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Principal's Message

August 24, 2018

Dear FHS Community,

Welcome to the 2018-2019 school year. Hopefully your students and families have had a good start to the school year. This year we started the year with 2,080 students and 12 new classrooms! After the first week of classes, staff and students are already settling into the rhythm of the school year.

A couple of items of note as we start the year:

Back to School Night: Thursday, September 6 (6 p.m. to 9 p.m.). More info will follow, please save the date

Changes in the Administrative Team – At the end of the last school year, Assistant Principal Noe Ochoa and Dean of Students Jay Lin, relocated out of the area with their families. To fill their positions, we made the following changes:

  • Sydney Fernandez was promoted from her role as a Dean of Students to Assistant Principal.  She is very familiar with the work of the school and she is more than ready to make this change in position.
  • Chris Moore was hired to fill one of the dean positions. Chris comes with experience as a teacher and administrator both in and out of our district.  With the Fremont Union High School District, Chris has worked as a special education teacher at Cupertino High School and as a Dean of Students at Homestead High School. We are very excited to have Chris and his wealth of experience join our team.

George Bechara has moved from his science teaching position at Homestead to take over the second Dean of Students position with us. At Homestead, George was well regarded as a quality teacher who built strong relationships with his students. He is ready to make the transition to administration and continue the positive work in a new role.

Construction Continues: The work on our new classroom and student services building is making great progress. We were able to start the year with 12 classrooms on the second floor open and ready for use. So far both staff and students are enjoying the new rooms. The work on this building will continue and is expected to be completed to allow for a complete occupancy by the start of the second semester. Once done, this project will provide us with a total of 25 new classrooms (including 4 new science labs) as well as housing all of our administrative offices and career center.

New Bell Schedule & the End of OCP (open campus privilege): The biggest change this year is our new district bell schedule. This year our district moved to common bell schedules across the district. Three of the schools will be on 4-day blocks (CHS, FHS & HHS) and two schools will have 2 days of block each week (LHS & MVHS). This new schedule offers many benefits to staff and students, the primary one being a later start time for all. With the new schedule the earliest any class will start will be 8 a.m. – 25 minutes later than our previous start time. With the new schedule we will also have 3 days of embedded Flex Time each week and we will no longer have Friday morning office hours. The change in schedule also impacted when lunch falls each day. Given that lunch is now later, a couple days a week the only class after lunch is 7th block, which the majority of students have as an open study period. This change along with other logistical challenges led to the decision to return to the regular open campus at lunch that is in place at the other district schools. You can view and download a copy of the new bell schedule on the Bell Schedule webpage. 

Over the course of the year, there will be lots of events taking place and information coming from the school.  One of the best ways to ensure that you are receiving all information from the school is by making sure that we have your correct e-mail address. FHS and the Fremont Union High School District continue to go more paperless in our communications so the majority of the information that we send home will be sent electronically. Please make sure that we have an email address for you and, if you change it at any point, please notify the school so we can update it or you can also do it yourself through the Infinite Campus Portal.

Included with this letter is a listing of some additional information that we hope will be helpful for you. 

Here’s to a great school year! We look forward to working with your students and with you throughout the school year.

Sincerely,

Bryan Emmert

Principal

Fremont High School – Information for Students & Families

Parent Communication & Online Access

By using our online systems, you will have access to your student’s report cards, daily attendance information, among other things. If you haven’t done so already, please make sure that you have created your accounts in both School Loop and Infinite Campus. If you haven’t created your accounts and need help to do so, please contact Lorena Moreno at (408) 522-2412.

Parking & Student Drop Off

Due to construction, we have lost access to the Fremont Avenue drop-off.  Because of this, it is even more important for people to work together to keep things safe and orderly.  The following things will keep all of us (students, families and staff) safer, in compliance with the traffic laws and allow for much smoother flow in and around the campus parking lots. When you come to FHS, please help us keep traffic moving by doing the following:

