Vista High School staff and students are excited to see some aspects of life getting back to how they were prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year began like no other year and students were not allowed to come to school in person. As we approach spring, things are starting to look up. In the past couple of months, we have begun an incentive program, we have seen students begin a new school site project, hold school site council meetings, and have various guest speakers present to our students.
At the beginning of the academic school year, we asked various community colleges, universities, and different branches of the military for donations to help begin our academic incentive program. We have been very fortunate to have donations come from all over the country from various colleges and universities and have different military branches coming to our school site to hand deliver some items to help encourage students to continue to succeed. Our school site has also set aside funds to purchase school T-shirts to be awarded to students who achieve high levels of academic excellence. Starting this month, our incentive program will recognize students who complete 10+ credits for two grading periods. This will be done by posting student achievements on our school website and by giving donated items or school T-shirts to our high performing students.
This school year has had another positive thing happen in recent months. In the first week of February, our school site was granted the SJFB Foundation for Agricultural Education 2021 Agricultural Education Grant and began our “Grow Vista Green” project the following week. Although this current pandemic has limited our day to day life, this is a new agricultural elective that has really brought excitement to our students, staff and parents. We are able to abide by the CDC recommendations and have students enjoy the outdoors and learn some life skills along the way. But not everything has been so easily accommodated.
It has definitely been a challenging year and the beginning of this year looked very grim but with the help of technology, we have been able to successfully hold School Site Council meetings and various presentations. The School Site Council meetings have been essential to gather information and input from students, staff, parents and community members while the various presentations have been more informational. We have had various speakers give presentations and expert advice on a variety of topics relating to vocational education opportunities, career pathways and training, local community college pathways, and next month will be everything related to military branches. We found it appropriate to have Military presenters since students will be taking the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test.
We may not have started this year as the years in the past but Vista has been finding some positive things along the way. We definitely look forward to how this year may end and I know with every challenge and every change, our students, staff and community will take on every obstacle with a positive attitude.
Principally Speaking is a monthly article, contributed by principals from Escalon Unified School District sites, throughout the school year. It is designed to update the community on school events and activities.
