YESS at West Leadership Academy

Good afternoon to all of you! First and foremost, I want to start off by thanking all of you who have reached out to the class here at WLA. Your support, positive energy, and kinds words have been helpful for all of us as the year is now in full effect. From reading these blogs that I write, to sending emails or commenting on the work that has happened in here the past month, to simply stopping by the class to say hi. All of it, no matter, how big or small it might be, is always appreciated. 1. Introducing our 5th and final Mentor Leader: Fernando Torres The entire month of September, the MLT and I met and discussed possible candidates that we might want to bring in for an interview. We ultimately decided that Senior Fernando Torres, should be the one to take over the responsibilities of the class. Fernando was interviewed by my other Mentor Leaders Fantasia, Naisett, Viviana and Joe, and I simply observed as they asked him questions over who he is as a student, as an athl...

Welcome back to the YESS Institute at West Leadership Academy. I am delighted to once again be able to write my blogs about the work my Mentor Leadership Team and I are doing in our brand new room here at West Leadership Academy. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Carlos Villagrana-Juarez and I am a proud West Cowboy graduate, Class of 2012. I am also a proud University of Denver graduate, Class of 2016, and I am also a former student of the program. I am immensely involved in the school by coaching high school football and also, our feeder program, the Jr. Cowboy League middle school football team. In other words, Orange and Black run through my veins.  A true Cowboy to the heart.  For those of you returning to the blog...Welcome back, and as always, thank you for supporting the program here at West. This is now my 3rd year with the organization, and it has been a journey to get to this point in my life. That being said, there is no othe...

Good Morning West Community, Another year, come and gone. We have found ourselves at the parting of the ways. This will be my last blog of the school year until August, so take a look at what we did the last two weeks of class. The past two weeks have been designated for my students to work on their final projects. For those of you who are curious about what we have been doing, the other blogs should fill you in as to what the class has been getting themselves into. The final project I have had my students work on these last two weeks is a powerpoint presentation of three drugs that the group has researched.  The students each needed to answer six essential questions about the drugs, which you will find below:  1. What the drug is  2. How they are used  3. How they affect the brain 4. Effects of use 5. Addiction factors 6. percentages of teen use The students had a list of these drugs to chose from: Alcohol Anabolic Steroids Bat...

Good Morning West Community, I want to start of by thanking those of you who are reading and keeping up with my class here at West Leadership. I truly appreciate the support I have received from all of you as we are finishing the school year. As I am writing this post, the classroom here at West Leadership Academy want to send out my deepest condolences to all of the students and families who attend the STEM School out in Douglas County for yet another senseless gun violence act in Colorado. I cannot imagine how this community is feeling right now, let alone how the family of the student, Kendrick Castillo, who was killed is feeling. This is a time we can all use to reevaluate what is important to us and at the end of the day, make sure we tell the ones closest to us that we truly appreciate them and value who they are. I have made a donation for Kendrick Castillo's funeral cost, I hope all of you join with me and do the same below. https://fundly.com/stem-star-hero-kendric...

Good Morning West Community, It was yet another wonderful week here at West Leadership Academy. I am happy to report that our students have finished their state-wide testing sessions, and for the most part, I can report that although students get testing anxiety, the adults in the building also felt some sort of anxiety for a variety of reasons. I think for the most part, we can all agree that we are happy and satisfied that our students pushed through the testing and finished strong. As reported last week, the classroom here at WLA started a new unit, the war on drugs. For context purposes, let me explain how my 5 sections work with each other. 2 out of my 5 sections are simply upperclassmen, meaning they are high schoolers. However, my other 3 are a combination of middle schoolers and high schoolers. In other words, my classes have a very unique way of being introduced the material. My teaching for every class adapts to either providing less structure and more independent work...

Good afternoon West Community, I am happy to report back to all of you who have kept in touch with my class here at West Leadership Academy. I want to start off by saying how much I appreciate all of the support I have received these past couple of months here at West, specifically those who have taken time to read what we have done here and taken an interest on how they can help join in on the conversation to build our students into responsible young adults. That being said, last week marked the end of Unit II here in class, Healthy Relationships. A brief summary of what our final project was about can be seen below: 1. An identity mask, whose purpose is for students to decorate with key identifying traits as to the person they are in public. In other words, who they are to the people out in public. On the inside, the students have been instructed to decorate their masks with the identity they hide from public, specifically ideas and constructs that might be holding them back. ...

Good morning West Community! Spring is finally here. The atmosphere has changed, and with these big changes comes a realization that it is crunch time here at West Leadership Academy. The majority of our students are undergoing statewide testing. If you are not familiar with testing anxiety, let me tell you all, IT IS REAL. Speaking from personal experience, I too underwent testing anxiety -- not necessarily in k-12 schools. Rather, in college exams. Some of our students do not know how to express themselves when they do undergo anxiety, and some start to show some defiant behaviors that undermine their abilities to test. Our staff here at WLA is equipped to support students if they do experience these anxiety attacks, as we fully work with them to try their best for these exams. That being said, the last thing I am going to do with my students is bombard them with new material to learn. Instead, my students started to finish their masks, and I gotta tell you, they look AMAZING. ...