New Page Coming SOON for the 2023 School Year!

 With summer winding down a new page will be coming soon for the 2023 school year!

New Site for HHS2023

End of the Year Post 2021-2022

 What a Year! The school year was greatly affected by COVID. A second wave of the Coronavirus affected about every teacher on campus and it limited the number of substitute teachers available. From December through mid-February every teacher was spending their prep periods subbing for a teacher that was out with COVID and no substitute teachers were available. This could be a problem moving forward.

This year we said goodbye to Kathy Stephenson. She retired in mid-November. We lost Jerry Adams the first week of school as he was voluntold to be the principal at Upland HS until a replacement could be found as the Principal quit on the 2nd day of school. (We would not get Jerry back the entire year!)

In November we lost our math teacher Rosy Ambriz to Upland JHS where she is now the Assistant Principal. Contratulations Rosy!!!!! We lost Jason Dashinsky to a head injury sustained in PE on October 29 for a period of over three months.Mr. Dashinsky tried to be a soccer goalie with high school students and did not wear gloves, let alone a football helmet.  We lost a long-term sub who I had mentioned at the end of last year, Steven Miller, who quit during lunch one day in October, very bizarre, I have never seen anything like it before. 

We picked up five long-term subs to fill in for the loss of Rosy Ambriz (Math), David Waldowski (Steve Miller)(English), Kathy stephenson(Elective), Jason Dashinsky (Math), and Jerry Adams (Principal). The substitute teachers for the year were Fro, Ashlee (Double E), Ms. Ruvalcalva, and Dr. Andrew Stager our interim principal. It was a very good combination of staff members. We had many Thursday potluck lunches in which everyone participated. Meaning lots of food.

We also added a whole new office staff. This year we replaced our office manager Beth Boswell. Beth has been replaced by Rebecca Wells, Rebecca comes to us Via Sierra Vista Elem. school. We also added Aiesha Perez and Mrs. Yolanda Powes. (Mrs. Powers did not finish the school year out with us due to her son's bout with cancer. We expect her back next year. Mrs. Boswell replaced her at the end of the school year.)  Mrs. Powers and Mrs. Boswell kept track of school records and attendance. The dynamic duo of Mrs. Perez and Mrs. Powers came from the Hawk's Nest. The Hawks Nest has been in operation since I began teaching and has been closed for at least a year for lack of student parents. Now that is a whole conversation on its own.

This year our counselor and custodian became full-time employees at HHS and working exclusively for HHS. In the past, Ms. Berrigan had been splitting her time between HHS and Foothill Knolls.  Mrs. Hernandez had been working at the district office, sometimes covering at other elementary schools as well as HHS.

Our proctor Mr. Martinez has been a welcomed presence on the HHS Campus. He took over for Mr. Broadway last school year, during the 4th quarter when staff and students were allowed back on the HHS campus with.

Leadership, run by Ms. Garcia expanded into new areas. She had school-wide elections for a school president. She had the students have shows off-campus. And there were many activities on Fridays for the students to show school spirit and be involved.

Mr. R. Connor continued on with the Tiny Home. This school year the students added the exterior trim, painted the exterior, installed insulation, and installed the interior lighting and outlets, this was a slow process. The students were a bit challenging this year. The students picked up bad habits with COVID and have trouble weaning themselves from their phones. It will take some time to change their cell phone bad habits. Over the past two years, it appears they had uncontrolled access to their devices during the COVID pandemic. Mr. Connor's students also participated in the rocketry unit, gravity race car unit, and contest and rebuilt a ping pong table, then created ping pong paddles to play games. A ping pong competition ensued.

Two gates were installed along the existing wrought iron fence to allow the tiny home onto campus in front of rooms 13 and 14, which has now become the outdoor construction area. This school year Room 14 is dedicated to the construction class. Future plans include a roll-up door in place of a window, interior cabinetry to house tools, changing the flooring from carpet to a linoleum product, and purchases of an exhaust system. This will only be possible if we can find someone interested in teaching the class after next year.

