Have you ever wondered, like Lynn, if those end-of-the-semester teacher evaluations do any good? Are your voices, opinions, and suggestions really being heard? The answer is yes: thanks to Vice Principal Ms. Edson, every single multiple choice and comment form is read and reviewed.

Okay, so our voices are heard. But what does this mean in the long run and how can our opinions lead to actual changes in the classroom?

There are two School Administrative Evaluations, or as we students would call them Student Perception Surveys, that are sent out at the end of each semester. As you are all familiar, students take the surveys during each class period. These surveys are then sent to Ms. Doolin, usually by a volunteer who’s dying to waste even more class time and just can’t wait for an opportunity to get out of her seat.

In the hands of Ms. Doolin, all the surveys are scanned and the results generated. There are percentage results for every multiple choice question for every class. She then organizes the opinion sheets as well. Ms. Doolin passes down the surveys to Ms. Edson, who reads through every evaluation and reviews all the data, all while taking notes on areas which call for improvement.

But the process does not stop here. The surveys then take a trip to each of their corresponding department chairs: Math classes go to Ms. Goldau; Science classes go to Mr. Pistacchi, etc. Each department chair reviews each survey just as was done previously by Ms. Edson, and finally pass back the surveys to the individual teachers themselves.

Sure, they read through all of the surveys, but what do they do about them? Each teacher is required a 30-hour minimum of professional development activity such as teaching workshops each year in order to continue improvement and progress in their teaching skills, and many teachers do even more than the minimum requirement. Teachers also often set goals at the beginning of each school year, whether they be incorporating more technology into their teaching methods or being more clear about extra credit guidelines. Teachers want to do the best they possibly can, and the teacher evaluations help them focus on their individual developmental needs as teachers. In short, the evaluations help teachers become better teachers and help to validate the success they have already achieved as well.

In the fall, these evaluations are copied and kept in the teacher’s personnel file. In the spring, the evaluations are handled the same way, but a copy is not put into their personnel file.

Which evaluations are really considered and which are simply discarded? Every survey is reviewed, but if a student is being particularly harsh or stating concerns that are not concurrent at all with the views of the rest of the class, then they are not taken into consideration. According to Ms. Edson, the staff must see “what the majority is thinking and feeling” to make any just assumptions. However, if the majority of the class expresses a particular issue or concern, then the problem is addressed. The department chair uses the feedback as a focus for each teacher’s development strategy, and the chair may choose to meet with the teacher to discuss methods for improvement or direct the teacher to a certain class or workshop.

So yes, whether your comment is positive or negative, each teacher sees them all. Ms. Goldau confirms, “I do read every single comment.” She also expresses her own method of handing out the evaluations, saying, “I personally like to give the comment forms before the bubble forms because it gets the students writing instead of just sitting there and filling in bubbles.”

Teachers read all the comments, which may make many of you nervous about how anonymous the surveys really are due to the possibility of handwriting detection. However, Pres has begun to do a great deal of the surveys online with Survey Monkey this year. Having the electronic options, students feel more anonymous and therefore are more open to share their opinions without the fear of being tracked back to them.

Junior Alex Sheredy said, “I enjoy the electronic evaluations because I feel more secure and definitely more anonymous, especially in the English department because they see our writing so much. I feel that if you have very recognizable script then the teacher may accumulate a vengeance against you if you give them a bad review.”

Also, with the paper evaluations, administration has found that students view the three open-ended questions as optional, whereas through the electronic versions, the number of comments greatly rose, which means more helpful information to foster improvement.

Having the evaluations online not only allows for more open responses but also saves trees and a valuable amount of time. Paperless evaluations allow for the passing-down process to go from an average of one week with the paper copies to only one day with the electronic data. “The sheer volume of paper not only causes guilt but is also more time consuming to organize, hard to make copies to pass down, and is less time-efficient than doing everything electronically,” said Ms. Edson.

There are some down sides to the electronic versions of the surveys, however. Along with obvious technical complications that may occur, some teachers feel the comments would be less personal. Ms. Goldau notes, “Sometimes my students will draw the hearts, stars or flowers. I enjoy these, but encourage my students to explain the reasoning behind their artwork, especially if they decide on drawing the daggers.”

