Weekly News & Announcements

Co-Associate Principals’ Message

The month of January was a busy one at the home of the Dons with the second semester kicking off with a flurry of activity. One of the highlights was our annual Open House Course Preview night last week. The Dons community showed up in droves for an excellent event with a kick off address by Principal Bell and followed by three breakout sessions, where students and parents could self-select into offerings of individual interest. Teachers and staff organized and facilitated sessions about course pathways, class curriculum overviews and expectations, and assorted other informational offerings.

Continuing the class selection theme, counselors have spent this week, and will continue next, meeting with all 9th, 10th and 11th graders for individual sessions based around students selecting their classes for next year. With graduation requirements, a huge array of exciting electives and an intriguing peppering of new classes, there are choices aplenty at every level. Our counselors' expertise, and recommendations from current teachers, is of great value and these individual 5-10 minute meetings have been a great way to clarify those challenging decisions.

Our final mention for this month is to reference the current #QuitLying campaign, orchestrated by our Leadership class in partnership with a nation-wide campaign. The purpose of this initiative is to spark curiosity amongst our youngsters to unearth some of the unethical and morally corrupt lies that big vape and tobacco companies are using to market vaping as a low-risk endeavor. Placards around campus exposing some of the myths, misconceptions and falsehoods, along with a slogan-adorned T-shirt and factual videos distributed by Ms Walton and the Leadership class are all parts of the campaign. This educational, factual approach, along with recent campus-wide policy changes designed to limit opportunities for our students to make bad choices, is all part of our school community;s response to combat the plague of vaping that is an issue on high-school campuses nation-wide.

As always, we want to state what a pleasure it is to work at Acalanes on a daily basis. Our exceptional staff and faculty, our engaging and kind students and our wonderful, supportive community all serve to make us proud and happy Dons.

All the best,
Andrea Powers and Mike Plant

#QuitLying

By now you may have seen #QuitLying emails sent via SchoolLoop or your student perhaps has talked about the campaign at Acalanes. #QuitLying aims to educate our community about the dangers of vaping and the fallacy about the highly harmful and addictive nature of vaping products as well as the companies behind them.  Acalanes Parent Club is proud to support #QuitLying on our campus by providing the funding for campaign signage. For more information about the campaign, please go to QuitLying.org.

APC Spring Grant Program Applications due soon!

Acalanes is pleased to continue its Acalanes Parents Club (APC) Grant Program this semester with a focus on ideas that will enhance the educational and campus experience of AHS students in new and innovative ways. Teachers, students and parents are welcome to submit a grant proposal, utilizing the application form. Guidelines for grant submissions are also available. Email completed applications to Laura White or deliver to the APC box in the office. Grant applications are due by noon on Friday, Feb 21

Visitors on Campus

In our continuing effort to tighten up our campus security, all visitors arriving to Acalanes need to come directly to the attendance office to sign into our visitor's log and pick up a white visitors sticker.  This includes all frequent visitors as well as parents with or without an appointment.  If you are visiting any of the following offices: counseling office, principal's office, college and career center, classrooms, and parents who are attending IEP or 504 meetings, our staff will be looking for your white badges to indicate you've checked in.   

Wellness Center

This week’s blurb brought to you by the leadership of the BC2M (Bring Change To Mind) club: We are a nationally-affiliated club focused on building awareness of and de-stigmatizing mental illness.Our goal is to create a stronger support system that recognizes that all ranges of mental health are normal! We would appreciate your help in promoting our club and our projects. We are currently working on securing a well-known suicide survivor public speaker (Kevin Hines) to talk to students and the greater community about mental health. We meet Wednesdays at lunch in the Wellness Center. It’s a positive and welcoming environment and most meetings include fun activities and projects. Follow us on Instagram: bringchange2mindacalanes

~Alara, Anna, Claudia, Emily, Kael, Katya and Sadie (CS)

General Announcements

Mark your calendar and get to Chipotle on Tuesday, Feb 4 between 4-8pm. You’ll be supporting sophomore Dons and making dinner plans a snap!

Feb 10-12 Gotta Getta Gram! Encourage your Don to show a fellow classmate or faculty member they care by purchasing a Grateful Gram on campus between Feb 10-12. Visit the Freshman Class section below for details.

Don’t forget to look at AHS’s February’s Dons Show Up calendar! 

Wellness Center

We were planning to focus on the Eight Sources of a Meaningful Life but are postponing in light of the need to talk about sleep-- officially a public health crisis per the Centers for Disease Control. No aspect of wellbeing can be achieved without adequate sleep. We’ve all heard the requirement for adolescent sleep (not “time spent in bed”) is 9-10 hours. We have yet to meet a student who reflects they are achieving the low end of that range. For more information on this subject, search Cal professor and sleep expert, Dr. Matthew Walker. He provides immediately actionable steps for reducing “time spent trying to fall asleep.” We’re already implementing some of these with our own families. And when you notice your student is dis-regulated, flip the script: before trying to problem-solve, ask how much sleep they got and encourage curiosity about how they feel physically, emotionally and cognitively when they don’t get enough sleep.