Lunch and other items

[prin...@sethigh.org]

Dear Students, Parents, and Guardians,

• How lunch works at SET
• How to reserve lunch
• IGNITE Peer Mentoring Program
• Quantum Computing Class Signup
• Retreats next week (Wed, Tue for 9th graders)
• LCAP Advisory Group meeting next Tue (4:30 PM)
• Board Meeting next Wed (4:30 PM)

How lunch works at SET

I am sure that many of you have heard that the State of California is now providing free lunch to all students through the National School Lunch Program.  It is required by law that all schools provide free lunch starting on July 1, 2022.  While I 100% support this initiative and have always advocated for free lunch for all, unfortunately we were caught by surprise by the announcement and are not currently a part of the Nation School Lunch Program (NSLP).  Let me explain.

We used to be part of NSLP, but the quality of the food that we could provide at the prices that were reimbursed by the NSLP was, to put it frankly, disgusting.  Students did not eat it.  Students did not want it.  Many of our students who were desperately hungry chose hunger instead of the food.  To solve this problem, we decided to provide our own lunches and to cover the cost for the students who qualified for Free and Reduced lunch out of the general fund.  The food was much better and our students who did not qualify for Free or Reduced Lunch happily paid for the food.  The cost to the school was worth it.

Unfortunately, we cannot sustain that same program if we are giving away free food to all students.  Because the food is so yummy, we know that most of our students will want it.  We do not have the budget to be able to pay for meals for all students without receiving reimbursement from the State.  Going forward, we will have to sign up for the NSLP by July 1, 2022, and I'm afraid that this will mean that the quality of our food may go back to what it was before.  We will try hard to find a vendor that provides good meals, though.  Hopefully now that the vendors will be guaranteed reimbursement on millions of meals per day, they will be able to increase the quality.

So, while we cannot provide free meals to all students this year, I do want to assure you that our policy has always been to never let a student go hungry.  We hope, though, that the students and families will not abuse the generous spirit of the school and oftentimes the personal contributions that all of our staff members make to student health and wellbeing.  We ask that the students who do not qualify for Free or Reduced Lunch continue to bring bag lunches or pay for the school lunch using the instructions that follow.  However, it will never be a problem if the student forgets their lunch.

Finally, since we purchase food for lunch ahead of time, all lunch reservations for the following week need to be made in advance.  We sometimes have extra food, though, so students should always ask a staff member if they forgot to reserve lunch or if they forget to bring lunch one day.  If a reservation is not made, however, there is no guarantee that we will have a meal for the student.  This is also true for the students who qualify for Free or Reduced Lunch.

How to reserve lunch

• All lunch reservations for the next week need to be made by 12:00 PM on Friday of the previous week  (this week, please make reservations by Monday)
• The menu for the next week will be available by Wednesday morning of the previous week
• Reservations are made in CoreCompetency by clicking on the Meal menu option at the top of the screen
• Reservations should normally only be made if the student has a positive credit.
  • You can add money to your account by giving cash or a check to Ms. Heath or Ms. Castro in the front office
  • Note that we are allowing students to have a negative balance for awhile until the parents and students are able to figure out how to navigate the payment process 
• Your account is deducted at the time that you make a reservation because we purchase food based off of the reservations.  We do this because the food will be thrown away if the student does not take it.  Someone has to pay for the cost of the wasted food!
  • If you accidentally reserve a meal when you know that you will not be at school, please talk to the Ms. Castro as soon as possible because she may be able to give the food to someone else and then credit your account

IGNITE Peer Mentoring Program

This is a message from Ms. Romero, the leader of the IGNITE:

IGNITE empowers the people who are best positioned to increase our ninth graders' school engagement and sense of belonging at school - their older peers - to make a change. Our mission is to increase the sense of belonging and school engagement of 9th graders and new-to-SET students and develop impactful leaders among upper class (tenth, eleventh, twelfth grade) students. IGNITE strives to accomplish this through one-on-one peer mentoring. It provides a space in which first-years can safely and comfortably talk with older peers who are similar to them about anything they would like to discuss. If you are interested in your child being a part of the IGNITE Peer Mentoring Program (as a Mentor or Mentee) please email Jessica Romero at jessica...@sethigh.org. 

Quantum Computing Class Signup

We have the opportunity this year for our students to take an independent study quantum computing class taught by university professors (MIT and Harvard) and industry professionals from IBM and QuBit.  Quantum Computing is a semi-theoretical, semi-real revolutionary computer technology that will one day transform the world.  It is pretty cool to have this material being taught in a way that makes it accessible to high school students. The pre-requisite for this class is Geometry.

This flyer provides more details.

If you are interested or would like more information, please come to my office to talk to me.  You will need to sign up by Wednesday, next week, so think about this over the weekend.

Retreats next week (Wed, Tue for 9th graders)

All of our students will be going on grade-level retreats next week.  You should have already received communication from the Advisory teachers who are planning these activities.  Wednesday is the day that most of our students will be out, but our 9th graders will start on Tuesday night.  We usually do an overnight with the 9th graders, but have decided that it is safer for the students to spend the night at home due to COVID-19.  The 9th graders will do all of the typical overnight activities until 9 PM on Tuesday night, will be picked up to sleep at home, and then will return to school on Wed morning to finish with the retreat activities.

All other grade levels will not be coming to school on that Wednesday and need to be dropped off directly at the field trip location.  We want our 9th graders to "own the school" for a day, so that is why we have all of the other grades out.  No non-ninth graders will be permitted to be on campus on Wednesday morning, so please do not drop students off here unless you have made prior arrangements with a SET High staff member.

LCAP Advisory Group meeting next Tue (4:30 PM)

The LCAP (Local Control Accountability Plan) Advisory Group, a group of parents and community members who help us decide our spending priorities for future years, will meet on Tuesday to discuss our priorities for spending this year's installment of COVID-19 funds called ESSR III.  You do not need to be a full member of the Advisory Group to attend.  Anyone is welcome to become a member and you do so just by regularly attending the meetings.  Normally this group starts meeting in January, but this year we need to meet early because of the ESSR III deadline.

The zoom link can be found here.

Board Meeting next Wed (4:30 PM)

All board meetings are open to the public and our students, parents and guardians are encouraged to attend.  The agenda will be posted here 72 hours in advance of the meeting and will be found here.  The zoom links can always be found on our calendar or on the agenda.  This month's meeting zoom link can be found here.