La Jolla High School Students Advance in the BioMed Pathway Program

 

BioMed Pathway pic

BioMed Pathway
Image: lajollalight.com

An experienced educator and administrator in San Diego, Chuck Podhorsky has earned a number of awards over the course of his career, including the Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award and recognition in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. Chuck Podhorsky leverages his experience to serve as principal of La Jolla High School, which participates in the BioMed Pathway program.

The BioMed Pathway program engages students in four years of learning in various areas of medical science. At La Jolla High School, students in the first cohort have advanced to the last year of the program. The program begins with a foundational course, Principles of Biomed Science, during which students work with an autopsy case study throughout the year to determine the cause of death.

Students in the BioMed Pathway program move on to Human Body Systems in year two. In this course, they conduct other case studies and learn how to dissect and examine various organs. In year three, students take Medical Intervention and learn how to diagnose medical conditions and explore a variety of tests and therapies.

The final course of the program, Biomedical Innovations, engages students in research projects during the first half of the year and gives them the opportunity to participate in off-campus lab internships during the second half. Overall, the program exposes students to the diversity of careers which can be found throughout the medical field.

A Look at UCLA’s Educational Leadership Program

 

UCLA pic

UCLA
Image: UCLA.edu

Since 2014, Chuck Podhorsky has served as principal of La Jolla High School in San Diego. A lifetime member of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society, Chuck Podhorsky holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from the University of California at San Diego and San Diego State University, respectively. He later continued his studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he earned a doctorate in educational leadership.

Launched in 1993, UCLA’s Educational Leadership Program (ELP) prepares educators for leadership positions at all levels of education. Since its founding, over 450 educators have graduated from the program. ELP alumni have gone on to serve as public and independent school principals, college and university administrators, and public policy thought leaders.

A three-year doctorate program, the ELP consists of 19 courses and a capstone leadership seminar. The program includes courses in educational management, research methods and design, writing and inquiry, and school culture and structure. Students are also required to complete directed field experience and a dissertation.

To be accepted into UCLA’s ELP program, applicants must be currently employed in education and possess a minimum of five years of full-time professional experience. Applicants must also demonstrate strong communication and leadership skills and meet program requirements related to previous GPA and GRE scores.

Hoover Website and Daily Bulletin

Thanks so much for all your amazing work on the Hoover Website and Daily bulletin. This is such an important communication tool for our staff and Hoover community. It is really looking fantastic!!! I can’t thank you all enough for making our dream a reality in this area.

 

http://www.sandi.net/Page/29355

 

 

 

Hoover Staff – I’ll continue my work with my Student Leadership Team  as we reach out to all of our Hoover Alumni and community via Blog, Twitter and Facebook. Also, I am reaching my goal of getting emails turned in 48hrs or less –yeah!!! I continue to appreciate the face-to-face communication method at lunch, in the classrooms and walking around campus (much more relaxing and fun).

 

https://cpodhorsky.edublogs.org/

 

http://twitter.com/DrP_HooverHigh

 

Cheers,

 

Chuck 🙂

September 23, 2011 — Amazing Week at Hoover High !!!

What an amazing week at Hoover High  School !!!

 

Thursday -We had a wonderful Open House. This is always such a special time of the year for our Hoover Families to come together. We started off in the big gym to welcome all the parents and students. Of course, there were performances by our inspiring Drum Line and Cheerleaders. I can’t even tell you how much I love the sound of Cheerleader stomps and the drum line resonating thought our historic Hoover gym. Of course it is hard not to be inspired with all of the pictures of great the Hoover Alumni—including Ted Williams hanging high on the wall of this 80 years old landmark.

 

Friday – We had a rally in the Big Gym at lunch with more students than I have ever seen for a lunchtime rally—700+ students!!!  Watch out Hoover community, our students are catching Cardinal Fever and showing their school pride. This is absolutely what the High School Experience is all about.

 

Hoover Students and families:

Amazing Facts about Hoover –Did you know…

  • Hoover High has increased 219 point on our State accountability API measure (10 year gain).  Hoover has had the largest in San Diego Unified School District School District  (more than La Jolla High, Scripps Ranch High, Serra High, Kearney Construction High and Crawford). Are we proud? YES WE ARE!!!

