APC

Hello Dons Families,

Welcome to October! We have enjoyed the first few months of school with your students.  September was busy with our Club Fair, blood drive, motivational speaker Mike Smith, athletic events, and Homecoming.  

Our Homecoming Week, “Battle of the Bands”, was packed with spirited events including Unified Soccer, hallway decorations, student dodgeball, lunchtime activities, a rally, tailgate, and Friday night football.  The Homecoming community service activity this year was to collect cans and food donations for the Contra Costa Food Bank. We are blown away with the outpouring of support with a donation of over 23,000 items this year!  Thank you to our Leadership class, Mrs. Walton, our parent liaisons, and volunteers for your encouragement and involvement in making this a memorable Homecoming for all Dons. Dons show up!

Be sure to check out our Acalanes website for our calendar of upcoming events and important dates.  Good luck to all of you on 2nd quarter.

Your Associate Principals,

Andrea Powers and Mike Plant

We hope your students enjoyed the past week full of Homecoming activities that led up to the Homecoming Football game & tailgate on Friday night followed by Saturday night’s Homecoming Dance. We can’t thank our APC Class Liaison Team enough for all they did to help support the class officers in making it a special week. The class liaisons, led by Co-Head Liaisons Gayle Burleigh and Traci Reilly, are some of the hardest working volunteers on campus. They work behind the scenes throughout the school year serving as liaisons between the class officers and our parent community. 

APC helps to manage the AHS Volunteer Service Awards program. Now is a great time to encourage you student to help out in the community and be recognized for their efforts at the end of the school year. You can find more information in the APC in Action section of the newsletter. 

Be sure to mark you calendars for upcoming Vaping Education Night as part of the APC Parent Education Speakers Series to be held on Tuesday, October 29, in the PAC. Parents and students are invited to attend. More detail in the Parent Education section. We hope to see you there!

The APC Campus Clean-Up last Sunday was a huge success! Over sixty students, parents and community members showed up to help trim trees & hedges, pull weeds, landscape the Main Quad garden beds, paint the Small Gym exterior wall, and power wash key areas on campus. The event was a perfect example of #DonsShowUp! (And make sure to check out the Blueprint’s fantastic article about it!) Thank you to ALL the volunteers who made the effort to participate and a special thank you to AHS parents Matt & Jill Perlman for helping to coordinate the clean-up. 

If you missed our second APC Dons Dialogue last Friday, you can find videos of all past Dons Dialogues on the APC website. Notably, Principal Bell gave an informative overview of the new Sandy Hook Promise Anonymous Reporting System along with our school safety protocols. 

Homecoming is around the corner! Encourage your student (#DonsShowUp!) to participate in all the activities. The events kick-off today with Homecoming Hallway Decorating on campus from 10am-3pm. Homecoming activities are often some of the most fun events of the whole year. 

Speaking of Homecoming, it’s not too late to purchase an ASB Card for your student. ASB stands for Associated Student Body, which is the leadership organization on campus that coordinates student activities. These events include student rallies, Class & Teacher/Student Dodgeball, Powderpuff Football, Club activities, discounted tickets to the upcoming Homecoming Dance & other dances, as well as FREE entrance to any non-NCS sporting event on campus. The card can ultimately save you money on school events. 

Dawn Brightbill & Sarah Cusumano

We are looking forward to the APC Campus Clean-Up later today from 1-4pm. Students and parents are still able to drop by for an hour or two to help our campus shine. Meet in the Acalanes Main Quad (bring work gloves & a refillable water bottle) for your volunteer assignment. We hope you all notice a difference on campus this week.

A shout out to our APC Teacher Appreciation team led by veteran volunteer Emma Bishopp & Renee Kerns for kicking off the school year with a fun welcome back lunch for teachers and staff. Special thanks to Acalanes parents Julie & Robert Pancoast for providing a tremendous discount on yummy pizza.

You may be hearing about the new Dons Show Up campaign on campus or from your students. To help explain this messaging, check out the General Announcements below.  We plan to run a Dons Show Up section from time to time in our newsletter, focused on ways that students and parents can “show up” for one another on and off campus. 

We had a TREMENDOUS turn-out at our first APC Dons Dialogue and our next one will be held this Friday, September 20, at 8:45am, in the Collaboration Center. Principal Bell and our associate principals will share information about key programs and activities on campus. Check out more details in the APC in Action section below. We hope you will join us!

Dawn Brightbill & Sarah Cusumano