On Friday night, the 14th anniversary of 9/11, Paloma Valley paid a special tribute to all veterans and active military personnel.  The school had a pre-game ceremony that thanked our veterans for their service and sacrifice. Paloma was able to get permission to unfurl "The Big Flag" which is 100 yards long by 50 yards wide.  The Big Flag is 45,000 sq. feet and covers one entire football field when fully deployed. When presented at baseball games it covers most of the outfield. The Big Flag is made of lightweight nylon and weighs approximately 850 pounds. A minimum of 250 people is required for a presentation. Paloma is only the second high school in the U.S. to host and display the huge American flag owned by the Holiday Bowl Classic Association.  It is one of the largest ceremonial American flags in the United States that is regularly used in conjunction with large public sporting events. The Big Flag has been presented at the Super Bowl, World Series and numerous NFL, NCAA and MLB events.

Just before 7:00 p.m., the flag was carried to the visiting sideline while both teams lined up in each end zone.  The band, color guard, and cheer squads were stationed on the track in front of the home crowd.  Veterans who were Paloma Valley alumni were then asked to stand and be recognized and then all veterans and active military were asked to join them.  The crowd showed its enthusiastic appreciation for their service.  Then students spread across the field and began to unfurl the huge symbol of our nation.  As the flag was unfurled, Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" began to play.  The crowd began to sing with the music.  Many people, old and young, shed a tear or had their eyes well up.  The flag had another 100 students beneath it to keep it from touching the ground.  They also pushed it up making it appear to wave as if a breeze were blowing.  As soon as the song ended, the Paloma Valley student body began chanting “USA! USA! USA!”  The moment was pure magic.  The crowd was asked to remove their hats and offer a moment of silence in memory of those who lost their lives on 9/11 as well as all the veterans who have preserved our freedom with the ultimate sacrifice.  The stadium was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.  The still air was finally broken by a drum roll followed by the national anthem.  When the anthem ended the crowd erupted with applause and cheers.  The students on the field sprang into action and had the flag folded up within a minute and then proceeded to march it off the field.




At half-time, fans were asked to offer words of appreciation to their friends and family members who had served or were currently serving.  Some wrote out their lines for the announcer to read while others were brave enough to speak to the crowd over the microphone.  The words were definitely from the heart.

The students who carried and displayed the flag included the NJROTC cadets and the freshman football team from Paloma Valley.  Approximately 250 students were involved in deploying the flag while the band, color guard, and cheer squads added another 150 students on the track.  They practiced Thursday and Friday after school to ensure a professional display.

Many thanks goes to Master Sergeant Puebla who helps oversee the NJROTC program at Paloma.  He initially asked for the flag to come to Paloma for 9/11.  A special thank you to Master Sergeant Robert Harden, Master Sergeant Hess, and Sergeant Davis who, on behalf of the San Diego Bowl Association, volunteered many hours to bring the flag to our school and teach our students how to handle the flag.

There is no doubt in my mind that if our students are any indication of love of country, we are in good hands.  Their spirit and patriotism shone like the sun at noon on a clear day.  I have never been more proud to be a Wildcat or an American than that Friday night.

Magalli Acosta’s Journey from Farm Laborer to High School Teacher

Magalli Acosta

From humble origins, one of Paloma Valley High School’s newest teachers aims to make a difference in the lives of her students. Ms. Magalli Acosta’s first job ever was picking grapes in the fields of the Coachella Valley at age 15. Now at only 23 years old, she has completed her first month on the job as a high school Spanish teacher. Like any new teacher, Magalli works long hours planning, teaching, and grading; but as you might expect, Ms. Acosta is no stranger to hard work. Her parents, now in their fifties, still work as agricultural laborers in the Coachella Valley and live in the little town of Desert Shores. Her mother works in a nursery and her father works mostly in the grape fields specializing in the application of pesticides and herbicides.

Although Ms. Acosta worked with her family in the fields, she was also a motivated student. Magalli graduated from West Shores High School where she earned the honor of Salutatorian (traditionally bestowed on the second highest achieving student) of her graduating class of sixty students. When asked about who was the top student (the valedictorian), Magalli becomes animated, and displayed a competitive streak. “That was my cousin. I had a 4.3 gpa, but West Shores High School was small and didn’t offer as many AP courses as I would have liked.”

Quote from MagalliAcosta

Magalli applied and was accepted to the University of California at Riverside, leaving Desert Shores, population 1,104, for Riverside, population 316,619. Magalli received 11 separate scholarships throughout her college career which gave her a full-ride scholarship. While there, Ms. Acosta was part of the UCR Honors Program while earning both her bachelor’s degree and her teaching credential. Her scholarships also allowed her to study abroad for an entire year. She spent one semester in Spain and another semester in the western African nation of Ghana. This summer, just before beginning her work at Paloma Valley High School, Magalli travelled to China and taught English at the elementary school level. At only 23, Magalli clearly hasn’t missed a step in her well-executed plan to become an educator!

In a conversation about the value of experiencing truly hard work, Ms. Acosta shared her feelings that most students have lives where many things come too easily to them, such as a free education. Magalli also agreed that students would benefit from doing agricultural labor, as they would learn both the value of labor and gain an appreciation of what it takes to grow and bring food to the market.