 

  • 37 point API growth (this past year) is one of the largest in San Diego Unified

 

  • Hoover High is the only high school in San Diego Unified School District with guaranteed admission via College Avenue Compact to SDSU —this is all for our Hoover students and families

 

  • Last year alone –Hoover High increased our graduation rate +5% (last year)

  

  • We have a NEW FACES Medical Academy Program with internships to all areas of the Children’s Hospital –including surgical rotations

 

  • Our Hoover Academy of Information and Technology (AOIT)- has a partnership with Qualcomm and is a Model Academy for the State of California

 

  • Over 400 student are part of our AVID academy and receive daily support about college study skills, applications and financial aid—our AVID is also a model program for San Diego County

 

  • Hoover High has a Comprehensive Community Health Center (on the Hoover campus) with 2 nurses, 2 full time therapists and even a dental clinic

 

  • We have a fully staffed Parents Center with social workers available to parents all day (5 days per week)

  

  • Our Hoover Cluster meets each moth with all Cluster Elementary, Middle and High schools.  Each month all of these amazing partners (Parents, Teachers, Students, Administrators, Community Business leaders) focus on student success and shared decision-making.

 

  • Each year we give away over $800,000 to our graduating seniors. Our Hoover students go off to places like UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UCSD, SDSU, UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, Brown University–just to name a few

We are incredibly Proud at Hoover of our Cardinal Spirit! And academic growth!!!

  

Are we Proud at Hoover—YOU BET WE ARE !!!

 

 

I wish you a fantastic School Year,

 

-Chuck Podhorsky 🙂

Chuck Podhorsky, Ed. D.

Principal – Hoover High School

Phone: 619-283-6281 x2104

Fax: 619-280-5837

 

Hoover High School (Future Distinguished School)–

Doing “Whatever It Takes” to help all students succeed!!!

 

cpodhorsky@sandi.net

 

http://lessonstudy.net/

Amazing Thanksgiving break and continued reflection …

Hoover Staff:

I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving break and enjoyed some well deserved rest and relaxation. Our family was in NY and had a very nice time.

We have three more weeks until winter break ….yeah !!!  Seriously, you all are doing an amazing job at supporting all of our Hoover students in wonderful ways  this year. I will continue to share all the great data as it comes out. We will also continue more in-depth data analysis at our ILT, SSC, ELA, Math, AOIT Team meetings, Governance and staff meetings.

As we always constantly reflect on our practice, we will be making some school wide modifications (after the Thanksgiving break) to continue supporting your work in the classroom and raise the bar for our students. Here are a few of my focus areas as we come back:

  1. We will be implementing our Attendance Intervention Council (starting immediately). This team will meet with the families of our most habitually tardy/truant students. We showed great growth last year with this plan and look forward to having in-depth conversations with the families about supporting a culture of success at Hoover.
  1. While the numbers of 1st period tardy student continue to decline, it is not good enough. We have implementing several other consequences for habitually showing up tardy to school. These students will be assigned lunch detention and/or after school detention. Habitual tardiness and truants will be assigned Sat School. These students will be getting daily wakeup calls (from me) and get a ride to attend Saturday school.
  1. Embedded Support tardiness: we will be automatically locking these tardy student out and will automatically assign them same day lunch detention and well as develop a plan for support.

 

  1. The district auto dialer calls going home to inform parents of late or truant issues will become much more directive. It is critical that parents know what the implications for missing class are. All of our Hoover students now have way too much loose –with our College Avenue Compact, it is critical for our families and communities know what is at stake.

 

  1. Celebrations: We will continue to get better at celebrating student success. Last week we passed out the iPods and other prizes to student who represent the finest at Hoover. Please continue to share ideas you have in this area.

***I am a strong believer that we need to do both at 110% if we are truly change the Culture of Success !!!

Also, I have made some modification to our Hoover Principal Blog to help support some professional reading and continued professional dialogue. I have also added an area for staff resources and these should be up in the next few days. I believe that you will enjoy these first few articles posted.

  1. Chuck Podhorsky – Hoover High Principal’s Blog:

https://cpodhorsky.edublogs.org/

As you know, we also have a twitter account to help keep our student, parents and community informed. Please feel free to post this information for all you students and families.

  1. 2.     Twitter -Hoover High School@DrP_HooverHigh

http://twitter.com/DrP_HooverHigh

 

 

  1. 3.     Hoover High Website (Teacher site- Chuck’s Site)

http://www.sandi.net/78832099162456633/site/default.asp

  1. Surveymonkey – we utilize this tool on a regular basis to help get feedback and make mid course modifications as we continue to reflect and do the best job we can for our students. This current survey will continue to remain open and we will discuss the confidential result at our public forums. Please share these links with students and families. We will also be bringing some students in to get a better voice form them –regarding ways to build a Culture of Success.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Hoover_High_6_week_check_in_2010

Cheers,

Chuck 🙂

Chuck Podhorsky, Ed. D.

Principal – Hoover High School

Phone: 619-283-6281 x2104

Fax: 619-280-5837

Hoover High School (Future Distinguished School)–

Doing “Whatever It Takes” to help all students succeed!!!

cpodhorsky@sandi.net

http://lessonstudy.net/