According to Ms. Edson, the School Administrative Evaluations are “broad brushstrokes on an overwhelming scale” but are focused on listening to the major concerns of the students– not only in order to give the student body a voice, but also to use their feedback to make the staff aware of areas that may need adjustment. After all, we’re all human and there’s always room for improvement.

Ms. McCullough (formerly Ms. Murphy) was married on July 3, 2011 at the Presentation Center in Los Gatos, CA to Casey McCullough, who works at Bellarmine. She said, “We tried to keep things sustainable and local by having my uncles cook our rehearsal dinner, buying flowers from the farmers market and I wore my cousin’s wedding dress!”

Mr. Blightman married Jackie Honma (a math teacher at Quimby Oak Middle School) on July 30 at Clos La Chance Winery in San Martin, CA.

Congratulations to the following teachers who recently had a newborn added to their families!

Mrs. Odell gave birth to her first child, Amber Nicole, on March 4, 2011. She weighed 6 lbs., 2 oz. and was 19.5 inches long.

Ms. Livingston had her second child on May 3, 2011. Jack Thomas was 7 lbs., 4 oz. and also 19.5 inches long. She said, “He is a happy baby and smiles all day. His big sister Natalia just loves him and so do we! Our family is complete.”

Athletic trainer Ms. Murphy, added her first child, Aiden Jaxton, to her family on April 13, 2011. He was 6 lbs., 4 oz. and 19 inches. She said, “I am pretty sure once we start to host athletic events here on campus, he will be here often to cheer on our sports team!”

Public relations director Ms. Pizarro gave birth to Alexander David on July, 3, 2011. He weighed 9 lbs., 2 oz., and was 20 inches long.

Athletic director Ms. Mallison welcomed her first child, Sadera Lyn, who will be called Sadie, on August 3, 2011. Sadie was 7 lbs. 10 oz. and was 20 inches long.

“The Presentation Sisters have always been very supportive and passionate about being green. Our mission flows from their lead,” said Mary Miller, principal. Our school is constantly trying to find ways to go green, which is obvious from the several changes that have been made to the school this summer.

The first thing students probably noticed when they came to school on August 15 was that we have new sliding doors. Besides the obvious convenience that the sliding doors provide to students who come to school laden down with backpacks and class projects, these new doors are great energy savers.

Normally, during the winter, the doors in the main building would be left open as people came in and out of the school, making it very inefficient for the heaters to keep the school warm. Since the sliding doors open and close as needed, heat stays inside, requiring less money and energy to warm up the school.

Though saving money is a good thing, “The money saved is less an issue than our desire to be responsible stewards of the environment–taking as little off the energy grid as possible,” said Ms. Miller.

Other developments to the buildings include brand-new dual pane windows, which help insulate the classrooms better than the old, single-pane windows, and new energy efficient lights.

Besides the administration, students and teachers are starting to catch the “going green” bug too, inspiring attempts to save as much paper as possible by doing things online. Moodle is the next big thing at Pres— a website that allows teachers to upload files such as calendars, PowerPoints, and handouts so students can access them on the Internet instead of using paper copies.

“Around 100 classes are already on Moodle,” said Ms. Renner, head of Presentation’s Technology Department. Though some teachers are not yet active in their use of Moodle, these roughly 100 class pages are up and ready to use on the website.

From there, teachers can have students enroll into their classes, distribute files, give assignments and quizzes, share blogs and videos, and even have students turn in homework and projects. It’s a work in progress, but expect much more interaction and efficiency with the website once they system is a little more settled and in regular use.

Pres has a fairly large faculty, and small actions make noticeable differences in our school’s environment. Mr. Buell is one example of a teacher who loves Moodle and has actively used it for all homework assignments since the first day of school.

He appreciates how it helps him be more organized—where he would normally have a desk stacked full of papers to grade, everything issystematically arranged on Moodle, where he can view, grade, and comment on students’ work.

