Principal's Message
Principal - Julie Yabumoto
Welcome to the 2018-2019 school year! We look forward to another exciting year for our students, staff and parents. Palms is committed to offering a well-rounded and rigorous education in a safe and supportive environment where our students will excel and achieve success!
As the Accelerated Learning Magnet school in ABC, our mission is to prepare ALL of our students for middle school, high school and beyond and to create a college and career ready culture at Palms. All classrooms participate in our “Adopt-a-College” campaign where college posters and decals decorate our walls, and students wear their college t-shirts. Our hope is to inspire every one of our students that their path to college starts here…that they have a spot saved in college! In order to help make college a reality, Palms is the first and only AVID Elementary school in the district. AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) is a college readiness system that prepares students for their academic future. Students learn through WICOR strategies (Writing to learn, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, Reading to Learn) for academic success. Instructional technology is also a huge component of our magnet program. All students attend our state of the art Technology/Media Lab and learn using iPads in the Accelerated Learning Lab. Students create a variety of digital media projects on these mobile devices. This year, all of our 1st- 2nd grade classrooms will participate in a 1:1 iPad Program, and 3rd-6th grade will participate in a 1:1 Chrome Book Program. These students will have access to a mobile device in their classroom EVERY DAY! Our teachers will participate in various professional learning opportunities to bring the latest and greatest in technology into our classrooms!
Not only do we want to focus on student achievement, we want Palms’ students to be excellent in character. We expect students to follow our “3-BE’s”: Be safe, Be respectful and Be responsible. We are currently in Year 4 of PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention & Supports) implementation, a framework to help refine our school-wide behavior plan and transform our school climate into one that is more positive and safe for all students. Palms is also a PeaceBuilder school; our students learn how to build peace at home, at school, and in their community. All students recite the Palms Pledge at our weekly Spirit Assemblies where we celebrate our Puma pride. “Today has been given to be fresh and new. I can learn from it or throw it away. I will choose to do my best in thoughts, words and actions. Today I will be a STAR! I will stop, think and act safely, respectfully and responsibly.”
We also recognize the vital role that our partnerships with parents and the community play in helping Palms be a successful school. Not only do we want our students to learn, we also want to provide our parents with learning opportunities. We will continue to have the Palms Parent University this year. This is a series of workshops for parents. Topics include: Common Core standards, Thinking Maps, Discipline/Positive Behavior, Technology, Health & Nutrition and AVID. Palms also has an extremely supportive PTA that sponsors various field trips, assemblies, family and movie nights, special activities like our annual Red Ribbon Week and Jog-A-Thon as well as classroom materials. We encourage all our parents to be involved with the PTA!
I look forward to a great school year!