San Dimas High School

San Dimas High School

The San Dimas High School Saints Off to a Great Start
There were many exciting events to begin the 2017-2018 school year. A highlight was winning the Smudgepot football game 19-8 against rival, the Bonita Bearcats! The first week of school began with a spirit week for Smudgepot that had over 300 students and over 80 staff members participating. To promote school spirit, staff and students are using a new mobile device app called “5 Star” that helps track participation and students can receive notifications about school spirit points and activities. Many classes participated in activities related to the solar eclipse that occurred on the first day of school.

Photo 1:  San Dimas band students warm up for Smudgepot

Curriculum Preparation

San Dimas math teachers received a new curriculum called CPM. It is an inquiry based math learning program where students are assigned roles in groups to practice solving real-life problems. Math teachers had several days of training and are receiving ongoing support from District math coaches.  Math courses offered this school year are:

Integrated Math I                    Integrated Math II

Algebra 2                                Advanced Math

            AP Calculus AB                     AP Calculus BC

AP Statistics

Social science teachers will receive training on writing strategies to support the California English Language Arts (ELA) Standards.

San Dimas High School English department is off to a strong start with both new faces and returning ones. Staff members continue to collaborate on units and common assessments to improve student learning. The department hopes to continue momentum from the 2016-17 surge in ELA test scores.

San Dimas High School science teachers were accepted into the Metropolitan Water District’s Solar Boat competition and will be looking for team members and volunteers soon.

The social science department added a new AP Geography class that is going great, and this adds to the growing list of college-level courses offered at San Dimas High School.

Hands-on, practical, educational technology is increasingly becoming a commonplace in social science. Digital lessons are developed to be engaging, relevant, cross-curricular, and addresses the 4 Cs in order to help our kids be career-college ready.

Personalized Learning Communities (PLC) & Digital Collaboration (via Twitter & Google Classroom) have increased cohesiveness and effectiveness.

The continued and increasing use of Common Core elements blend English Language Arts historical skills: primary source writings, photographs, raw data, graphs/charts, etc. They are evaluated for reliability/legitimacy, analyzed, interpreted, and connected to our respective historical content.

Photo 2:  SDHS Teacher Mrs. Luevand pictured left with science students on a lab.

The specialized services department has all graduation requirement classes offered in a co-teaching setting:  English at each grade level, Integrated Math 1, Integrated Math 2, Biology, US History, World History and Government/Economics. Teachers collaborate through a quarterly “Think Tank” to ensure student support and learning. Additional study skills classes are being offered this year in the areas of English and math.

The third annual Smudgepin Bowling contest scheduled for Friday, September 29, features students from the FAST and ASDI classes competing against students from Bonita High School at Chaparral Lanes.

SDHS Media Center Modernization

The modernization of the SDHS Media Center is in full swing with the transformation of the Media Center into the focal center of campus where students want to go to for resources, to collaborate, and create.

The modernization process will be in phases based upon three designated spaces within the Media Center: A quiet/study zone, a collaboration and community zone, and a Commons area. The Commons area is an appealing space to welcome students with plenty of soft-seating, coffee tables, group tables, and chairs to provide an area for study and a place for students to meet. Changing the color scheme, purchasing a green screen, creating a giant chalkboard on a wall, and putting together a giant magnet word wall will be exciting additions to the new space.

Students enrolled in the new elective, Student Technology and Innovation, are helping with the modernization of the library. One of their first projects will be to create a book display with reviews using virtual reality. A main goal this year will be to explore different means of acquiring funding to make our vision a reality.

Photo 3:   SDHS Media Center - a blank slate waiting to be transformed