Principal’s Message

November 23, 2004

Dear Parents,

I am just home from watching our own MHS Sharks Girl’s Tennis team win their second consecutive CIF Championship. It was an exciting and nerve-racking match where each game won by each player literally made the difference between winning and losing. It was truly a team effort and “The Shark Attack” kept their cool and won games when it really counted. At the end of the match the Sharks were tied with the Fairmont Prep Huskies with each team winning 9 matches each. The Sharks secured the victory by winning 75 games to the Huskies 72 games. I was honored to present the team with their CIF Championship plaque at the end of the match. Congratulations to all the team members Nina Farag, Alex Hogestyn, Lisa-Marie Kohrs, Jessica Levine, Chelsea Mosser, Allison Sarmiento, Dalya Perelman, Brittany Saul, Jennifer Sol, Kelly Stewart and Casey Zweig. Of course the team’s hard fought victory could not have without the support from our outstanding coaches John McCambell, Bruce Young and Chris Reutinger.

The entire Malibu community shares in the tennis team’s victory. It is your contributions to The Shark Fund that supports MHS athletics and our successful fall season would not have been without your donations. Boy’s water polo, football, girl’s tennis, and members of the girl’s cross country team all made playoffs. Also, our girl’s volleyball team made a good showing in league and non-league play. Combined with the volunteer efforts of our Athletic Boosters, your donations make it possible for us to run a high quality program. Parents and community members have made it possible for us to have night football games, purchased uniforms, secured transportation to events, bought scoreboards and equipment, and enabled us to have an athletic trainer. Overall, interest in athletics is up as more students are trying out for athletic teams than any time before. Nearly 300 students have tried out for fall and winter sports. As a result, school spirit is improving and there is tremendous positive energy generated that translates into strengthened connections to school. Whether a parent, fan, or donor I thank each and every person who makes it possible for us to provide our students with a great athletic program. Lastly, I cannot forget to thank the faculty and staff who give their time and support either by being a coach, fan or teacher who makes sure that our athletes also achieve as students. Thank you for your hard work and dedication.

The school year is passing quickly. As we approach a well-deserved winter break, I look forward to the opportunity to be with family and friends, and welcome some quiet time to catch up on my reading. In putting together my winter break reading list, I remind myself how important it is that we teach our students to become effective readers. The ability to understand and appreciate the written word is absolutely critical to success as a student. Learning to read is an on-going process. Starting with phonemic awareness and decoding, students are taught how to articulate the written word. We move to helping students to comprehend what they read. Learning to read does not stop once a student can demonstrate they can comprehend a text. We continue the process by asking students to make sense of fiction and non-fiction, we ask them to read technical materials, and introduce them to many different forms of text that include the internet, newspapers and magazines, poetry and plays, historical documents and our written messages to our students. We expand our students’ abilities by asking them to appreciate the beauty of the written word and ask students to retain in their memory a history of their own reading to be synthesized in future work. Students need to become critical readers who make can decide the credibility of what they’re reading and, when necessary, the challenge what authors put forth.

Learning to be a successful reader is a lifelong process. Unfortunately, I fear, that despite the daily expansion of information, and specifically the written word, that our students’ read less today than they have ever read before. At MHS we challenge all students to read 25 books per year. Our Bookshark program is designed to encourage students to always have a book to read and is set up to check their progress throughout the year. We need your help. Make sure that your student has access to books that interest them, talk with them about what they are reading, and talk to them about what you are reading. Introduce them to books that meant something to you – a classic is always a classic. Help them carve out space and time to read. Students sometimes mistakenly think that they need to dedicate long periods of time to read. Frequently reading 10 or 15 minutes at a time can be very effective. I often approach students who are waiting for rides or a friend and talk to them about what they are reading. Encourage them, as I do, that we do too much waiting in life and waiting for something to happen is a perfect time to read a page or two. Have students balance computer, television, and music time with reading time. We are each responsible for helping our students become better readers. Pick up a book yourself and model for your student what you hope they will do.

As for myself, I am currently reading Jim Crow’s Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision by Peter Irons. I chose this book because I recently re-read the U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education and wanted to tap into some of the recent scholarship written to honor the 50^th Anniversary of this decision. Over the winter break I will read It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. He is one of my favorite authors and I try to read one of his books every year. I find it fascinating that I can connect the present day with work published in the first half of the 20^th Century.

Earlier I wrote about how much your contributions to The Shark Fund have benefited our athletic program. You generosity is appreciated. We have not met our goal of having 100% of our families contribute, yet I assure you that 100% of our students are benefiting from those who have donated. It is not too late to send your tax-deductible donation to The Shark Fund. The State’s budget picture is not improving and there are many needs to be filled. All of our students deserve the best education we can provide. We need your help in fulfilling our needs. Unfortunately, state allocations do not come close to funding the quality programs we want for our students, but you can help by making sure you have contributed to The Shark Fund. Donor cards can be downloaded from the Fund’s website at www.thesharkfund.org.

Watching the middle school play and the music program’s Cabaret show gave me a taste of the talents of our students. We have several more opportunities to see our students shine. The HS play, Lend Me a Tenor, starts on Thursday, December 2. There are choir, band and orchestra performances on December 6, 13 and 14 respectively. On December 16, MHS will host a blood drive (parents may donate) and the Film Club will host a Friday night event on December 10 at 7:00 p.m. Our winter sports season gets started in December. I encourage parents to come out and catch one of these events as they are always enjoyable and it reminds us that our students do much to make us proud and to represent MHS well.

I wish each of you a restful, safe and enjoyable winter break. Find reasons to celebrate with family and friends and be thankful for all that you have and all that is possible.