Principal's Message

Greetings Bear Families,

Thanks to our dedicated staff, students and families, we have had a great start to the 2009-10 school year! Our enrollment is above projection and our school is at capacity again this year. Thank you to everyone for your patience and understanding as we had to make many class changes in order to accommodate our new students, ensure appropriate academic placements and balance class sizes. Our annual Student-Led Parent Conferences was a success thanks to all that participated last week. Our theme this year is “All Bears Rise to the Challenge at BVMS!” Our community of learners is already showing they are capable of accepting and meeting challenges they face.

Bear Valley is maintaining the district’s foci on building capacity, collaborating in professional learning communities and reading comprehension across the curriculum. The staff is collaboratively designing comprehensive projects, planning lessons, developing common authentic assessments by grade level content area and analyzing student work together to determine students’ instructional needs. We are planning to build capacity by providing staff development focused on learning principles and project-based learning. These principles can be helpful to teachers in guiding the development of effective teaching practices and designing powerful instruction that supports students' learning. The “Principles of Learning” adopted by EUSD provide the foundation for the project-based learning experiences BVMS will offer this year.

The principles are as follows:

1. Children Learn Differently
2. Background Knowledge
3. Metacognition (Thinking about Thinking)
4. Goals and Clear Expectations
5. Authentic Learning and Transfer
6. Schools and Classroom Environment
7. Organize for effort
8. Feedbacks and Assessment
9. Creating Personal Meaning
Social Construction of Knowledge

We are emphasizing three principles (#1, 2, & 4) this first trimester (August-December):

Children Learn Differently
Students learn when provided powerful instruction that addresses different learning modalities, provides students’ multiple opportunities for examining their individual learning styles, experiences and background knowledge which in turn maximizes learning.

Background Knowledge
Students learn by developing and accessing background knowledge in social context and using it in classrooms where each student’s contributions, differences, backgrounds and culture are valued. Students must be provided purposeful, structured learning activities, and meaningful interactions that allow them to construct meaning and apply knowledge to current and future learning.

Goals and Clear Expectations
Students learn effectively when they are presented with a purpose and clear, transparent expectations so that they can set personally relevant goals and evaluate their own progress.

Thank you for your support of Bear Valley Middle School and please encourage your student(s) to rise to the challenge this year and do the very best!

Sincerely,


Mark R. Garner
Principal