Congratulations Tracie

It's been a big year of honors for Alvarado's principal, Tracie Noriega. She was honored by the Union City Human Relations Commission on Oct 24 with a 2012 Make a Difference in the Community Award for her commitment to the youth. She is the Athletic Director for the Christian Youth Organization and Principal of Alvarado Elementary School. Her accomplishments include Girls Basketball Coordinator for St. Anne CYO since 1997, Southern Alameda County CYO Girls Sports League Secretary since 2009, plus teacher and administrator for the New Haven Unified School District since 1996.

A lovely thank you to Mrs. Noriega from the students, staff, and teachers at each grade level.

On Jan 7th, 2012 Tracie announced to the staff that she will be leaving Alvarado on Jan. 28th.  According to Kari McVeigh, Tracie will be the Assessment Coordinator for New Haven School District's new grant program, Race to the Top, pending Board of Education approval.

Marcus Lam will be the new interim principal at AE. The Superintendent also announced that Lisa Metzinger, principal of Kitayama Elementary, will oversee grant programs at all schools.

Zoe, Forever In Our Hearts

Zoe Inciong was a beautful 16 year old Logan High School student who fought against cancer with all her might. Her aunt,Tracie Noriega, at Zoe's recent 16th birthday called her the "Ultimate Warrior". Her friends and family at Alvarado joined her in that fight. Hearts are broken.

A Fine Fine Teacher Retires

Penny Johnson leaves New Haven Unified School District after teaching for 41 years. Friends and family join to wish her well. Penny taught in Cabello and Alvarado Elementary. She taught kindergarten and grades 1, 2, 3, and 4. She came from a family of nurses. Her mom was a nurse. Her sister is a nurse, and her daughter is a nurse, but Penny broke the mold and decided to become a teacher.

A measure of Penny's skill was the attendance of three Principals, Louise Waters, Tracie Noriega, and Cheri Benafield, and one Assistant Principal, Donna Mana. Tracie, her principal at Alvarado Elementary, told the group how helpful Penny has always been with everything she has been asked to do.

Tracie Noriega

Alex Schwerin
thanks Penny
for her support.

Sukhy Gill reads from
a book for Penny
made by the third
grade teachers and
their students.

Keith Guernsey
shows a video of
students wishing
Penny the best.

Letty Munoz-Gonzalez
and Roxanne Ramirez
enjoy the festivities.

                Carol Engberg

                                 The party is ON!

                       ManYee Desandies
                       Cheri Benafield

                  Sukhy Gill and Cathy Hampton

                Chris Moriuchi, Sharon Chambers,
                                ManYee Desandies

Alvarado vs Eastin: Staff Softball

Alvarado staff enjoyed a game of softball with the Eastin staff. Both teams are shown here. Alvarado won 5 to 3 but Eastin is going to ask for a rematch as soon as possible.

The AE Team 2012

Belkys Blackwell, Dave Trier, Maureen Tecson, Letty Munoz-Gonzales, Mistee Hightower-Guzman (Assistant Principal), Greg Snelling, Pam Ruley, Jeff Pickering, Clinton Puckett, Tracie Noriega (Principal, kneeling), Jessica Nunes (kneeling)

Photo by Keith Guernsey
who was also on the AE Team.

Welcome to AE 2011

We are AES from Mr. Guernsey on Vimeo.

Good News, Bad News 2011-2012

Good News should always come first. Principal Tracie Noriega of Alvarado Elementary has been selected for a pilot test of National Board Certification for principals. She is among 240 principals selected from more than 700 applicants from 19 states. The program hopes to establish leadership research-based standards, identify effective school leaders, and elevate the profession. Congratulations Tracie!

Due to the state of California's budget problems, New Haven was required to lay off 70 teachers at the end of the 2011 school year. However, many of the Alvarado teachers who were laid off at the end of the year have been able to be rehired. Alvarado also added a part-time Assistant Principal, Mistee Hightower-Guzman, to the staff.

