DECEMBER MESSAGE FROM PRINCIPAL MARY JANKOVICH
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Dear Shabazz Community,
I hope you and your family had a happy Thanksgiving. During November, we had a wonderful
Shabazz Day of Thanks
that ranged from community-building activities, students investigating possible career paths, and, of course, fantastic food. I truly cannot believe we are already heading into December. We have an incredibly busy three weeks ahead of us before Winter Break, so make sure to set aside time to review the calendar. As a reminder, the calendar is a bit unusual again for Winter Break this year with classes wrapping up on Friday, December 20, and resuming on Monday, January 6. When we return in January we'll be wrapping up the first semester for Shabazz students on Thursday, January 23. Keep in mind that Shabazz students do not have school on Friday, January 24 or Monday, January 27 so teachers may prepare for the second semester and complete student evaluations to inform you and your students about their current progress.
As the weather gets cooler and the snow becomes more prevalent, please be mindful that attendance is a key factor to grades, credits and the overall well-being of our students. If students are struggling to attend class, while in the building, our Resource and Recombobulation Room (RR) is a place built to assist students in successfully processing through things or getting the academic support they need. Students just "opting out" of the learning environment is not a culture here at Shabazz, so we do everything we can to support students in making another choice.
Thanks again for all your support.
Mary Jankovich
Principal of Shabazz City High School
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IMPORTANT INFO AND CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS
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DECEMBER
Monday, December 9
Professional Development
NO SCHOOL
Tuesday, December 17
See article in this newsletter.
6-7 pm
Thursday, December 19
Student Advisory Day
Friday, December 20
Monday, December 23-Monday, January 3
WINTER BREAK
JANUARY
Monday, January 6
School Resumes
Tuesday, January 14
Shabazz Play Performance for Parents/Families
5:30 pm
Monday, January 20
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
NO SCHOOL
Wednesday, January 22
Celebration of Learning
also
3:15-4:00 pm
Friday, January 24
End of Q2 and Sem. 1
Monday, January 27
Q2 Evaluation Day
NO SCHOOL
Tuesday, January 28
New Student Orientation Day No School for Returning Students
Wednesday, January 29
Semester 2 Begins for All Students
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HANDY QUICK LINKS
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Yearbooks For Sale - Submit $$ to Office
Students who started at Shabazz first quarter this school year (2019-2020) had an opportunity to purchase a yearbook with other fees. Students who started at Shabazz
after
first quarter did not have an opportunity to purchase a yearbook with other school fees.
However, any student can purchase a yearbook from now until May simply by submitting $20.00 to Hannah in the Shabazz office. Students must submit payment to receive a yearbook. Yearbooks will be distributed in the last days of the final quarter.
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Do You Know Someone Who Is Interested in Attending Shabazz Next Semester?
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We will be accepting invitations for second semester until Friday December 20. If you know of someone who might be a good fit for Shabazz, please let them know that they can apply online. Just go to the Shabazz website and click on the
Shabazz Application link.
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When is School Closed Due to Weather
Winter weather cam early this year, so take a minute to read
When Is School Closed for Weather?
which will explain everything you need to know about MMSD weather policies. The safety of our students is our top priority and MMSD always follows a set of guidelines to make the decision about whether school will be open or closed.
We appreciate your understanding of the difficulties in making this decision, and your support in helping your student get to school safely on winter days.
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Informational Meeting: Annual African American History Academic Challenge and Justified Anger Black History for a New Day
Aaron Kaio will be hosting a meeting for parents and students interested in two special opportunities next quarter.
Shabazz is joining with
100 Black Men of Madison to create the first ever,
Shabazz African American History Bowl team which will participate in the 25th Annual African American History Academic Challenge. The team will meet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at lunch in Aaron's room beginning on 12/10. The meetings will prepare students to participate in the Madison event in April. Participants will earn a .25 credit for attending meetings and participating in the competition. This class links nicely with Aaron's quarter 2 class, Explore Stories which will be doing oral histories with members of 100 Black Men of Madison.
Shabazz will be partnering with
Teaching Tolerance and the
Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development to offer students free tuition to the Justified Anger Black History for a New Day. The course meets on Monday evenings from 7-9 starting on 1/27. The cost is normally $300 and always sells completely out. Students who attend will earn a .25 social studies credit. This class links nicely with Aaron's Passion for Leadership class which will be helping Nehemiah to develop curriculum for a high school version of the class.