The Farm. This year we made some changes to the farm. The first change was to remove the large center-raised garden. It was hard to maneuver around. The second was to come up with a system to keep the chickens out of the garden. The students successfully moved the large center-raised planter. They then created four separate raised beds. The students also continued creating raised garden beds in the east garden area adding shut-off valves to each bed. (These had been removed with the project WET grant, which I was not happy).  We also moved the irrigation controller from the shipping container to the garden.

We relocated the sink from outside the garden to inside the chicken coop. This helped fill the chicken water containers faster but left us without a sink to wash our hands.  A sink to wash hands was then added outside the coop.

We picked up two pigs in December. They were loved by the staff and students but came to an unfortunate death. The deaths are still under investigation. We believe it was something they ate. The pigs died a week apart. A vet was brought in to try to save them. The pigs died fast. One day they were walking around then two days later they were on the ground unable to move. The Vet did indicate that the pigs and chickens should not be housed together. The students then created an area for four-legged creatures.

We continued to work on the Portable chicken coop idea. We took chicks to two schools this year. We took them to Baldy View and Upland JHS. For the Upland JHS visit, we made a portable cage. The idea was to take the pigs but came to the realization they were just too big to move easily. 

We also had two visits by Elementary schools. We had Foothill Knolls and Sierra Vista visit the farm.

On the last day of school for the seniors, we had a senior appreciation time out on the field from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM where the staff had ordered pizza and a shaved ice truck.  Mr. Smith provided the DJ activities. There also was a photo booth.

Room 1 - Mr. Dashinske/ Miss Ashlee (3 months) (Algebra & PE)

Room 2 - Mrs. Bennett

Room 3 Mrs. Garcia (Art)

Room 4 Mrs. Byre (Science)

Room 5 Mrs. Cazaraz (English)

Room 6 Mr. Fro (History)

Room 7 Mrs. Serananna (English)

Room 8  Mr. Dean Connor (IS), Ms. Berragan (Counselor)

Room 9 Mrs. Stephenson, Ms. Ashlee (4 months)

Room 10 Mr. Smith ( Gov. & US History)

Room 11 Mrs. Ambirz, Ms. Rubacalva (Geometry)

Room 13 Mr. R Connor (Technology-Construction/Farm)

Office: Mr. Adams, Mr. Stager (Principal)

Our Seniors!

2022 High Five Video HHS

 

The video can be found on Youtube at https://youtu.be/cDsnXWUmIS8

Week 9 June 6-9 The Final Week of the 2021-2022 School Year.

 Bringing it all Home

California Approves Robotic Taxi Service Driverless Rides

 California regulators on Thursday gave a robotic taxi service the green light to begin charging passengers for driverless rides in San Francisco, a first in a state where dozens of companies have been trying to train vehicles to steer themselves on increasingly congested roads.

The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously granted Cruise, a company controlled by automaker General Motors, approval to launch its driverless ride-hailing service. The regulators issued the permit despite safety concerns arising from Cruise’s inability to pick up and drop off passengers at the curb in its autonomous taxis, requiring the vehicles to double park in traffic lanes.

The ride-hailing service initially will consist of just 30 electric vehicles confined to transporting passengers in less congested parts of San Francisco from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Those restrictions are designed to minimize chances of the robotic taxis causing property damage, injuries or death if something goes awry. It will also allow regulators to assess how the technology works before permitting the service to expand.

Cruise and another robotic car pioneer, Waymo, already have been charging passengers for rides in parts of San Francisco in autonomous vehicles with a back-up human driver present to take control if something goes wrong with the technology.

But now Cruise has been cleared to charge for rides in vehicles that will have no other people in them besides the passengers — an ambition that a wide variety of technology companies and traditional automakers have been pursuing for more than a decade. The driverless vehicles have been hailed as a way to make taxi rides less expensive while reducing the traffic accidents and deaths caused by reckless human drivers.

Gil West, Cruise's chief operating officer, in a blog post hailed Thursday's vote as “a giant leap for our mission here at Cruise to save lives, help save the planet, and save people time and money." He said the company would begin rolling out its fared rides gradually.