“You can only access the K-drive at Pres, but you can access Moodle anywhere with Internet,” he said.

After just the first week of school, Mr. Buell notes, he has already saved 130 sheets of paper from handouts he would have given to students and homework that would have been turned in on paper.

Mrs. Stampfl also actively promotes saving paper, having increasing numbers of assignments submitted online in addition to the class blogs that have been on the Internet for the past few years.

This year, the AP French class’ workbook is online, and all workbook assignments are viewed, submitted, and graded on the Pearson website. Besides helping conserve the environment, going online makes it easier to organize homework for both teachers and students.

It’s a work in progress, but expect much more interaction and efficiency with the website once they system is a little more settled and in regular use.

Student initiatives to go green include the garden at Jenvey House run by the SEAS club. Club moderator Ms.Rahmig said, “It’s a way to show everyone that you can grow your own food.”

The 1,000 square foot garden contains everything from strawberries and tomatoes to squash, corn, and zucchini. The food that comes out of the garden— a bag or more of vegetables a week— goes to the girls who help work there. It provides the benefit of organic, home-grown vegetables, which is great for the environment.

The next time you use the new sliding doors at school or turn homework in on Moodle, keep in mind Pres’ efforts to become a more eco-friendly school and try to see what you can do to help. In the words of Ms. Miller: “It is simply the right thing to do.”

Deepika Bhatnagar’12 talks about the purpose of this green event, “We’re doing this to promote green living, and to show people the impact of making a small change to your daily routine can have on our environment. If they like the feeling of the crisp morning air on their face as they cruise through the streets of Willow Glen, then we encourage them to make it a permanent change.”
Melanie Borreli, a Senior at Presentation High School, biked a total of 4.2 miles to school to help show her support for the environment. When asked why she biked to school she stated “I always wanted to bike to school and it just worked out this year. It was really good exercise and I love saving the Earth!” After being told about how much of an impact she made by not biking she said “I will definitely bike to school more often. I fell motivated to do it again!”

Melanie is just one example of the many students that helped make a difference by biking to school this week. Bike to school week was just the beginning of all the ways students can help make a difference at Presentation. It is up to you now to help protect the planet even if it is just by biking to school one day a week.

Who knew that small changes in our habits could actually make a difference in the pursue to create a more “green” planet? Young women at our own school have done their part in going green and should be a reminder for others to do the same. There are so many different ways each girl can try and make a difference, and these are just a fewexamples.

Senior Elise Miller takes shorter showers in order to save the amount of water she is using, and turns off the lights when no longer in the room.”I do this as a small way to do my part in trying to save the environment and conserving energy,” said Miller. Recycling is just one step away. While she’s making her attempt to stay green, she says, “When people don’t recycle and there is literally a recycling bin right next to the trash can, that can really be annoying.” So take that extra two seconds to reach and put it in the BLUE can. That small gesture really helps.

Whenever senior Diana Self leaves any room, she also turns the lights off. A significant thing her family does is unplugging absolutely everything when it is not in use. This includes things like their toaster and their TV. Their family recently started unplugging things, and they feel as if it is slowly making a difference and is definitely conserving energy.

“My aunt thinks it’s a good idea to unplug everything when it’s not in use because it will help reduce the impact on the environment from easy changes they make,” Self says.

Her inspiration comes from observing others. She sees how others always carelessly wasteful, and knows if she does her part, it can slowly make a difference. “I really hate it when people take like one bite of their food, and then throw it away. That creates a lot of unnecessary landfill,” she says.

No matter if its Styrofoam or a Jamba Juice cup, Catherine Mote always makes an attempt to recycle everything that can be. Her mom got her in the habit of taking the time to recycle everything they can. “This will help reduce the amount of landfill from recycling everything we can.” Landfills have the potential to leak and contaminate ground water and soil, so it’s important that we try to reduce the amount of trash we use.

“I know it sounds weird but it bugs me when people over-water their lawn. Like when their sprinklersare on a timer and go off every day, its unnecessary and wasteful,” says Mote. Remember to talk to your parents about how to change the settings on your sprinkles to go off only when completely necessary, a like when the weather is really dry.