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Community Cooking Class is a Rich Learning Experience
This quarter students in the Community Cooking class are learning about how to prepare food, where it comes from, and how it impacts us. Cooking is such a rich learning experience in which to explore all sorts of interesting themes around nutrition, sustainability, and health. In addition to that, cooking is a process that brings people together on the cooking and meal side of things to build stronger communities and make us happier and healthier humans. Not to mention, eating food is fun for everyone involved!
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We're excited about the partnership we've developed this quarter with
REAP Food Group
and AmeriCorps in bringing guest instructors in to talk about how food is richly intertwined with the environment, culture and health. Most recently, students engaged in a lesson around
bio-piracy
and how some of our foods may have a harmful legacy of colonialism and racism that are important to understand and acknowledge as we make choices around our food. On top of all that, we've put on some terrific Community Lunches for the Shabazz Community including a Chili Cook Off and Turkey Day. Nothing like food to bring people together!
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Celebrating Time Together at Madison Senior Center
Shabazz students in the
Explore Stories
class celebrated the end of an oral history project which they did with the Madison Senior Center. The class visited the Center four times, recording interviews to build a website which will be connected to the Shabazz homepage. In the picture here, taken on the final day, students were showing their elders the websites and celebrating their time together. Teacher Aaron Kaio expects that the website will be up in a week.
See More photos at the bottom of the newsletter.
Photos by Michelle Wimmer Photography.
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Students Celebrated Community with Day of Thanks
On Tuesday, November 26 students and staff celebrated our Shabazz community before heading to Thanksgiving break. Regular classes were held in the morning, followed by a Thanksgiving themed potluck lunch, games, karaoke, basketball, board games, and dessert.
Many thanks to Brian Counselman (below) for spearheading the day and to generous donations (both food and cash to purchase the food) from our wonderful Shabazz families and staff.
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Buckthorn Removal at Lake View Hill Park
Robert's A
dvanced Ecology class took a field trip to Lake View Hill Park last month to do some serious buckthorn removal. . . well, maybe not
all serious!
Good job everyone!
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Shabazz/Sherman BB Connection
Last Friday Leadership student
Kareem Moore worked with
Annemarie Engdahl,
principal of Sherman Middle School, to organize a basketball game between our two schools. This was a way for us to get to know each other and meet some potential Shabazz students. We hope to see a repeat!
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Supporting Students' Social Emotional Learning (SEL)
This month, we would like to share two ways in which Shabazz is supporting students’ social emotional learning (SEL)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Skills Training for Emotional Problem Solving for Adolescents
(DBT STEPS-A)
DBT STEPS-A is a SEL curriculum developed to be implemented in middle and high schools to teach all adolescents effective emotion regulation, decision making, and problem-solving skills. At Shabazz, DBT STEPS-A is offered as a class.
Consider encouraging your student to sign up for DBT STEPS-A (often called just “STEPS”) next semester!
Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools
(CBITS)
CBITS is jointly offered by the Madison Metropolitan School District and the United Way funded FACE Kids Project, and it is designed to help students deal with stress resulting from upsetting events they may have experienced. Students participated in the CBITS screening in October (unless they were opted out). Face-to-face interviews were conducted in November with students who scored high on the screening. Consent forms were distributed before Thanksgiving Break to students who were invited to participate in the first two groups. The first two groups will begin in December. The groups will generally be held on Wednesdays from Wed. Dec. 4 to Wed. Feb. 26 (10 weeks). If your adolescent will be participating in the groups, you will be receiving communication about what is covered in group each week.
Shabazz’s School Psychologist Contact Information:
Melanie Salgado, Bilingual School Psychologist (English-Spanish)
(608) 204-2599
W and F (8 am-4 pm)
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Post Secondary Information
The Shabazz Connection is a monthly publication that contains information about
college prep and other options after high school.
Click on the image to access post secondary info, such as ACT info for Juniors, Madison College Program Highlights, Xello, and much more. Thank you Katy Ainslie-Wallace for providing the
Shabazz Connection
.
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Support for Parents and Guardians of Struggling Teens
The Washington Post article, "
Parenting a struggling teenager is devastatingly lonely. It doesn't have to be
", by Kathi Valeii, was recently shared with me by a parent of one of our students. I have been working with families for almost three decades, and one of the things that I'm painfully aware of is how much isolation parents experience when their child isn't doing well. Often the experience is one of self-blame, fear of, or actual judgement by others, and helplessness about how to do anything to make a difference.
Continue reading >>>
The author talks about breaking this isolation and silence.
We encourage parents to let us know if they would like to participate in a monthly parent meeting that could be used for this purpose.
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EXPLORING STORIES AT MADISON SENIOR CENTER
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Shabazz City High School
1601 Sherman Avenue
Madison WI 53704
608-204-2440
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FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER
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