  • Please do not drop off your students on the street or in the bus cutouts for either Sunnyvale-Saratoga or Fremont Avenue. This is both unsafe and illegal. When dropping off students, enter one of our parking lots.
  • To ensure the safety of all students when you enter our parking lots, please pull up as far as traffic will allow. This will allow cars to pull in behind you and not block traffic in the street.
  • When dropping off or picking up your student in the Sunnyvale-Saratoga lot, pull up all the way to the student drop off near the gym. Do not drop off in the pool lane to the north exit (the first left after you enter) because this will congest the traffic behind you. Once students are dropped off or picked up, cars can then use either the north or south exit, depending on which lane you are in.
  • Students should have their belongings ready to grab so that when the car stops they can exit the vehicle quickly.  Many times cars stop and it takes quite a bit of time for students to gather up all of their belongings and exit the vehicle. This will slow down traffic behind you.
  • During the school day, do not park in any of the lots without the proper parking permits: staff for staff spaces, students for student spaces, pool for pool spaces or temporary permits from the office for the visitor spaces.  Parking in these spaces without the correct permits puts you at risk for having your car towed or for receiving a parking ticket from Sunnyvale Public Safety officers.
  • When waiting to pick up your student after school, once traffic has subsided a bit and parking spots open up, please pull into a parking spot and wait.  Eliminating cars waiting in the lanes of traffic helps to make pedestrian traffic in the lots much safer because there are fewer cars to walk around.  Please remember that you should not park in spots labeled for the pool without one of their permits until after 5:00 pm.
  • These are all things that will keep us (students, families and staff) safer, in compliance with the traffic laws and allow for much smoother flow in and around the campus parking lots.

Flex Time

What is Flex Time?

  • Flex Time is a tool students use to support and enrich their learning.
  • Flex Time is a class period when students visit a chosen class to seek help with struggles or expand on interests.
  • Flex Time is a 35-minute period on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for students to meet with teachers, guidance counselors, and other FHS staff.

Advantages of Flex Time?

  • Busy schedules (sports, clubs, jobs, and other responsibilities) make it difficult for many students to find time to meet with teachers.
  • Flex Time provides a chance for all students to:
    • Get extra help
    • Further their learning on topics of interest
    • Work with peers on class projects
    • Seek help with life skills (e.g., job and college applications, community service)
    • Get ahead on homework assignments
    • And so much more!

Through Flex Time, students will learn how to manage their time, advocate for their learning and interests, and become more independent.

 

Flex Time Expectations

It is mandatory that all students are:

  • Present in a classroom or other space used for Flex Time
  • On-time
  • Ready to work – Come prepared with questions, materials, and a good attitude
  • Engaged in academic work the whole time
  • Present for appointments scheduled by teachers, counselors, or other FHS staff.

Where do students go during Flex Time?

  • Sometimes teachers or others will schedule appointments for students.
  • Most of the time, students will be in charge of scheduling their own time.  The can log-on to the Flex Time website to create appointments for themselves.
  • If students aren’t scheduled for an appointment, they should make an appointment to work in a teacher’s classroom.
  • Sometimes specific teachers won’t be available for appointments because they will be leading specific Flex Time workshops (e.g., review sessions, enrichment activities) - this adds to the importance of signing up with teachers in advance of the Flex Time days. Using one’s student ID number, students can sign up for their appointments at the Flex Time website.

You can find more information (FAQ’s, presentations, etc.) about Flex Time as well as a link to the Flex Time application on our school’s webpage.

Monthly FHS Newsletters

The updates share information about all upcoming important school dates, holidays and parent meetings, all home athletic games per sport, theatre plays and events, and all musical performances from our amazing bands and choirs. We also include the live link to The Phoenix, the student run newspaper on campus. You will be receiving this each month via School Loop e-mail.  

 

School Support Groups

One of the ways that we are able to stay successful as a school is through the support of our parents and our various parent groups.  If you haven’t joined any of these groups, please consider doing so.  Not only is it a great way to support our school, it can also be a great way for you to connect to the school and to parents of your student’s friends.  Our school wide groups include:

 

FHS PTSA (Parent Teacher Student Association): I would encourage all families to join PTSA because this is a group that supports the whole school. The PTSA works with the school to help enhance what we can offer students.  Through their efforts, they have supported the school with such things as volunteers at events, monetary support for teacher classroom needs, political advocacy in the larger community, developing and running an SAT prep class, just to name a few. These things would not be possible with broad support from our families. Donate to the PTSA. 

 

FHS Los Padres: Los Padres is a group that meets once a month to discuss school related topics. All meeting are conducted in Spanish and they try to cover as many guidance, community and general topics as possible. They also host some social gatherings, such as potlucks and cultural events, to help build community. The objective of Los Padres is: "To keep parents informed about what is going on at Fremont and to give truthful information about the school.”

 

Athletic Boosters: This group supports all of our athletic programs across the campus. They help to raise funds to support the needs of all teams. Even if you don’t have an athlete, volunteering to work at the football snack shack has become a fun event for many parents! The Athletic Boosters also sell a range of FHS spirit wear so that you can show your FHS pride!  

 

FUHS Foundation:  While this is not a school-specific group, they do support the needs of our whole campus.  The district foundation raises money to support programs at all 5 schools in the district. There are several other support groups for individual programs across our campus. Regardless of what activities your student(s) participate in, there are groups that you can support!