Congratulations to Lincoln High School students Richard Deng and Coral Platt! Both were awarded National Merit Scholarships of $2,500 toward their college studies.

They were chosen from more than 15,000 finalists nationwide. Richard plans to pursue a career in politics and Coral is looking at a future in the legal sector.

Two exceptional PPS educators, Ricardo Barber and Hang Jones, were recently named OnPoint Educators of the Year for 2025.

As part of this prestigious honor, both teachers will have their rent or mortgage paid for an entire year, and their schools also receive a $2,500 donation. 

Ricardo Barber teaches third grade at Faubion, and Hang Jones serves as a social worker at Marysville Elementary. 

The OnPoint Prize for Excellence in Education celebrates educators who embrace innovative teaching techniques that ignite enthusiasm in their students. 

Congratulations to Ricardo Barber and Hang Jones! And thank you both for everything you do to make a difference in the lives our students.

The assignment their teacher gave them was simple – make a short film that begins with a phone call and ends with someone hanging up. Benson first-year students Dylan Martinez-Torres and Dariel Soriano Zamora ran it all the way to a small city populated by two very big and rather iconic monsters – Godzilla and Hedora.

The result, Sorry, Wrong Number, is one of the more than 90 films entered into the annual Best of PPS Film Festival. The festival is a celebration of exceptional student filmmaking that includes a showcase at the historic Hollywood Theatre. 

The fourth annual installment of the festival took place on May 21 and included a screening of 13 standout films. The films came from all over PPS and ran the gamut from Dylan and Dariel’s monster short to documentaries, film noir, and broadcast journalism. 

If you are a passionate student or community member that wants to make a difference at PPS, apply to join the Climate Crisis Response Committee! This is a committee that reports to the PPS Board of Education.

On the committee you will learn about how PPS is making progress towards our climate justice and sustainability policies, provide input and recommendations to the PPS Board on how to better support PPS staff as we advance these policy goals, and connect with other passionate members of our PPS community from diverse backgrounds, knowledge areas, and lived experiences.

No previous professional experience in climate change or sustainability required! Students can apply via this form. Community members can apply here.

Deadline to apply: June 6. 

It’s Hispanic Heritage Month! We invite our families who identify as Hispanic and Latino to share ways you might appreciate feeling seen and valued during this month and always. This next month brings an opportunity to both celebrate Hispanic and Latino history and culture, and give extra recognition to the many contributions made to the history and culture of the United States, including important advocacy work, innovative science, vibrant art, popular and traditional foods, and much more.

Our goal as a staff is to weave heritage month celebrations into learning experiences to create student centered, culturally affirming celebrations and teaching. We want to highlight the identities and experiences of our own students throughout their experience at Arleta.

We’ve planned some special elements into the school day for our monthly Early Release Days this year. All students learned about our “Cross-Age Buddies” program, an important component of our Caring School Community resource that fosters friendships across grade levels. Third graders are paired with kindergartners,​ fourth graders with first graders, and fifth graders with second graders.

Classes will visit each other and do a special activity for the first time during next month’s Early Release Day, October 22. Throughout the year, buddies will come together on Early Release days for specially planned learning and social experiences. Older students take on the role of mentors, helpers, and friends, while younger students gain confidence and joy from having a caring, older buddy to look up to.

We also held our first all-school assembly of the school year. Mr. Cooke’s class led our Arleta School Song, we learned about our school motto and wearing our school shirts, Ms. Doyle taught our Arleta Auditorium Expectations, then grade levels and new students and staff gave each other silent but enthusiastic waves. It was exciting to bring our whole student community altogether to build community and sense of belonging.

At our next three school-wide assemblies, K/1, 2/3, and 4/5 grade bands will present something important they’re learning as part of their grade level standards, also highlighting connections to various heritage, cultures or identities.

After students were dismissed our staff engaged in a variety of team collaboration and professional learning: ways to strengthen our student’s senses of belonging through positive acknowledgement and feedback, processes for improving attendance, and annual trainings including Child Abuse Prevention and Reporting, Emergency Preparedness and School Suicide Prevention. Earlier this week during a different meeting structure, we focused on science standards and our new science resource this year, Amplify.

All of our professional learning sessions are critical in ensuring we provide a safe, supportive, and responsive environment for all students. And, in the time for our staff to prepare thoughtfully and collaboratively. I hope this gives you a sense of why Early Release Days are such a valuable part of our school year—for students and staff alike. Thank you for your continued partnership and support!

Warmly,

Lisa

Hope to see all Arleta Dolphins at Back-to-School Night tonight (September 11, 2025)! Our Community Connect begins at 5:15 out front. In the spirit of our school motto, “I am Because We Are”, we hope you will join us!