Mistee Hightower-Guzman

Pat Pedroze is the new Resource Specialist and Yurani Maycotte DePerez is the new office Assistant, For a while, the plan was to lay of the media specialists at the middle schools but that plan was ultimately scrapped.

Now for the Bad News. The instructional year has been reduced from 180 days to 175 days. Students will receive five fewer days of instruction this year. This means all employees will be making less money because they will be taking six unpaid furlough days. This also means that parents who have their children in day care may have to pay for more days in day care as their children will not be in school as many days. There are still fewer teachers, so the class size reduction ratio in grades kinder through third grade took a big hit. Class sizes will increase. Kindergarten will increase 25 to 1. First and second grades will be 25 to 1. Third grade will increase 30 to 1. Last year third grade was 25 to 1. There is no limit on class size for fourth or fifth grade.

The Good News is as the new year begins, your child's teacher will do everything possible to make the school experience the best for each child. The changes discussed above mean that the teacher will revamp their program to meet each child's needs academically and socially. This is a challenge Alvarado teachers are very capable of meeting.

Alvarado Conquers Mission Peak

Staff 2010 Summer Fun

Photo Courtesy of Vince Lindain

Click on the photo to enlarge

Staff photos or memories

Tracie Noriega Principal
Cheri Benafield Assistant Principal
2007-2008
Click on photo to enlarge.

Alvarado: 2007-2009 New Leadership & A New President

With some incoming students and staff from the Cabello closure, we now were a school of approximately 950 students. The former principal of Cabello, Tracie Noriega was our principal and Cheri Benafield was back as assistant principal for 2007-2008 and 2008-2009. Mrs. Noriega brought with her a group of supportive parents who started the Parent Teacher Club at Alvarado. We had not had a parent club for 18 years.

The kindergarten teachers and students now had all day kindergarten. Kindergarten students had previously been half day. This program was hugely successful with parents and was continued the following years.

Traci brought five teachers from Cabello to Alvarado. Two of those teachers Kimberly Pratt and Alisha Valine were connected to a NOAA science grant. Ms. Pratt wrote a B-WET grant "Bringing Science to Life for Students, Teachers and the Community" to provide watershed experiences for students, staff development for teachers and community awareness of our local neighborhood. In addition to classroom instruction on pollution awareness, tide pool organisms, research reporting, and marine mammals, whale-watching cruises were added as part of the curriculum. Science scores have gone up for students working with this grant. (Whale Watching with 5th Graders. Tri-City Voice. March 27, 2007)

Although our Superintendent, Dr. Jaurequi signed an extended contract until 2012, in the summer of 2008 she announced she was leaving New Haven. August 31, 2008 was her last day and Dave Pava, a long time New Haven principal, was Interim Superintendent.

Kari McVeigh

On December 1, 2008 Kari McVeigh came aboard as Superintendent of New Haven Unified School District. She also inherited a declining budget. In the summer of 2009 the California State Legislature made drastic cuts to the education budget. According to the TCV, McVeigh said the strategic plan, no matter how well crafted, is subject to change, but she would leave it in place with few changes. (Dynamism comes to New Haven. Tri-City Voice. Feb. 11, 2009) Since New Haven has great cultural and ethnic diversity, academic equity is an issue Ms. McVeigh plans to address. Not long after Kari McVeigh joined New Haven, Glynn Thompson, Chief Academic Officer, left the district. In June Wendy Gudalewicz was appointed by the Board of Education to serve as Chief Academic Officer of the New Haven Unified School District.

Wendy Gudalewicz

I cannot say anything about new leadership without mentioning our new President of the United States, Barack Obama. This election greatly affected the students. All students did not agree but all had an opinion. In my 17 years at this school, this was the first time the students became fully engaged in extensive conversations about elections and democracy because they were genuinely interested. "Just in Time Learning" took place for many students. Many but not all of our students were extremely excited about a person of color being inaugurated in 2009. It instilled in students the belief that all things really are possible in America.