Bees are Fish!

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/bees-are-fish-under-calif-endangered-species-act-state-court-2022-06-01/ 

Bees are ‘fish’ under Calif. Endangered Species Act – state court rules.

Hiking in Lake Tahoe

26 miles in three days around Lake Tahoe! 

Check out the meteor shower tonight Monday 5/30 10 PM ish.

 The meteor shower will last only 5 minutes, so it is kind of a hit or miss. The meteor pieces should come from the east just after 10 pm. Take a look! If it is good it will be really good!

The storm brought large fire, but no storm!

Q4W8 Tuesday Web Hunt - West Side of the Sierra Mountain Range

 All of the questions that you will search are located on the west side

Of the Sierra Mountain Range.

1 Using Google maps how far is it to drive from Upland CA. 

 to South Lake Tahoe using the 210, 5, 99, and 50 highway routes. 

 This route will take you to the west side of the Sierra mountain range.

 

2 Where and when was gold first discovered in California? 

3 When did Yosemite become a National Park?

4 What president signed the Yosemite 

Land Grant into law in 1864?

5 Who is  John Muir?

6 When did Sequoia become a national park,

 and from its formation, Sequoia became the

first park to protect what?

7  What type of trees are in Sequoia National

Park? What is the name of the tallest?

8. When did Kings Canyon become a 

National Park?

9. What is the name of the first national park created

 and what state is it located in and when?

10 What is the state capitol of California, 

what year did the location become the current capitol site?

11. When is the California High Speed Rail estimated completion

date?

11. Finish the web hunt for the Eastern Sierras, hwy 395 from Friday.

Q4 W7 Friday WEb Search May 27, 2022

 Web Search - Please answer the following questions- You can place your answers on your blog page or on Google Classroom.

Friday, May 27, 2022  Internet Search

1. Today, I am traveling on highway 395 in California from Upland to lake Tahoe.

2. Go to Google maps and find the distance between Upland and South Lake Tahoe.

3. Take a screenshot of the map  (Command Shift 4) and drag diagonally across the image.

4. Post the image as part of the answer.  Google Maps

2. What is Manzanar? What happened in America to create Manzanar?

3. How does it make you feel that the USA did this? Note: Manzanar is on Highway 395.

3. George Chaffey, brother of Southern California's Wiliam Chaffey,

4. bought up thousands of acres of lands south of Independence in the

5. Owens Valley in the early 1900s, with the intent of developing what?

6. These are the same Chaffey brothers of Ontario who Chaffey High School is

7. named after.

4. Los Angeles did what in the Owens Valley? 

5. A century ago, agents from Los Angeles converged on the

6. Owens Valley is on a secret mission to do what? It has to do with water!

5. Who were the first white settlers of Owens Valley in 1861,

6. I’m looking for names? Go to First White Settlers

6. What happened in Owens Valley in 1872?

7. What are Fossil Falls? Fossil Falls

8. What is Mammoth Mountain known for? Mammoth

9. How tall is Mount Whitney?

10. What was mined in Bodie, which is now Bodie Ghost Town?

11. What birds migrate to Mono Lake?

12. What unusual rock formations are found at Mono Lake?

13.  With the third year of a drought what has happened to the Mono Lake

14. and Los Angeles water agreement?

14.  Go to the Wierd and Wonderful website and give a brief description of the

15. Crowley Lake Columns. View the Crowley Lake Columns. 

15. Also on the Wierd and Wonderful website and give a brief description of the Burro

16. Schmidt Tunnel

15. What is the elevation of Lake Tahoe above sea level is Lake Tahoe?

17.  How deep is Lake Tahoe and if emptied how would it cover California if flat?

18. I will be at a place called Fallen Leaf Lake, it's near Lake Tahoe,

18. take a look. How deep is Fallen Leaf Lake?

19. What is Lucky Baldwin known for? He also invested in parts of Tahoe too.

20. How much gold was discovered during California's gold rush?