Extended Hours and Tutoring at the Library

Santa Ana Unified Re-Ups City After-School Library Services

For the second year, Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) has entered into a cooperative agreement with the Santa Ana Public Library (SAPL) to provide library services at three school libraries after regular school hours, expanding services to area students, their families and community members beyond the city’s main branch location. The participating schools include Century High School (1401 S. Grand Ave.), Saddleback High School (2802 S. Flower St.) and Valley High School (1801 S. Greenville St.), with operating hours of 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday.

The Santa Ana Public Library bookmobile provides services at Valley High School, while the two other libraries house small collections of K-8th Grade books donated by SAPL for checkout by community members. All facilities provide students with a supervised environment where they have books, resources, research and reference materials and computers at their reach.

Expanded after-hour services will be offered through May 29, 2009. For more information about the city’s library services log on to www.santa-ana.org/library.

DO YOUR SENIOR EXIT PORTFOLIO WORK AT THE LIBRARY

All Centurions begin participation in the Senior Exit Portfolio process in their freshmen year. It begins with the Senior Exit Portfolio Guide. This informative booklet encourages students to begin saving research, major writing assignments, and class projects from the freshmen year through the senior year. The Senior Exit Portfolio Guide is updated each year and distributed to all underclassmen and seniors.

This student-focused process allows Centurions to reflect on their work, culminating in the demonstration of each student’s academic growth over four years. Nine projects will be selected by each Centurion to place in the student’s Senior Exit Portfolio. Students receive positive feedback on their final product from staff and community members. Students also practice the interview process for real-world application. The portfolio focuses on students’ strengths. It also helps students to begin a life-long process of reflection and service. Finally, the Senior Exit Portfolio connects student work to post-secondary goals.

There are two common obstacles to creating an excellent portfolio. The first is procrastination. It is very important to get started early. The completed portfolio should be a reflection of a long process—a few late nights. So, getting started as soon as possible avoids procrastination. Another common obstacle is not having enough work to include in the portfolio. The best way out of this one is for students to save their work. All freshmen, sophomores, and juniors should be careful to save important projects and papers. Teachers know which projects are important to save. Students simply need to pay attention to recommendations from their content area teachers.
It is very important for seniors to make sure they are managing their resources well so that the portfolio is completed in a timely manner. Waiting until the last moment will cause stress. The aim of the Senior Exit Portfolio Guide is to support all Centurions’ efforts to create outstanding portfolios.

CENTURIONS READ

LIBRARY HOSTS PEER COURT AT CENTURY

Peer Court returns to Century for its 14th consecutive year. For new staff and students, this is a community service program in which our students get to serve as "jurors" doling out punishment to teens from across the county. Run in conjunction with the Probation Department of Orange County, it seeks to give second chances to first time offenders while helping all students understand the consequences of their actions.
The dates scheduled for this year:
October 8th
November 19th
March 25th
May 7th.
All sessions will occur in our library (ISC) from 2:30 - 5:00. Student sign-ups are forthcoming as we get closer to the October session.