Dear Families,

This week back from Thanksgiving Break, we have much to be grateful for, many teams to celebrate, and loads of community updates to share. This week I'd like to highlight the 4th Grade team I spent a day with, and give a deep note of gratitude to our Student Growth Teams (SGT) at Oyster-Adams--comprised of our counselors, psychologists, LEA's, Social Workers, and Assistant Principals.

Our SGT has been working hard to ensure that every tiger and family feels loved, safe, and an important part of our OA community. Every day, they are on the front lines of challenging crisis and incident response, individualized student support, and whole class socioemotional health lessons. They allow us to build psychological safety, and focus on educating the whole human. In particular this month, they have supported the Food Drive to feed our families, supported distribution of holiday gift cards, connected families to immigration clinics, built the Coat Drive, and the Thanksgiving gift cards to make every family have a delicious Thanksgiving dinner last week. You all are the example of love, caring and compassion that represents our OA community.

This week I also want to celebrate the oral discourse and concept exploration work we've seen in 4th Grade. For example, in Mr. Moreno's science class, we see students exploring electrical circuits and discussing energy transmission. The language scaffolding allowed precision of ideas and elevation of intellectual rigor in their discussions. The week before break, 4th graders also showcased beautiful and bilingual presentations about the modern and historical heroes they studied this year (Dolores Huerta, Frederick Douglass, and so many more of their choosing!). They were able to articulate the history and impact of each historical figure in both languages, and deliver their presentations to dozens of families.

Finally, I want to share this week several updates with you that have come up in community committee conversations at the Adams campus that are of interest to all. Please check out Dr. Fortson's section on School Day Essentials to see updates on campus emergency notifications, and entry protocols. In the Enrichment for Families section, we have an update on Middle School International Trips that we shared with Adams families the week before Break. Finally, in our next OCC meeting (Dec 19th) we will discuss our lockdown protocols, crisis communications and supports for students. This conversation led by our Leadership Team will explain our safety response protocols, what information we share immediately, and what we are legally restrained from divulging, and how we psychologically support students following an event.

I said this to our Adams Team following an incident response this week, and will reiterate to you that our security protocols have gotten significantly tighter this year as a result of conversations with families over the summer, rehearsal of drills with the community, and collaborative discussion with faculty that have made us improve systems. We are always striving to grow and improve, and will share with you how we're honoring our sacred responsibility to our children's well-being.

In partnership,

Carolina Brito