by Gerry Lopez

We concluded our 2019 Parent University and it was a great success, thanks to the efforts of so many. We had a total of 174 participants present at the event and their evaluations show that they found the workshops well worth the time they invested with us. Seventy parents along with 44 of their children were hosted by 26 MHS student volunteers and 16 MUSD staff members. Eleven incredible presentations were carried out by 18 energetic and engaged presenters 

We had representation of parent attendees from ALL MUSD sites (including Calaveras Hills High School and Adult Education (THANKS FOR JOINING US GUYS!) and as far as number of parents present, RANDALL WAS THE WINNER!!!, with a total of 22 parents present!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Many thanks for Padres Unidos (a Spanish-speaking parent volunteer group at MUSD) who not only ran the registration process but also provided some very well-attended workshops. Thank you all for your great recruitment efforts and your support. And thanks you for the members of Learning and Development, Student Services, the Child Development Centers, Print Shop, and Cabinet who provided support leading up to and on the day of the event.

We welcome your comments and perspectives to help improve next year’s Parent University.

On March 29 Rancho Milpitas Middle School held a GolDON breakfast, an event that gave members of the school community the chance to recognize students outside of the traditional areas of academics, test scores, and athleticism.

Each Rancho staff member was allowed to invite one student to be their honorary guest, and get the chance to know them a little bit better outside the traditional classroom setting. They gave the student a personalized certificate at the breakfast.

"The GolDON Breakfast was started two years ago at Rancho as a way to recognize and celebrate students in a very significant and personalized way," said Rancho Principal Casey McMurray. "ASB Adviser Amrun Singh, ASB students, our custodian, Jr., Kumi, and I work together to set up the tables/chairs/decorations/music/food/certificates and other important details to make this event special for all who are present."

After everyone had breakfast during the event, staff members had the opportunity to briefly share why they invited their student to the breakfast.

"It is so inspiring to hear the stories and see the smiles!" McMurray said. " It is an event that we all look forward to each year."

Several engineers from Intel Corp. visited fifth graders at Robert Randall Elementary School to teach a lesson on self-driving cars March 29.

Students learned words such as CPU, sensors, chargers, circuits, motors, cables, remote, wires, devices, programming, assembling, microprocessor chip and silicon. Students were engaged for two whole hours, asking rigorous questions of inquiry. One student said at the end of the experience, "I didn't know what I wanted to be, but now I know I want to be an engineer." ​

First graders in Adrienne Barber’s class at John Sinnott Elementary held a film festival on March 11, where they showed off their cinematic work. Parents and students walked down the red carpet, viewed 30 student created films, and all students were awarded Oscars for outstanding film-making.

Students created individual green screen and collaborative fairy tales. For the green screen films, students researched a science or social studies topic (ranging from potatoes to guinea pigs to Angel Falls in South America). They then wrote a top 10 list and created art to be used in the film. Students uploaded a background and used a green screen app for filming. 

Students read and listened to a variety of fairy tales for the collaborative film. They chose groups, focused on telling a new version of a traditional tale (“Three Little Pigs” or “Little Red Riding Hood”). Students worked together to create a background, create a storyline, act, direct, and produce a short film.

Parent quotes:
“The film festival is so much fun!!!! I am sure kids would have had lots of fun making props and acting in it. Anvitha loved the mini oscar gift that you gave. Thank you very much!!!!”
“It was a great learning experience for the kids. I think it supported the regular instruction and training they get with reading and narrating and helped them develop self confidence while using creativity to visualize and be explicit in story telling. The kids were all so proud of what they did and that’s great and credit goes to you. I think it also opened up a new bonding experience for us as parents with our kids to understand their thinking and being more open to share stories and experiences effectively. Thank you for it. I enjoyed being there.”
“Great Project by first graders. It really helps them to work as a team helping each other, helps the kids to come up with sentences on a topic or how to extend a story with some flow and enact with toys. I have never seen this kind of project before to expose their skills. Very thoughtful idea. Kudos to Mrs. Barber."
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Student quotes:
“It was fun.  Our families got to come.  We got to enjoy spending time with our families.”
“We ate popcorn!”
“Some of  the videos are actually funny.”
“It was funny!”