Message from the Principal

Dear Bret Harte Community, 

I hope this message finds you all in great health and high spirits as we head into the holiday season!  We've made great strides and I am so proud of all of the hard work, creativity, and diligence that our Bret Harte scholars are exhibiting this academic year.  We are well on our way to continued significant academic achievement and are experiencing another year of joyful learning.  As many of you know, Bret Harte was recently awarded a sizable grant to create and foster a community school.  One of the foundations of a thriving community school surrounds engaging and empowering our families.  To that end, I'm excited to share that our family partnership teams have really taken off.  Each month, our African American Parent Advisory Council (AAPAC), English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC), Parent/Teacher Organization (PTO), and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Affinity Group come together and discuss how we can further inclusivity and empowerment of our rich diversity around the school community.  I'd like to highlight our Community School Coordinator, Karla Zambrano-Armijos.  Karla has been working collaboratively with staff and families to promote and support our family partnerships.  Many of you remember that Karla was an integral part of our Early Education team for the past near-decade, a period that featured our stand-alone Pre-School merging with the TK-5 program to formulate one streamlined Pre-K/TK-5 elementary school campus.  We are one Bret Harte School with a strong P-5 continuum giving us the opportunity to send our scholars to middle school thriving.  The Community School model will afford us tremendous opportunities moving forward and I'm thrilled that Karla is leading this charge.  

The 2024-25 school-year is in full swing and so I'd like to take a minute to gently remind families to keep our Healthy School Guidelines in mind when working with teachers on celebrations. Finally, our daily Morning Assembly begins at 8:30am on the soccer field.  As always, we honor students celebrating birthdays during the week each Monday.  Mr. Kent, our amazing daytime custodian, awards the Golden Trashcan to the cleanest classroom in the building each Tuesday.  Wednesdays now feature Lexia awards for students making at least one level of growth in this language arts program, one that supports our new district-adopted curriculum, Into Reading.  Thursdays will now begin with our awarding of the Golden Clock to the classroom showing the greatest growth in attendance and, on Fridays, will will keep the momentum rolling with our Citizenship Awards for students who exemplify our "Three B's," being safe, respectful, and responsible. 

Thank you SO much sending your scholars to school on time each and every day on time, by 8:40am!

Best wishes always, 

Jeremy Hilinski, Ed.D.