Arleta staff and partners will be set up at tables lining our front sidewalks for families to walk along and connect with. Find a light pizza snack in the breezeway from 5:15-5:45 *Please bring your own water bottles. *For an allergy-free snack option please ask any staff member nearby the table.

Back to School Night Goals

We hope Back To School Night will feel informal and fun yet helpful and meaningful.

• “Community Connect” 5:15-5:46

• Welcome & Introductions on the Steps at 5:50-6:00

• Open House sessions in classrooms at 6:05-6:30 and 6:35-7:00.

Children should stay with adults during the “Connect” so that at 5:50, you can all easily pause conversations and move forward for our whole community welcome and staff introductions.

We want you to receive important classroom and program information, be able to ask related questions in a casual setting, and be able to share information about your child with the teacher.

• Your child’s teacher emailed you a slide presentation Tuesday or before. Our hope is you will preview it and bring any questions or information you’d like to share.

• This slide has the links to all teacher slide presentations and school program slides.

Arleta 2025-2026 School Goals and Actions

1. Attendance: By June 2026, the overall percentage of students with good or acceptable attendance rates will increase by 5%, from 68% to 73%.

A few actions:

*Strengthen our School Climate and Culture: focus on Student Engagement, Sense of Belonging, Providing positive feedback, teaching Executive Functioning skills

*Collaboration between home and school: executive functioning skills we practice at school; some to practice at home related to being ready for school on time.

Here is a possibly useful tool for your child: “Keep Track of Time”.

2. English Language Arts and Math: By June 2026, all students in 100% of K-5 Language Arts and Mathematics classrooms - with a particular focus on our district’s most impacted focal students based upon our data - will (1) know and understand the learning target and success criteria and (2) successfully engage in grade-level and standards-aligned tasks from district-approved high-quality instructional materials and structures.

Within ELA and Math especially, we’ll continue last year’s focus on elevating and affirming student voices: teaching students to engage in meaningful academic conversations in math, language arts and classroom meetings. We’ll build on last year’s successes as we also focus on clarity: ensuring students understand what they are being asked to learn and understand, why that learning is important, what they’re expected to do to show they understand, and how they know they’re growing and doing well. And, Alignment: we’ll also focus on aligning practices across classrooms to support all students.

If you’re interested in volunteering in your child’s classroom this year, please look for our Instructional Coach at one of the tables tonight. She’ll be sharing information and supporting processes across our classrooms.

Warmly,

Lisa

It’s great to have our whole student body at school this week! Learning, learning everywhere!

We hope your child is feeling excited about their learning. Every child in our school will soon be writing about what they like to learn at Arleta. Together, all children’s work will be displayed to create our annual “All School Write.” Find this in our main hall during our Arleta Back to School Night ~ coming up a week from today, next Thursday evening, September 11 from 5:15-7:00.

It’s important that every child and family attend! Here is the agenda for the evening:

• Community Connect: 5:15-5:45, out front~

  • Casual “meet and greet” for families, teachers, staff and community partners to connect at tables set up along the sidewalks. This is the time to connect with all the different educators

  • A light snack for all in the breezeway ~ enjoy while mingling and visiting tables

  • Children should stay with adults to the degree possible; the goal is for families and staff to connect.

• Staff Introductions and Community Welcome: 5:50-6:00, front steps~

  • At 5:50 we ask everyone to move forward toward the steps to hear staff introduced and then I’ll give a short community welcome

• Classroom Open House sessions: 6:05-6:30 and 6:35-7, in your child’s classroom ~

  • Two sessions (for families with more than one Arleta student). Families with three or more children: if possible to bring more than one adult, you can divide up to attend more sessions.

Next Tuesday afternoon, each teacher will email all families their “Back to School Presentation Slides” through ParentSquare. This is our “presentation” of the grade level content, program and schedule for the school year.

• Please read the slides ahead of time and bring your questions to Back2School Night.

• There might also be an activity to do with your child, a community circle for families to meet each other, or students may share some art or other ways the classroom community is coming together.

Arleta Family-Student-School Compact A requirement of being a Title 1 School is that all Arleta Family/Caregivers, Students, and Teachers sign our compact every year. A copy was sent home in your child’s Back to School Packet: If you haven’t already gone over it as a family, signed and returned it, please bring it next week.

I encourage you to take a picture of your child’s signed copy so you can pull it up when/if helpful to remind children (or ourselves!) what we’ve promised to do as a member of our Arleta Community. Thank you for this part of our important family-school partnership!

If you won’t be able to attend Back2School Night, please look at the slides your teacher will send (or find them on our website starting Wednesday) and reach out to your child’s teacher or any other staff if you have questions or input.

As our Arleta Motto says, “I am because we are.” Please join us! It will really benefit your child to see their family and school staff connecting about the year ahead.

Warmly,

Lisa