See a water bottle on the ground? Pick it up and put it in the nearest recycle bin. These Pres girls have already set an acceptable example of staying green, and now it’s your turn to remember what small things you can do to help. Make sure you do your part by conserving, recycling, and remember everything is better in moderation.

Leading up to the team’s great success at Nationals, dance team has been very successful at local competitions such as Homestead, Monte Vista, Lincoln High School, and now, a very successful time at Nationals. At Nationals, the dance team went up against a new set of competitive teams and school teams. But with all the hard work they’ve put into comp season, these girls were prepared for whatever came their way. Because there are so many different teams and school that come to compete at Nationals each year, it is hard to say that there is just one main rival, but nevertheless, the Pres Dance Team knows they’re going up against (and beats!) many of the really serious Southern California and Utah schools.

     The team has always been well-known for their success in hip-hop, and has always been a favorite. This year, the team was really excited to compete in the hip-hop division at Nationals because they have worked so hard to improve every week going from third, to second, and finally first place at local competitions. “This has been an exceptional year for the dance team bringing home the most first and second place trophies at our local competitions. We are looking forward to our break and preparing for the Fashion Show and Spring Dance Concert” says dance team coach, Sara Cuddie.

 As far as favorite dances go, every member has their own personal favorite, usually according to what genre dance they are best in, and it always shows when they perform. “I love [the division] Small because it’s a comfortable style and I can connect to the dance. Whenever you can connect to a dance on a personal level, it just makes it so much easier and more enjoyable to perform!” said team member Madeline Bernstein, junior.

     The team had been anxious to see how they would do considering how competition season has been so far, because they hadn’t seen all the competitors yet making difficult to judge. The important thing is that these dancers have all come so far as a team and have been working hard all the way through, and doing so well in every competition. Great job, Dance Team!

The highly anticipated visit was arranged by history teacher Charles Schmuck, who has attended multiple continuing education classes with Dr. Kennedy.

“His classes at Stanford are informative and inspirational as I always learn something new,” Schmuck said. “He’s one of the best lecturers I’ve ever seen. I’m honored that he agreed to come to Pres and give our students a glimpse of what a great college professor is all about.”

Speaking in the Valenzuela Theater, Dr. Kennedy emphasized the importance that historians place on asking questions, and posed one of his own as the theme for his talk: What if the United States had won World War II in a different way?

Kennedy, who authored the students’ APUSH textbook—as well as 12 other books and numerous articles–spoke about the range of forces that allowed for America’s victory, from the timing of the United States’ entry into the war to its strategic air strategy and its booming economy.

Kennedy, whose style was informal and conversational as he paced the stage, kept both students and teachers enthralled with his argument that World War II was one of the United States’ most critical transformative events.

“In class we learn about World War II from a world perspective, so it was great to hear about it from the U.S. perspective,” said sophomore Christine Ho, one of approximately 75 students who attended the lecture.

Academic Dean Rosemarie Healy, who said she was impressed by the turnout of both students and teachers, said, “I’d like to read his book [Pulitzer Prize winner Freedom from Fear ]. He was fascinating.”  Then, noting that the book is over 800 pages, she added, “Well, maybe the Cliffs Notes.”

Many people would say that shaving your head is a brave thing to do. Others may go as far as to call it crazy. But for Emily Purvis and Clare Smith, two seniors at Presentation, it is just another step in fighting and finding cures for cancer.

Purvis and Smith are planning to shave their heads and raise money for St. Baldrick’s Foundation through a bake sale and collecting donations. St. Baldrick’s is a volunteer charity founded in the year 2000 and headquartered in Monrovia, California. Through volunteers’ donations, the organization funds research that is working to find cures and treatments for childhood cancer. St. Baldrick’s encourages volunteers to shave their heads in solidarity with children suffering from cancer.

According to the St. Baldrick’s website, the charity has raised over $87 million dollars since its incep­tion. “When I heard about St. Bal­drick’s, it seemed like a perfect op­portunity to go short for a good cause,” said Smith.

