Follow-up Story: Baldwin Park Unified’s Pleasant View Elementary School on Oct. 25 celebrated a 2017 Barona Education Grant, which will fund four iPad Pro tablets, two tripods and two green screens for enhanced digital lessons and projects in fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms. The school plans to create a broadcast journalism club, where students can report on events in an environment similar to a TV newsroom.
Follow-up Story: More than 200 Baldwin Park Unified students, parents, teachers and administrators donned skull makeup, dined on authentic Mexican food and danced to mariachi music at Baldwin Park High on Nov. 3 to honor the dead and celebrate Mexican culture during the school’s seventh annual Día de Los Muertos event.
Follow-up Story: Baldwin Park Unified provided free flu shots Oct. 9-13 to more than 800 elementary students through a partnership with Kaiser Permanente and Azusa Pacific University. The program, started four years ago, brings nursing students from APU to District elementary schools to provide the shots to students who sign up. The shots are administered under the supervision of Kaiser Permanente. A team of a dozen nursing students visited two to three schools a day.
Follow-up Story: Baldwin Park Unified has recognized its schools with top attendance figures for the first month of school with trophies, part of a yearlong campaign to boost student performance by ensuring strong daily attendance. Sierra Vista Junior High, with an attendance rate of 98.14 percent, received the award for middle schools as well as a trophy for the being the overall winner. Baldwin Park High School, at 97.94 percent, and Santa Fe School, at 98.05 percent, were the winners in the high school and elementary categories. Schools across the nation annually designate September as Attendance Awareness Month. Baldwin Park Unified’s campaign – “Attendance Matters – Every School Day Counts!" – is a community-wide effort that will feature student assemblies, parent workshops, incentives for achievement and resources for families.
Follow-up Story: Raquel Viramontes, a nine-year science teacher at Baldwin Park High School, was named one of 16 Los Angeles County Teachers of the Year on Sept. 29 by the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Her award was announced during a lunch at the Hilton ballroom in Universal City attended by 600 educators and family members. Viramontes was accompanied by family, colleagues and Board of Education members. Photos are available
Baldwin Park Unified will work with the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) on a five-year effort to use the arts to support instruction of English learners. The district, where about 1 in 5 students is an English learner, is a pioneer in English learner instruction. The TELA program will be conducted at Geddes and Heath elementary schools.
Follow-up Story: Female students at Baldwin Park Unified’s Holland Middle School will learn how to create and program robots this year through an after-school program funded by a grant from Cal Poly Pomona’s Adopt-a-Femineer School Program. The program will teach girls in sixth through eighth grades how to design robots. The students will display their creations at Cal Poly’s Femineer Summit in spring 2018.
Sierra Vista High School expects 500 students to attend its first-ever college and career exploration program with The Princeton Review and Roadtrip Nation at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 2 at the school gymnasium, 3600 N. Frazier St., Baldwin Park. The two groups will teach students and their families how to connect their interests to college and career pathways.
Baldwin Park High School’s digital media lab – equipped with 24 iMacs, a green screen and top-of-the-line film equipment – teaches students the skills needed to pursue entertainment-related degrees and careers. Students film and edit school sporting events, news broadcasting skits, commercials and public service announcements. They also create DVDs of school plays for sale. One highlight for many students is the annual Baldwin Park Unified Youth Film Festival, which provides an opportunity to showcase original short films. This is the fourth year that Baldwin Park High School has offered media production classes through the Impact Academy, one of three special academies within the school.
Follow-up Story: More than 1,000 students and family members attended Baldwin Park Unified’s 11th annual College Fair on Sept. 30, gleaning tips for college and connecting with up to 31 colleges, universities, technical schools and U.S. service branches. Students included Jones Jr. High seventh-grader Trinity Heredia, who left with a stack of college packets, an idea of where she would like to go to college and what she plans to study.
