YESS at West Leadership Academy

Good afternoon West Community, All of us here at WLA were caught by surprise last week when DPS issued not ONE, but TWO snow days from. I can't say that the students were disappointed, as the situation became highly unprecedented. We came back on Friday to low-student turnout so it was as if they had a good week off of school. In any case, we got to work and we did the best with what we had to work with. On Monday, one of our former YESS students came down to the West campus to talk with our students about life after high school. Major shoutout to our lovely post-secondary navigators Emily and Angie for setting up the visit! He is a student at the Community College of Denver and is on his way to finishing up his first year of higher education. Fernando was able to provide a narrative for many of our students who do not believe life after high school is different (which in case you didn't know, IT IS) Several of my students took advantage of the situation and asked insigh...

Good afternoon West Community, Spring break is right around the corner, and the students here at WLA are anxious for it to come around. Personally speaking, I definitely am as well. That being said, we here in room 114 have not taken our foot off the gas pedal, and we are heading full-speed for the next two weeks. We were on a short schedule last week, as the school took Monday off to do some professional development for next month's CMAS testing. Tuesday and Wednesday, we dedicated the 90 minute block period to our middle school students closing out their grades, as the quarter was coming to an end. Many of our students have taken advantage of the time that we have provided to them and have significantly improved their grades. Many of my mentor pairs work together to ask for help in the classes where they might not have the best grades. The goal around that is to let the student know they are not alone in asking for help, as their mentor is behind them backing them up. We have see...

Good afternoon West Community, Last week, the class turned into one big studying session. Monday and Tuesday was dedicated to my students pairing up with their mentors and mentees and catching up on their classwork, as the quarter here at WLA is coming to an end. We take pride in offering a space where students can work not only on the classwork but also, the craft of being a well-rounded student. Classroom Instruction: Wednesday and Thursday: My class covered the Hot + Cool Buttons Lesson! The lesson essentially asks students how do we reinforce out limiting and empowering beliefs? What are or hot & cool buttons? And ultimately ask students to critically think about how their trigger points about themselves can become empowering rather than being limiting in just how much we belief in ourselves. The questionnaire is split up into 8 different sections, all of which have 8 statements to chose from that are relate able to the person taking the questionnaire -- However, the...