially during these unique and challenging times. Doing so helps to focus our work on our mission: provide diverse programs that bring a sense of balance between curriculum and career, valuing students as whole people connected with our community. Together, we create a greater, more unified experience for every student as they seek richer, more meaningful opportunities preparing them the workforce and beyond.
Please enjoy the following snapshots of our work this semester
Creativity Carts
The Innovation & Agility-Curriculum & Career Education (CCE) is continuing to support the various functions of the Elementary Creativity Cart program. While campuses were closed, the Creativity Cart program leveraged its cross-functionality with Academic Support and Food Services to pilot a modified program and provide socio-economically disadvantaged elementary students. Once school buildings opened, creativity cart kits were delivered to hybrid classrooms to six of our Elementary campuses: Addison, Barron Park, El Carmelo, Greendell, Hoover, and Palo Verde. On average, our agile team prepared between 500 to 800 creativity cart kits bi-weekly.
Winter Wonderland: Wrapping up the last Creativity Cart of 2020.
Arts, Media and Entertainment
Thank you for your donations!
We would like to thank PSAV San Francisco for their generous in-kind donation of radio equipment. This equipment will benefit CTE students across all five secondary campuses. For donations or for more information contact us using the “Get Involved” button on PAUSD’s Let’s Talk.
Broadcasting programs continue in earnest despite the pandemic. Their goal is to keep the community informed from home and up-to-date with school news and events.
Education, Child Development, and Family Services
Paly Child Development students have created videos for their preschool and kinder buddies as a way to stay in touch as we shelter in place. Students hope you will find them both fun and purposeful.
Engineering & Architecture
Industrial Tech teachers collaborated to come up with interesting projects for students to design and build at home this year.
Tech 1A Greene Middle School students designed and built mouse trap cars and wrote as well as presented their work to their peers.
Fashion and Interior Design
Interior Design and Fiber Arts Fashion Design courses involve students creating projects that develop their own sense of style. Interior Design examines student choices in choosing floor plans, selecting /arranging furniture, fabrics and accessories, plus involving architectural aspects of line, design, form, color and texture. Fiber Arts Fashion introduces students to different textiles and fiber application. Enjoy a student's authentic 18th century dresses and accessories.
Health Science & Medical Technologies
Gunn Biotechnology students presented mock investments plans in a friendly competition among classmates to see who can make the biggest profit in a virtual stock project. Many students chose to invest in Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca who were, at the time, on the edge of vaccine approval.
Social Justice in Science
This semester’s topics covered many social justice areas, such as the history of several landmark discoveries / experiments like the Tuskegee experiment, the story of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cell line, and development of new cancer drugs. Students examined scientific problems from multiple perspectives in their ethical analysis, while also covering fundamental biological concepts and introduction to biotechnology tools / instruments.
Hospitality, Tourism & Recreation
Students in our culinary science programs continued to learn about kitchen safety and cooking healthy and delicious meals thanks to their teachers' home studios!
Students researched recipes and created cooking portfolios for their families to enjoy!
Information & Information Technologies
Gunn students have also been studying the Global Impact of Technology and how biases appears in algorithms. Students demonstrated their learning through a research project, selecting one area of interest and describing the impacts of that algorithm – and its biases – on society, economy, and/or culture. Then, they peer reviewed each other's work according to a rubric while working in partner breakout rooms.
Multiple Pathways
Advanced Authentic Research (AAR) program connects with mentors digitally
The continued support from several hundreds of our AAR mentors throughout the past five years has made this program thrive and provided students with direct support and insight to the industry of their project. Moving forward, we are partnering with an additional platform, Nepris, to continue to provide industry expert advice to approximately 150 students across both high school sites.
Student quote: “I loved how supportive an environment we had and how everyone was extremely helpful with their feedback. We all wanted to see everyone else’s project succeed.”
Work Experience Education Program
Gunn & Paly joint Career Speaker series, March 2021!
This virtual event will be the first joint effort hosting the speaker series collaboratively across Paly and Gunn. Our speakers will represent a diverse array industries and emphasize social-emotional resilience.
We are always interested in your unique perspective, and are actively seeking both mentorship and guest speaking opportunities.
Students explore the impacts of COVID-19 in the modern workplace.
K 12 and Beyond
Dual Enrollment
Leveraging our new pathway development structure, Foothill and PAUSD supported our students with registration for their respective dual enrolled winter courses. Through one-to-one meetings, classroom drop-ins, and a zoom open drop-in hour, our students received step-by-step instructions to complete the process so that they have one less thing to manage before going on their winter break.
County-wide Coffee Chats
PAUSD has joined Santa County County of Education to facilitate monthly Coffee Chats with Counselors from across the region. During each meeting, useful resources and tutorials are shared on the following topics: Labor Market Information (LMI), high demand careers, living wage jobs in the Bay Area, pathway alignment to the Bay Area community colleges, counseling and student support services at the community colleges, work based learning, career counseling tools, working with parents and more.
We are so grateful for our CTE Advisory industry leaders for volunteering their time to discuss mission critical topics and the vision for the future of our pathway programs at PAUSD. These contributions are essential to our mission: giving all students diverse pathways to success and career exploration that matches their passions.
Innovation & Agility
As we approach the end of 2020, we want to take the time to express our appreciation to our staff, community, PAUSD volunteer mentors for their continued outstanding work on behalf of our students. Without volunteer mentors, personalized learning would not be possible. Finally, we want to acknowledge and thank our tenacious students for continuing to grow and learn.
We hope you will find time during winter break to spend quality time with family and friends, even if it may look different this year.
Credits:
Created with images by Unknown - "Walk Sign Traffic Signal : Public Domain Pictures" • Markus Spiske - "Paintings from my twelve year old nephew. Have a look: www.felixspiske.com" • Adeolu Eletu - "Businessman opening a paper" • Joshua Eckstein - "Non-toxic = edible, right?" • Nicolas Thomas - "Experimentation" • Darling Arias - "Fashion Designer Tools" • National Cancer Institute - "DNA Genotyping and Sequencing. A selection of DNA samples for amplification at the Cancer Genomics Research Laboratory, part of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG)." • Dose Juice - "DOSE Juice" • Mathew Schwartz - "Shot at the New Jersey Institute of Technology" • Tim Mossholder - "Clean" • Unknown - "Learn Note Sign · Free photo on Pixabay" • Rachel Moenning - "untitled image" • Unknown - "Dream Job Application Location - Free photo on Pixabay"