Cali Calmécac Language Academy has had an eventful year full of fun, inspiration and new programs that benefit our students and staff. As a school we were privileged to open up to our community and be able to showcase some of our many accomplishments during our Open House on April 4.
Parents and community members were able to see the amazing academic, bilingual work that our students have completed this school year, a wide array of visual art that all of our different grade levels created and the new hip-hop dance club perform. Open House was also an opportunity to visit the dedicated teachers and staff that make Cali so unique and special.
Recently, Cali, along with the other schools in the district, has been the recipient of two major grants to fund more arts integration within our curriculum through visual and performing arts: the iAspire Arts Integration Project and the Dancers Unite program. Via these programs Cali hosts dance instructors from the community to teach all of our Kinder through second grade students.
Some of dance/movement classes are designed around open-ended creative movement activities which are foundational to all dance forms, while other classes focus on the hip-hop style of dancing. Our K-5 teachers are receiving extensive professional development in creating and implementing arts integrated units which complement our existing curriculum. Along with this professional development comes a substantial amount of new arts supplies for classrooms, iPads and arts applications for our students and with them the ability to connect students to a rigorous, bilingual curriculum through the visual and performing arts.
In partnership with the Cali PTA and the Rotary Club of Windsor, Cali has been awarded funds which have allowed us to open up an official after-school Robotics Club for our 4th through 8th grade students. The funds will allow the club to purchase needed supplies and allow them to participate in competitions such as the Rotary Robotics Rumble and the Sonoma County Robotics Challenge sponsored by the Sonoma County Office of Education.
Sharon Ferrer is the principal of the Cali Calmécac Language Academy.
