San Diego County recently honored Sweetwater District Adult Education Director Dr. Ryan Burke as one of the 2020 Administrators of the Year!
The awards were recognized by the San Diego County School Boards Association and the Association of California School Administrators Region 18 (ACSA). Honoring Our Own is a collaboration between the two organizations where educators, parents, community members, board members and support staff are honored for making a difference in the lives of students.
The event was held virtually on October 3rd via YouTube.
The Sweetwater District is exceptionally honored to have Dr. Burke lead the districts Adult Education program by supporting adult development with a lifelong transformative learning approach.
Congratulations Dr. Burke, 2020 ACSA Region 18 Administrator of the Year Awardee!
Meet Joseph Amaro, Sweetwater Union High School District teacher dedicated to educating students via creative and innovative instruction since 1995. For more than 20-years, Amaro has worn several hats in the Sweetwater District, most recently as an Engineering, Robotics, and Advanced Manufacturing ROP/CTE Instructor at Montgomery High school, home of the Aztecs.
Prior to his current position at Montgomery High, Amaro worked at Sweetwater High, Bonita Vista High, Chula Vista High, Southwest High and Eastlake High School teaching Auto Shop and ROP/CTE courses.
For the past four years, Amaro has been the coach and mentor of the Sweetwater Districts competitive VEX Robotics Program introducing students to the world of robotics. As such, Amaro oversees all twenty-five schools involved in the VEX Competitive Robotics Program. Amaro believes Robotics is changing the lives of students “one robot at a time” and he luckily plays a small part in that.
“It motivates me year after year the amazing opportunities that robotics students are realizing in their lives,” said Amaro. “Young men and women are attaining goals never before imagined. They are attending the colleges and universities of their choice. I see students attaining careers that were not even in existence ten years ago.”
Currently, the Sweetwater District is the only high school district in San Diego County that supports a middle school league and high school league with over seventy teams. “What our district has done over the last four years is to set a model for schools nationwide,” said Amaro.
Due to that model, last year the Sweetwater District program was asked to host the annual California State VEX Robotics Championships in March, over a four day period at Montgomery High. This year after the State Championships, Amaro was asked to be a Judge Advisor at the Annual VEX Worlds Championships. “Having that experience totally energized and strengthened my resolve to get as many students in our community from elementary school through high school involved in robotics.”
According to Amaro, he has always had a servants heart interfacing and engaging in young people’s lives and seeing what project based learning can do to motivate their desire to learn.
“I don’t consider myself as just a teacher,” said Amaro. “I believe my role as an educator is to a provide proper emotional and intellectual support, along with various curriculum knowledge they will be able to use to make informed decisions as to their future career path. I am in the business of changing lives. I am having a great time.”
For more information on the Sweetwater District VEX Robotics Program and to learn how to become a volunteer, contact Joseph Amaro at joseph.amaro@sweetwaterschools.org
Kudos to a group of Olympian High School seniors who recently published an anti-bullying children’s book called, “I Love to Respect You”. Students Luis Castro, Jean Christie Go, Caleb Quezada and Emily Jane Ziegler were all inspired to develop this book while reading the book “Sticks and Stones” for their Common Senior Experience project.
The group have gone to several elementary schools hoping to inspire young students on the importance of anti-bullying. The students were recently featured on KUSI to talk about their book and what inspired it.
Kudos to this amazing group of students making a positive impact in their school and community.
Here is Caleb & Co’s final CSE video about their project.
Congratulations to all our Digital Media Showcase winners for so many wonderful entries! We had a lot of close categories with so much talent. All participants should feel very proud of their involvement. Special thanks to our VAPA Staff, Digital Media Teachers and SUHSD Digital Media Chair Kelly Hamilton for such a wonderful event!
Kudos to nine Rancho Del Rey Middle students who recently participated in the “Big Read” competition through the National Endowment of the Arts. Students were required to read the novel “Fever 1793” and chose a project category (literary arts, media arts, performing arts, and visual arts) from which they created pieces that were inspired by the novel.
The event drew a large amount of interest from the community and more than 640 entries were made by 828 students (some in teams) from 16 different schools throughout San Diego County. Of all entries submitted, top ten students in each category will be invited to a celebration/recognition event mid-April 2019. From there, the top three winners from each category will be announced and those students will each win a cash prize.
Out of the nine students who have made it as finalists, four will have the opportunity to win cash prizes. Also, two students Sajkeena Clevland and Jazzlyn Williams have been asked to perform live at the event!
