Dear Parents/Guardians and Chavez Scholars:
Thank you for supporting another very successful beginning to our school year. We appreciate you selecting Chavez: Capitol Hill. We believe we are one of the top high schools in the city. We need your support to continue our success. We have reached our first academic benchmark, first quarter Progress Reports.
It is important for your child for them to see that you are involved in their school community. About 50% of our parents we able to attend back to school night. Please come to our Parent Association meetings and to the family events we offer. We have two such events in October (see below). You are always welcome to meet with the administration or teachers or observe your child’s classes. Please contact us to set up such times.
Progress Reports
Progress reports were mailed the week of October Please find enclosed your child’s first quarter progress report. Your child has about four more weeks to improve on their performance in each class. Review carefully the grade and the comments with your child. If your child received a C or lower comments should explain why your child did not do so well and the steps your child must make to improve. A teacher should be able to provide parents and scholars at their request a print out of how each grade was calculated. Please feel free to contact any teacher. If you have any difficulty contact Mr. Martinez, Mr. Spears or me.
Tutoring and After School Help
Every teacher has posted hours of when they are available to offer after school extra help to scholars. Please make sure your child takes advantage of these opportunities.
Additionally we have tutors to help scholars after school. Contact Mr. Gunthrope to find out more about our tutoring program.
Attendance
You child’s attendance in school every day is the first step and key for academic success. We expect 95% attendance rate for every scholar. This means it is your responsibility to make sure your child is here every day. To date attendance rates are 9th- 89%, 10-91%, 11th-93% and 12th-94%. If your child has already has 3 absences or more, you might consider that a warning sign. We must eliminate the “casual” absence because of weather, or tiredness.
Safety
Our school is a very safe school. We also want our scholars to be safe coming and going to school. We have hired two off duty police officers. After school at 3:30 and after after-school activities/tutoring we have two police officers plus our own security staff outside the school and a presence at Eastern Market Metro. We have a Resource Officer on Mondays, the short day, at 1:45. We ask scholars to walk in groups, use the main streets and be aware of their surroundings. We are coordinating with other schools in the area, with local police and civic organizations and with Potomac Gardens personnel and the Housing Authority to insure that this is a community effort to make our children safe. If you have any questions please contact Mr. Spears or me.
Activities and Sports
It is important that your child engage fully in the life of our Chavez community. Many studies show that a scholar actively engaged in co-curricular activities does better with grades than scholars that do not. The co-curricular activities offered this year are:
- Cosmetology/Barbering
- Recycled Art Club
- Chess Club
- The Vine (Literary magazine)
- Dance Team
- Cheerleading
- Band
- Robotics
- Intramural Sports
- Youth & Government Club
- Ecology/Outdoor Club
- Film Club
- Scholar Government
- Yearbook Committee
- Young Women’s Project
- Don Quixote Cafe
- Beading Club
- Fashion
- Debate Team
- Video Game Club
- Mock Trial
- Choir
The staff and administration have encouraged every scholar to sign up for at least one activity or sport. Once each activity begins, scholars will receive a letter informing you of the days and time the activity they have chosen will start and end. If you have any questions please feel free to call or email Mr.Gunthrope.
Local 709: An Evening of Food, Entertainment and Community October 23rd from 6:30-8pm
We have encouraged every scholar to participate in an after school activity or sport to become more well rounded, engage in a healthy activity, and contribute to the school community and spirit. The first event of the year is a dinner and evening of performance by teachers for families and scholars. Teacher swill share their talents and passions in poetry, music and dance to show how their teachers enjoy outside activities. Please join us and make this event a special evening.
Parent Teacher Association Meeting October 16th at 6:30pm
Please attend out Parent Teacher Association meeting. The main focus of this meeting is to share our after school help tutoring program with you. We are also piloting and Saturday Academy in Math. Learn about other programs that can support you and your child.
Parent/Faculty-Administration communication:
The first quarter ends November 2, 2007. Teachers do not have their own phone extensions. To contact a teacher by phone, please leave a message with Mrs. Harris or the front desk (202-547-3424, extension 10) and they will relay the message. You may also contact the teacher by email by using first name dot last name at chavezschools.org. Do not use capitol letters. (Example garrett.phelan@chavezschools.org) See the list of faculty names enclosed in Scholar/Parent Handbook or on our web site.
We believe that communication between parents/guardians and faculty is very important. If you need to meet with a teacher or administrator, please call and make an appointment. Teachers’ and administrators’ schedules are very tight and if you visit without an appointment, it is likely they will not be able to meet with you. If you call to make an appointment, we will try to arrange a time that is convenient for everyone.
If you have any problem contacting a teacher please contact Mr. Spears, the Vice Principal of Scholar Affairs, or Mr. Martinez, Vice principal of Academics, or with me.
We believe we have a very special group of scholars this year and anticipate an excellent year. Thank you again for choosing Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy.
Sincerely,
Garrett Phelan
Principal