Dear Valley Oaks Parents:

In an effort to provide parents and students with quality mathematics program the mathematics department has made improvements in their instructional strategy.

Jenny Flessati, a mathematics teacher, is joining our staff. We welcome her experience and look forward to having her teach a few classes for our students. Jenny will be teaching basic mathematics, pre-algebra, consumer math, and algebra 1 this school year.

Another significant change to the mathematics curriculum will be in the Tuesday enrichment classes. In an effort to engage parents in the education process, we are asking parents to be involved on a daily basis.

Our focus, as teachers, in the Tuesday enrichment classes will be to state objectives that will be assessed, instruct and highlight key areas in each section, provide in class tutoring to help your student with problem areas, and assess your student through multiple methods, worksheets, in class exercises, projects, and traditional tests. After attending the Tuesday enrichment classes your student will come home with concepts that were covered in the chapter/section and will have the tools to tackle these concepts.

For great results, the parents and students should design a homework plan that will enable your student to master the covered material. For example, if your student understands the example problems covered in class, then completing only a few problems in every section would be necessary. However, if your student struggles with a particular concept then they might need to complete more or perhaps all of the problems in order to master the topic. Keep in mind that approximately ten problems, done correctly, is the minimum goal to master a particular concept.

This is where it can get exciting! As parents, if you would like to find other ways to have your students learn math concepts, then bring this to our attention. Projects, field trips, oral explanation, and math manipulatives are other great ways to learn mathematics. Students do not always have to do the odd problems from 1-100. It can get boring. As parents, if we can make it exciting then the students are more apt to learn.

Whatever method you and your student choose to master the skills, we would like each student to create a portfolio of work that the teacher will review each week. We would also like to invite you to attend Tuesday enrichment classes with your student. It is very powerful to learn right along with them.

I know this is nontraditional approach to mathematics. We are conditioned in mathematics to look at a few examples and then do 60 homework problems. If you have any questions about this new approach to mathematics, then please give us a call at (661) 636-4466 or you can email us at jevandernoor@kern.org. or jeflessati@kern.org. Thank you!

P.S. There will still be tutoring available by appointment this year, for those problems that are difficult to master.

Good luck and have a great year!

Jennifer Flessati

Jeff VanderNoor

Mathematics Department