La Puente High School students and staff strengthened their dedication to real-world civic action by participating in the National Community Emergency Response Training (CERT) program, a hybrid course developed to educate and train individuals in disaster preparedness, held on April 13. The program was set in motion by the school’s Public Safety Career Technical Education (CTE) pathway instructor Antonia Ramirez. After extensive research, Ramirez introduced 29 CTE students and six staff members, including Principal Dr. Lisa Lopez, to the hybrid CERT program – a nine-unit online course packed with rigorous curricula provided by the University of Utah and completed with a hands-on practical portion led by the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Hacienda La Puente Unified to Host Annual Autism Walk
Hacienda La Puente Unified School District’s Special Education Department is busy creating colorful posterboards and coordinating activities to host its annual Autism Awareness Walk at 11 a.m. on Saturday, April 13, at Palm Elementary School. The event will feature numerous guest speakers, including local dignitaries, District officials and families, leading speeches surrounding this year’s theme, “Neurodiversity is our Strength, Minds of all Kinds Together,” and encouraging families to visit the resource tables and connect with students and community members during the walk. Palm Elementary School is located at 14740 Palm Ave, Hacienda Heights.
Hacienda La Puente Unified Students Receive Art Recognitions
Los Altos High School junior Angela Shih and senior Amber Juarez are celebrating their recent accomplishments as winners of the Riverside Youth Art Month Competition. Shih and Juarez were recognized for their distinctive drawings, with Shih capturing a first-place award and Juarez receiving second place. The awards reflect the excellent work coming out of Los Altos’ visual arts program, led by teacher Bertha Oseguera. The winning art is now on display at the Riverside Art Museum.
Hacienda La Puente Unified Celebrates Self-Expression with Art Exhibit
Continuing to bring incredible talent and joy to its schools and the District community, Hacienda La Puente Unified will host its annual Art Show at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 18 at the Hacienda Heights Community Center. With its theme of “Wonder Everlasting,” the art show will feature beautiful displays of self-expression and creativity from students of all ages. The showcase will conclude with an awards reception to celebrate the young artists’ immense growth, collaborative efforts, and achievements. The Hacienda Heights Community Center is located at 1234 Valenica Ave., Hacienda Heights.
La Puente High School's dynamic running group, LP Runs LA, showcased their grit and determination at the 39th Annual Los Angeles Marathon on March 17, which saw 19 student-athletes and four teachers put their year-long training to the test as they tackled the grueling 26.2-mile course among a crowd of approximately 25,000 racers. La Puente High School educators, club advisors, and avid runners Ana Benitez and Wesley Perez said they started LP Runs LA in 2015 aiming to bring the many health and socio-emotional benefits of running to the students and staff of La Puente. This year marked LP Runs LA's seventh race, with three runners earning an LA Loyal pin for completing the journey around some of the city’s most notable landmarks for the second time.
Glen A. Wilson High School has been named a 2024 California Distinguished School by the California Department of Education (CDE), recognizing the Hacienda La Puente Unified school for demonstrating exceptional student performance and achieving accelerated academic growth for one or more historically underserved student groups. Glen A. Wilson High is one of just 293 secondary schools honored in 2024. To be selected, the CDE used multiple measures to identify eligible schools based on their performance on the state indicators specified in the 2023 California School Dashboard.
Cedarlane Academy, Fairgrove Academy, Mesa Robles School, and Valinda School of Academics have been named 2024 Schools to Watch by the California Department of Education (CDE) and the California League of Educators, recognizing their continued success in keeping students engaged through a critical stage in their K-12 educational journey, demonstrating social equity and helping them achieve academic excellence. The four campuses are among 16 schools to be newly designated as Schools to Watch and will be honored alongside 36 re-designated model schools at the annual California League of Schools Conference held March 8-9 in Monterey.
Hacienda La Puente Unified Middle Schools Cited as Schools to Watch
Cedarlane Academy, Fairgrove Academy, Mesa Robles School, and Valinda School of Academics have been named 2024 Schools to Watch by the California Department of Education (CDE) and the California League of Educators, recognizing their continued success in keeping students engaged through a critical stage in their K-12 educational journey, demonstrating social equity, and helping them achieve academic excellence. The four campuses are among 16 schools to be newly designated as Schools to Watch and will be honored alongside 36 re-designated model schools at the annual California League of Schools Conference held March 8-9 in Monterey.
Hacienda La Puente Unified Students Connect Via Engineering Pathway
For 35 years, Hacienda La Puente Unified's award-winning Los Altos Academy of Engineering (LAAE) pathway has provided Los Altos High School students with hands-on learning experiences, vocational training, and a student-led curriculum centralized around math and science. With more than 1,000 program graduates, the LAAE continues to grow in popularity each year. Thanks to the long-standing success of LAAE, the District expanded the pathway to Orange Grove and Newton middle schools during the 2022-23 school year, introducing seventh- and eighth-grade students to computer, science, engineering, technology, and mathematics (C-STEM) through various courses, electives, and clubs.
Fifth-grade students at Baldwin Academy are benefiting from Microsoft Education’s public preview of its latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) learning tool, Reading Coach. The free immersive experience harnesses generative AI to help learners produce their own stories and independently practice reading-aloud content that gets them excited about reading. In addition to generating engaging stories from characters and settings selected by students in real-time, Reading Coach also tracks each student’s progress to help educators gauge their growth, find areas of opportunity and earn badges to track their amount of time, proficiency and reading level.
