December, 2019 -- Always Finish Strong

Welcome back to the Westside. 

Thank you for coming back and reading this month's blog. I think I speak on behalf of all my students when I say we are doing a lot of great things in the classroom, mainly because we have great students here who are willing to come in and put in the work. As always, all of your words of encouragement and positive vibes from wherever you’re reading this from are always needed, wanted and appreciated. 

TOPICS:

The month of November was extremely exciting here at West Leadership Academy. This months blog will be covering: 

1. The lessons of Unit II, Healthy Relationships.

2. Our first Harvest Festival.

3. Our student's accomplishments inside the school.

First up, the lessons we covered in class this month were on the unit of healthy relationships. The first lesson we covered was on your sphere of influence. In other words, the people who are surrounding you at all times. Some of the big ideas of the lesson were:

• What is a sphere of influence? 
• Who are the people in my world? 
• And how can I use my sphere of influence for positive change around my community

Below you will see some work that students turned in to the class. We are fortunate enough to have one long hallway here at West leadership Academy when we can put up all of our work and as you can see the entire hallway is filled with great work done by our students. 

Incorporating the second lesson of the unit, we talked about trust within your relationships that you have with the people around you. Some of the big ideas of the trust lesson were

• What is trust? 
• Which people in my life do I trust and why? 
• And what stops me from trusting others?

Three stations were made during the lesson. The first station was how you build trust. The second station was how you lose trust. And the third station was how do you repair and regain trust in your relationships. As you can see below these are some of the ideas that my students came up with during class.

The writing assignment that came along with it and strictly tied back into the first lesson of the sphere of influence was how my students have built a level of trust with the people around you. As you can see below, some of my students went above and beyond and turned in multiple pieces of writing that explains why the people in their lives means so much to them and why they trust them.

We have been complimented very much by other teachers and staff from the building on the work that has been done in the class and all of their praises going to the students. If you have not stopped by our hallway or have seen what we are doing, please feel free to walk up to the third floor of the school.

Harvest Festival

The second topic we’re gonna be covering now is our first annual harvest festival hosted at La Alma Recreation Center. Dino Abeyta, our family advocate in the program, took on the initiative of putting on a dinner and services that we are offering through the program at the recreation center. I am happy to report through him that we had many families show up to the events. All of this could not have been done without the Mentor Leadership Team. I am extremely blessed to have such dedicated hard-working students in the class who are willing to sacrifice a Friday afternoon to put on an event for their community. At the end of the day, our job is to make sure our students are walking away with the necessary skills to not just follow but you also lead when called upon. it’s part of being a leader and a follower. You can’t have one without the other. And tying it back into the lessons, when their spheres of influence have natural-born leader‘s inside of them, eventually, they, will become leaders in their communities as well. One day, they will be called upon and I believe that when that day comes, they will lead by example. 

The goal of the harvest festival and the class is to bring people together regardless of where are you come from or who you are or where you are at in your own life. Anyone who walks into the classroom will always have space where they feel comfortable, listened to, and appreciated. That’s why we at West leadership Academy will always welcome those who need a space where they feel excepted for who they are.

Students:

The third topic we’re going to be covering is our students. The first student I want to showcase in this month's blog is Isis Freyta. Isis has taken on the initiative of starting a school newspaper as an 8th grader. For networking purposes, she is using her resources and making sure that her newspaper is being exposed to the community. Below, you will see what she wrote in the newspaper. 

The other three students I am showcasing are the rest of my Mentor Leaders, Viviana, Naisett, and Fantasia. These three have gone above and beyond in academics here at school, and as you can see below, they have earned letters of academic achievement here at West. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that a couple of my eighth-grade students who are in the class also played their last game in November. I was fortunate enough to be the defensive coordinator for the Denver West Junior Cowboys and we made it to the championship game.  Unfortunately, we lost the game and our season ended. Still, it does not take away the accomplishments that the team earned through the season. We were able to beat some top tier teams because we played together and not as individuals. This was an unforgettable, meaningful, emotional season. These boys and my HC Edgar Montanez have given me some of the best coaching memories of my life and vice-versa. Ultimately, these boys gave me another reason to be the type of man I am, but more importantly, they taught me it is ok to lose. Sometimes, that's the way life is, and that's OK. La Vida Sigue. (Life continues)

I’m very proud of the boys for finishing the season the way they did and I believe that they will turn into great athletes and great leaders on and off the field.

Please be sure to check in next month as we continue the unit on healthy relationship And explore miscommunication in relationships, emotions In your relationships, and a whole set of different aspects when it comes to building healthy relationships. 

With roughly two weeks left in the semester, I want to take this as an opportunity to wish all of you a happy holiday and a happy new year. Once again, thank you for taking the time to read this blog. 

Happy reading y’all. 
Cowboys, out.