This Week: We will use our knowledge of exponents to tackle radicals and radical functions, which can be used to track decay rates in science or undo processes originally done with exponents.

 

CCSS Standards: HS.N-RN.A. The Real Number System: Extend the properties of exponents to rational exponents.

 

Due from Last Week: Properties of Exponents worksheet

This Week: We will be using properties of exponents and radicals (exponents in disguise!) to combine and simplify variables with exponents. This is a crucial step in using variables to model real-world scenarios that involve compounding growth or decay, such as population or disease spread.

 

CCSS Standard: HS.A-APR.A. Arithmetic with Polynomials & Rational Expressions: Perform arithmetic operations on polynomials.

 

Due from Last Week: Dragon's Den Presentation and Math

 

 

Hello, Wonderful Westgate Families!

I have an exciting announcement: our annual Hogwarts Day will be Friday of next week, October 27^th! Students can look forward to joining like-minded friends for a day of fun, food, and activities. Is your student a clever Ravenclaw or an ambitious Slytherin? A loyal Hufflepuff, or a daring Gryffindor? Students may join whichever group they feel most comfortable with for the day, and we encourage them to dress the part! If a student is unsure of their house or comfortable with any of the groups, we will find a place for them as well.

During the day, students will be engaging in Hogwarts-themed classes with their house (Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, etc), learning and competing to earn points towards the House Cup. Can they do well enough to usurp the reigning champion of Ravenclaw? Quidditch, a sport from the world of Harry Potter, will take place in the afternoon outdoors. Please see the attached slideshow for details!

Our schedule will be as follows:

8:00 – 8:45: Breakfast in the Great Hall (HS Commons) 

8:45 – 9:45: House Decorating

9:45– 10:45: Begin Class Rotations (2 classes) 

10:45 – 11:15: Quidditch Prep and House Time

11:15 – 12:15: Lunch

12:15 – 1:45: Class Rotations (3 classes) 

1:45 – 3:15ish: Quidditch! 

3:15: Ending Circle/Awarding of the House Cup 

Important: For our morning breakfast, we are requesting donations from any family who would like to contribute. We would be extremely grateful for anything you can donate – every little bit helps add to a meaningful start to the students’ day. Please follow the link below to find a SignUp Genius with items we need.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0C4BAEAE2EA7FA7-45349085-hogwarts

As always, thank you for being such an amazing part of our community and for allowing us to teach such incredible students. Even if your student is not a fan of the Hogwarts world, I hope they are looking forward to a day of activities and fun.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at [email protected].

This Week: Students will use Systems of Equations (SoE) to create business propositions for an item they develop. They will create functions for revenue and cost, then use SoE to predict the break-even point.

 

CCSS Standard: HS.F-BF.A. Building Functions: Build a function that models a relationship between two quantities.

 

Due from last week: Systems of Equations word problems

This Week: Students will be writing systems of equations problems for difference scenarios, then solving those equations using both substitution and elimination. This is all to prep us for our Dragon's Den project, which we should begin by the end of the week.

 

Due from last week: None

This Week: We will be learning to rearrange equations as we prepare to solve systems of equations problems (which often require rearranging to solve). You may hear your student refer to this as "literal equations."

 

Due from last week: Intro to Functions Quiz

This Week: We will be continuing to build our ability to solve multi-step equations. We will also examine the differences between expressions, equations, and functions.

 

Due from last week: None

Welcome back, Wonderful Westgate Families! I hope you are excited for the year to begin! 

We have quite a few beginning-of-year updates and reminders. Please take a moment to read through the email and reach out if you have questions. Take a close look at the schedule near the end to make sure your student is ready for the first two weeks. 

 

Back to School Night: This will take place this Friday, August 4^th (tomorrow) between 4:00 and 6:00 PM. The High School presentation will be down in the high school commons at 5:30. We will go over HS policies and procedures at that time. 

 

New Assistant Principal: I have the great honor of announcing our new assistant principal, Alexia Vasilopoulos! She has already done amazing things for the high school, and we are excited to work with her this upcoming school year. Come say hello at back to school night! 

 

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! We will be running mock interviews for Freshmen on Thursday, August 10th from roughly 9 to 11 AM and could use a hand! We need some community members willing to interview kids as if they were applying for a job. We will provide the questions (though feel free to add more), and volunteers will write notes or feedback to help the students in their future career hunts. Please reach out to myself or Alexia Vasilopoulos ([email protected]) if you would like to help. 

 

Front Range Community College (FRCC): FRCC will begin on Monday, August 21^st. Students will have an adjusted Westgate schedule for the first two weeks of school (see below). 

 

Schedule (first two weeks): 

 

• August 7^th – August 11^th: Freshmen (9^th grade) Orientation. Freshmen attend all five days. 10^th – 12^th grades may stay home. 

 

 

• August 14^th – 18^th: 9^th through 11^th grade students with FRCC classes will attend Westgate following their normal FRCC schedule (if they would leave Westgate at lunch for FRCC classes, they are done at Westgate for the day even though FRCC has not begun). The exception to this is a trip to the Art Museum on Thursday, August 17^th, when all HS students should attend the full day. 12^th grade students with FRCC classes will be here a few students at a time to take new CPR classes. All non-FRCC students will be here all week. Freshmen will also have a field trip to FRCC the morning of Wednesday, August 16th. A future email will have more details on both this and the art museum trip.

 

*Seniors: Watch for an email from Amy Schneider with your CPR training day. You only need to attend Monday, Thursday, and the day of your CPR training. Non-FRCC seniors will be here every day, though will miss normal classes the day of their training. 

 

School and High School Handbook: Please take a look at these with your student. The first link is for the whole-school handbook, and the second is for high school-specific information. We will go over policies at Back to School Night in more detail.

Whole School Handbook

HS Handbook