November is Native American Heritage Month with Rock Your Mocs Week 2023!
Click Here for events: Native American Heritage Month Events
Phone Outage Planned – The District has plans to install a new zoom phone system. At 9:00 am on November 21st (the Tuesday of Thanksgiving Break), the porting process will begin to install the district’s new phone system. We do not have a definitive timeframe about how long the process will actually take. Please note that the district phones will not be working for most of that day. Also, please note that this process will not have any effect on your Internet access.
MASD will have a new partner in prevention – This week I met with Alicia Stromme Tobin, Executive Director of Safe Yakima Valley www.SafeYakimaValley.org Ms. Tobin shared information about the Botvin Life Skills Training (LST) https://www.lifeskillstraining.com/is endorsed by the CDC, SAMHSA, and many other federal agencies. It is only one of six programs designated as “Model +” by Blueprints (an organization that rates the effectiveness of prevention programs). Blueprints has literally researched thousands of prevention programs and only SIX are considered “Model +” or highly effective. LST is one of them:
https://www.blueprintsprograms.org/programs/5999999/lifeskills-training-lst/. Life Skills Training has had a proven track record for well over 30 years. Level 1 of the LST consists of 15 units (50 minutes each) that are designed to be taught in sequence. Each unit contains measurable student objectives, content, and classroom activities. The program can be integrated into any subject area, although health education and science are the more frequently used by other schools. Results demonstrated reductions in all categories were as follows:
Vaping (70%)
Smoking (57%)
Alcohol (69%)
Getting Drunk (75%)
Marijuana (75%)
Rx Drug Misuse (53%)
Violent Behaviors (50%)
Culinary Program at White Swan High School - Mr. Muller reports, after attending the WA-ACTE Fall Conference, that White Swan is on the right path to join a small but very elite group of districts that will have a full Culinary program with an option for an optional 3rd year for students. White Swan is awaiting approval from the state to add a Baking and Pastry 3rd year class to our Culinary Program! When approved, we will be offering it in the 2nd semester this year.
Off to State!- Congratulations to Ethan Hamilton and Victor Estrada for making it to state in Cross Country!
WIAA Recognizes Student Athletes- Congratulations to these student athletes for their accomplishments!
Winter Sports have begun! - High School Winter sports start Nov 13th. According to Final Forms, we have a total of 107 students registered to play. This will be the first time, post COVID, we will have over 100 student athletes participating in Winter sports. Go Cougars!
Veterans were Honored on the White Swan Campus – Principal Tenney reported that The White Swan Campus had a wonderful Veterans Day assembly planned and implemented by our Leadership class. The Yakama Warriors, and Mr. Larry Garcia attended. It is very important that our students understand the sacrifice that our community members have made for our freedoms that we enjoy. The Yakima Herald also attended and we are excited to see the article and pictures.
The piggies are coming! Mrs. Grooters reports that we will soon have pigs in the barn. She is working with the farmer to determine the exact date we will pick them up and bring them to White Swan. This is an exciting time for our FFA students.