However, Ms. Acosta worries about her family’s health, especially her father’s. She says her parents are healthy, but are now in their mid-50’s. Her father tells Magalli not to worry, but there is concern about the long-term effects of decades of extreme heat, back-breaking labor, and contact with pesticides.

By: Roberto Verzo flickr.com/photos/verzo/7961602570 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Going forward, Ms. Acosta is focused everyday to become the best teacher she can be. Like all new teachers, she knows she has much to learn and to accomplish in her career. Ms. Acosta explains what motivates her as an educator: “I have been working so hard to get to this point that now that I am here my focus is to continue to grow as an educator and impact the lives of those I work with. I want to be a role model and an inspiration to my students and ultimately my goal is to have a student return and say, ‘because of you I did not give up or with your help I was able to accomplish this.’ When that day comes, I know I will have accomplished one of my biggest goals in life. As a teacher, I know I will form part of those students’ success and that’s what makes this career so rewarding.”

Exhibit #1

Perris Union High School District joins the WeatherBug Schools Network. Check out any school site on the District website and you will now see a live link to a WeatherBug on-line weather station. Weather Stations with web-based education software tools have been installed at Perris High School, Heritage High School, Paloma Valley High School, Pinacate Middle School and the California Military Institute.

WeatherBug Weather Station at Perris High School

PUHSD is very excited about being part of a network of over 8,000 weather stations across the country. The WeatherBug Schools Program is the largest weather and climate sensor network that combines professional-grade weather stations at K-12 schools and universities. The weather stations will be used to enhance the science, technology, and math school curriculum using the WeatherBug Achieve program. Each station records more than 25 weather variables and updates every few seconds. This live, hyper-local weather information is exclusive to Earth Networks, enabling an unmatched view of current conditions.

High heat during the summer and early fall is one of the challenges our athletic programs face. The partnership with the WeatherBug Schools Program will also allow athletic directors and coaches to receive notifications for weather conditions, including the heat index through the StreamerRT tool. The dynamic interface enables users to create notification rules for specific locations. Notifications are sent through visual and audible delivery and delivered to desktop and mobile emails.

What makes a hero?  Is it an act of bravery that is above and beyond what a normal person would do? Acts of bravery are usually selfless acts done to help others.  The hero does not stop to weigh possible legal implications or possible personal impact.  Heroes do what they do because it is the right thing at the time to help someone else.  Employees at Paloma Valley High School in Menifee recently witnessed such a display.

Tuesday morning, April 14, at approximately 9:10 a.m., school officials were alerted that an adult male was in a pickup in front of Paloma High School and was non-responsive.  A local contractor, who is the father of a student attending PVHS, was driving by the front of the school when his male employee passed out in the passenger seat.  When he could not rouse him he pulled into the school driveway looking for help.

The contractor quickly parked and rushed to the front gate and explained what was going on.  A mother of a Paloma student was at the gate at the time and explained she was an ER nurse at a Children's Hospital in Orange County.  She immediately went out to the truck.  The victim was turning blue and she began performing CPR while he was still in the truck.  When the school administrative team arrived shortly afterwards, they were able to get him out of the truck and the parent continued CPR on the ground.  911 had already been notified.  Paloma’s Nurse CNA (Certified Nurse Assistant) performed mouth to mouth in between sets of compressions.  They were able to get him breathing for short periods of time.

When the ambulance and fire department arrived, they took over.  It took several minutes to get the man stabilized before they were finally able to transport the him to Loma Linda Hospital.

There is no doubt that the quick work of the mother and the school’s CNA saved the man's life.  They were heroes in action.  It is gratifying to know people like this are living among us.  They look like you and me, but they acted when others might have simply waited for someone else to act.

No one knows when they will be put in such a situation, but the fortunate citizen in the Paloma parking lot benefited by two unsung heroes.

History students in the Perris Union High School District can do more than adorn their classroom walls with cool projects and posters. PUHSD students join larger communities of activists, historians, and journalists to make the world a better place. In one class, students learned about serious human rights abuses, chose a topic that resonated with them, and created thought provoking Prezis and Google Slide Presentations that were posted on a Weebly website to educate each other and call for an end to such abuses. Thanks to the Scholar+ program, Chromebooks, and Google Apps for Education, these students collaborated with ease whether they were sitting in groups or were at home extending their learning.

In another project, students used their Chromebooks to learn important communication skills before participating in the nation’s largest collection of personal interviews, known as Storycorps: http://storycorpsu.org/. Students used their Chromebooks to listen to touching interviews done by other students, created their own questions, and practiced interviewing one another. Then, students were invited to interview classroom guests, such as Technology Director Joe Williams.

Finally, the flexibility allowed by the Haiku Learning Management System allowed very quick instructional pivots when historical parallels suddenly present themselves. For example, in February, 2014, World History students were learning about policy of appeasement leading up to World War II. When Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, invaded the Crimean Peninsula, Mr. Ashley was able to use this event comparatively in his class. Students took polls and then were required to create an “Internet Meme” over the event. Some students succeeded in making very creative GIFs illustrating the aggressive behavior.

There is a learning curve for both teachers and students, but it is becoming clear that when wielded correctly, the Chromebook is  mightier than the sword - at least for Scholar+ students.