Student Finalists:
Gianella Isabelle Abella – Visual Arts
Alissa Aleksyeyev- (2nd place – Media Arts)
Jacqueline Ceballos- Visual Arts
Sajkeena Cleveland- (3rd place – Performing Arts)
Aidan Ibarra- Visual Arts
Emran Mohamed- Literary Arts
Deisy Ortega- Visual Arts
Isaac Salandanan- Visual Arts
Jazzlyn Williams- (2nd place – Performing Arts) –(featured on KUSI)
In addition, several students have been selected to be display their work in the following libraries around SD county.
Chula Vista South Library (Now-May 4) Mission Valley Library (Now-May 4) El Cajon Library (Now-May 4)
The All-Metro Conference selection’s father is Canadian — and also an ice hockey fan. The dad grew up playing ice hockey in Vancouver and follows the Canucks. When his son was 9, he signed him up for ice hockey. Killeen later became a two-time all-star in the Anaheim Ducks High School Hockey League.
Eastlake doesn’t field an ice hockey team, so Killeen took up roller hockey. As a junior, he led Eastlake to a 24-0 regular-season record and was selected first-team all-conference.
Killeen has made the principal’s honor roll all four years, has a 4.44 GPA and earned a 1440 on the SAT. He is taking six weighted classes this year for a total of eight AP classes and five honors classes. He favors AP economics and plans to study business administration or economics in college, get his MBA and parlay that into a career in sports business. Killeen is considering Minnesota, SDSU, UCLA and UC Berkeley and would like to play club ice hockey in college.
For the past two years, Killeen has volunteered at Eastlake Church with its children’s program.
Kudos to several Sweetwater District physics and chemistry teachers for being selected to participate in the PIRE International Science Grant. The PIRE Grant, an international collaboration between researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Helsinki, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Academy of Finland is available to science teachers to improve the engagement and learning of physics and chemistry.
“We are excited to be part of this innovative approach,” said Melanie Brown, Sweetwater District Science Curriculum Specialist.
According to Brown, there is a high interest in how students’ social, emotional, and learning experiences respond to project-based learning (PBL) designed around new science standards. The Sweetwater science teachers will take part in a series of professional development sessions to be facilitated by experts in science curriculum and education. The focus of these professional development sessions will be to: 1) introduce teachers to three-dimensional learning and NGSS; 2) develop teachers’ understanding of project-based learning; 3) introduce teachers to PBL materials in either physics or chemistry; and 4) modify the materials to fit school/teacher instructional contexts. The project-based units developed will be shared districtwide for future implementation.
The grant and professional development sessions were facilitated at Otay Ranch High by Dr. Joseph Krajcik who serves as director of the Institute for Collaborative Research in Education, Assessment, and Teaching Environments for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (CREATE for STEM) at Michigan State University. He has served as the lead writer of the Physical Science Design Team to identify and describe the core ideas in physical science for the Framework for K–12 Science Education and as the lead writer to develop the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
Kudos to several Sweetwater District students who recently performed in the Young Artists in Harmony: A Reason to Survive, “Art of Elan” event. The organization believes in the power of the arts and creativity to transform the lives of students, especially those facing adversity.
“This workshop taught me how to put emotions I do not like to talk about on to paper,” said Anastasia Salas. Another student, Jacob Herrera said, “This program has really helped me achieve a goal of improving my time managment skills while writing music and staying dedicated to it.”
Kudos to Anastasia Salas and Reeca Dionisio from OLH, Jdu-an Davis and Jacob Herrera from MVH, and Aiden Fimbres and Jaidy Leyva from BVH.
“The hard work each student put into their compositions was evident,” said Dr. Karen Janney, Sweetwater District Superintendent. “The music and entire event was absolutely phenomenal.”
The process consisted of weekly workshops where advanced music students from SUHSD had the opportunity to be individually mentored by professional Art of Elan musicians in an effort to create new music compositions.
The culminating performance was hosted at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park, which was recorded and available for free download and streaming. Click here for an encore musical experience.
Kudos to Montgomery Middle Special Education Teacher, Mario Lopez for being selected as Max Out My Class Teacher of the Week, thanks to a partnership with Mission Federal Credit Union and 105.7 MAX FM.
MAX Out My Class recognizes the dedication and passion that teachers devote to their students’ future. In addition to the recognition, Lopez received a $200 gift card and an on-air interview focused on the work he’s doing with his students at Montgomery Middle School.
“I am humbled and honored by this recognition,” said Lopez. “I couldn’t do it without the support of my colleagues and my students.”
According to Lopez, his daughter inspired him to become a teacher many years ago. “My daughter has Epilepsy. She’s my daily motivation to serve this specific population of students in our district.”
When Lopez isn’t teaching, you can find him spending time with his family and raising funds to go towards a cure for Epilepsy.
Congratulations Mr. Lopez!
Special Education Teacher, Mario Lopez selected as Max Out My Class Teacher of the Week