Purvis and Smith plan to hold their fundraiser in the courtyard af­ter school on March 2. After shav­ing their heads, they will donate their hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, an organization that makes wigs for pa­tients who have lost their hair to che­motherapy or treatments for other diseases.

While they find it very impor­tant that cancer patients have wigs, this is not their primary goal in shav­ing their heads.

“Our main rea­son for doing this fundraiser is to raise money for cancer research,” said Pur­vis.

The girls chose St. Baldrick’s primarily because of its message. “It’s really incred­ible to see how many people are will­ing to give of themselves for such an im­portant cause,” said Smith. “To me, at least, these shaves show both chemo patients and society that bald is just as beautiful as the more-con­ventional head full of hair.”

Actually planning the fundrais­er, however, has been more difficult than thinking it up. “It actually took us a matter of months to get our fundraiser approved by the admin­istration, as well as to research the foundation and plan for the event,” said Purvis. Now, they are focusing on preliminary fundraising and planning what they will sell around school in late Febru­ary and early March. Their goal is to raise $500 for St. Baldrick’s, and according to their page on the St. Bal­drick’s website (stated below), they have al­ready raised nearly $200.

Purvis and Smith also met with some opposition from their families as well. Both girls said that, at first, their parents didn’t believe they were serious about the donation.

“When they realized that we were committed to going through with shaving our heads, they were skeptical but supportive,”Purvis said.

Although it may have been difficult for their parents to accept in the beginning, both girls now have full support from their families.

Many students also support and look up to them for their charity. “As girls, we value our hair much more then guys,” said junior Michelle Tran. “So to give it up for charity is amazing.”

Other Pres girls agree. “I think they are extremely brave, and I won­der if they personally know any children who have had to lose their hair because of chemotherapy,” said Erica Henderson, senior.

“It’s a really selfless way of showing support, since they’re going past donating spare change,” sopho­more Anne Gatesy said about the girls’ plan to shave their heads.

And how, you may ask, do the two seniors feel about their imminent baldness? They’re not worried in the least. “I’m kind of thinking that it’ll be more awkward for other people than it will be for me,” said Smith.

Purvis agrees. “People will judge you regardless of what you look like, who your friends are, what you’re studying, your personality, you know, everything,” she said. “It’s ac­tually been really fantastic to realize that—it’s empowering to know that I’m comfortable enough with myself to be able to do anything and not worry what other people will think.”

There are times when the Presentation High School Development Office’s work goes unnoticed, and the effort you put into your job behind the scenes is certainly something to be recognized. Most people do not know that the Development Office provides the programs and events necessary to carry out the mission of our school “Not Words but Deeds.”

Presentation cannot fathom the amount of thanks you deserve; after all, the Pres community is dependent on two sources of profit: tuition and fundraising, which Development is in charge of! The countless hours of deciding on centerpieces, creating costumes for students who worked the Auction, deciding how to make the directory, how to put in ads, coordinating alumni events, and producing our annual fashion show are just some of the events you put together. The list goes on, and it is apparent how many hours you wonderful women spend to put it all together. These events that you manage create wonders for our school, and the funds raised through the Development Office gives Presentation the opportunity to enhance curricular offerings for our students, provide state-of-the-art facilities and assist students with tuition who would otherwise be unable to attend Presentation. The opportunity to attend Pres is a gift, and on behalf of Presentation, we would like to thank you for giving some lucky young women the opportunity to attend.

The Special Events such as Auction, Crab Feed, Mother-Daughter Breakfast and Fashion Show are all events that show the great quality of Pres, and are always a big hit. Along with all these treasured events our student body and faculty look forward to, we cannot thank you enough for coordinating the Parent Board Activities, Annual Giving, Capital Campaign, Planned Giving, and Scholarship and Endowment activities. Your generous effort and time is something we sometimes take for granted, and we cannot thank you enough for helping provide an outstanding education at Presentation for young women today. There’s no need to check the nice list twice for you, ladies!

Sincerely, Santa Claus