Entries by jpmktg

1,395 Students, Siblings & Parents Enjoy our Annual Harvest Festivals

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Student enjoying face-painting at a Harvest Festival

1,395 Students, Siblings, and Parents Enjoy Annual Harvest Festivals

Each year we hold Harvest Festivals at the beginning of the school year to bring our home school students, families and staff together. These events offer the perfect opportunity to meet new friends, have fun, touch base with teachers and kick off the school year.

Our Harvest Festivals are not only fun for our younger students, but they also give our independent study and home school highschoolers the chance to participate in community service. The activity booths are managed by Visions students in grades 8-12 giving them the opportunity to meet other students in their area and clock some volunteer hours.

Photo Gallery

We captured tons of great photos at both festivals. Visit our Facebook page to view the full album and read more highlights below!

Harvest Festival By the Numbers

  • Two Festivals: Sacramento on October 13 and Pleasant Hill on October 20
  • 1,395 students, siblings and parents attended
  • 104 high school volunteers managed the booths
  • 24 activity booths including the following favorites: Ask the Professor featuring Director of Instruction Fred Lamora, Cake Walk, Face Painting, Fishing Booth, Lollipop Tree and Tile Painting Crafts.

Visions Gives Back

This year we organized a special booth that focused on giving back due to the recent hurricanes and wildfires. We created custom postcards for students and families to fill out thanking our local first responders. Over 93 cards were completed and will be distributed to local police and fire departments.

Our Sacramento Harvest Festival also included a drive to support the recent wildfire victims.

Visions Student Wins Hackathon Hosted by Hackingtons Code School

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Visions student, Xavier P, giving a thumbs up

Visions Student Wins Hackathon Hosted by Hackingtons Code School

Now more than ever, students are pursuing computer coding as a hobby and potential career opportunity. Hackingtons Code School for Kids teaches students how to build websites, code video games and participate in “hackathon” competitions. Visions homeschooler Xavier P. won third place for his video game design at a hackathon in Pleasant Hill!

Xavier created his game using Scratch a drag-and-drop coding platform developed by MIT University. Over 40 hackathon participants relied on their coding skills to build their games. No internet is allowed during the event so the final products are based entirely on what they’ve learned and their imaginations.

Programmer Profile

Xavier P.
6th grader Xavier learned coding at Hackingtons. He codes daily and hopes to work for Treyarch, a video game development company, in the future. His winning game, Shark Defense, earned him a trophy and bragging rights. 

Congratulations to Xavier for his impressive win!

Visions Teacher Inspires Others to Help Fire Victims

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Visions Teacher Inspires Others to Help Fire Victims

Visions Home School teacher, Christina Dejong, inspired the spirit of giving. The Dejong family previously lived in Santa Rosa, one of the communities recently affected by the wildfires. When she learned of the impact the fires had made she jumped into action working with her firefighter husband to collect donations.

One email and a Facebook post spurred those around her into action. In less than 48 hours, Christina received an overwhelming amount of donations from local fire stations, Creekside Church and Visions. Her husband’s firefighter union graciously donated U-Haul trucks to help move the items.

Their efforts even attracted the local news. KCRA, Fox40 and Capital Public Radio recognized the Dejong family’s hard work. 

Thank you to Christina and her family for organizing such a successful and inspiring donation drive.

Visions has also created a donation site with the Red Cross. Your donation will be delivered directly to those impacted by the wildfires in the many counties that need our help.

BNC K-12 Features Visions in Case Study

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Kid reading a book with a Visions bag next to her

BNC K-12 Features Visions in Case Study

Visions In Education is dedicated to improving our services for our home school students and families. Our homeschoolers receive a student budget each year to purchase curriculum, supplies and enrichment services. To provide a streamlined ordering system we have partnered with various curriculum vendors including BNC K-12.

BNC K-12 provides our students and families with many options to fit their diverse needs. Their online bookstore includes a wide array of titles, in various formats, for reduced prices. Visions home school families can place orders anytime, anywhere and have access to 24/7 customer service making the process simple and fast. Orders are shipped within one business day which means our students don’t have to wait to receive their new resources.

Read the case study here to learn more about our awesome partnership!

Visions Is Seeking Governing Board Members – 5 Positions Available

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Group of Business People Meeting with Speech Bubbles

Visions Is Seeking Governing Board Members – 5 Positions Available

Visions In Education (Visions) recently had our charter renewal petition approved by the San Juan Unified School District (SJUSD) Board of Education. The new charter will become effective on July 1, 2018. Some of the new changes in our charter will include that Visions will become a directly funded school and will be operated as a California nonprofit public benefit corporation.

This means that even though SJUSD will continue as Visions’ authorizing school district, Visions’ governing board will change from the SJUSD Board of Education to our school having its own governing board of directors. Visions’ charter has established that the school will have no less than five and no more than seven directors.

Visions Governing Board Member Recruitment

Visions is seeking new community members to serve on our governing board beginning in November.

There are five openings and we will continue accepting applications until all five are filled. Please forward or provide the below information to any community member (not a Visions parent or employee) who may be interested in serving a two or three-year term. Interested community members can fill out the form listed below. Thank you for supporting our school!

Congrats to our #VisionsFirstDay Photo Contest Winners!

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Congratulations Banner with gold stars on red background. Vector illustration for web design banner, poster or print card

Congrats to our #VisionsFirstDay Photo Contest Winners!

We’re so excited to announce the winners of our photo contest. We received over 130 submissions on Facebook and Instagram! View the full album here.

Thank you to all that participated! We loved seeing your creativity and excitement.

Our winners are:

  • Blake T. (TK)
  • Braydon A. (grade 3) & Madisen A. (grade 8)
  • Jianna D. (grade 9), Malachi D. (grade 7), Nya D. (grade 6), Ayja D. (grade 3)
  • Owen B. (grade 7)
  • Jason T. (grade 6)
  • Addison P. (K), Jayden P. (grade 8), Zackary P. (grade 6), Kaitlyn P. (grade 3)
  • Irina N. (grade 7), Lidia N. (grade 3), Yevgenia N. (grade 10), Marina N. (grade 9)
  • Dezianna S. (KN)
  • Austin C. (grade 4)
  • Mylee M. (grade 2), Miyah M. (grade 7)

Individual and family winners will receive a $25 gift card.

Welcome to the 2017/18 School Year

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Back to School 2017 Banner

Welcome to the 2017/18 School Year

As we kick off the new school year, we want to welcome our new and returning students, parents, teachers and staff. We look forward to partnering with you this year.

There are many exciting enhancements that we are rolling out this year including our new School Pathways student information system. Our teachers and staff have been working hard to build and master this new system that will streamline our services and provide conveniences to our students and families. As you ease into the new year please know that your teacher is there to help you with any questions you may have about School Pathways.

We’ve also reorganized the Wire and redesigned the homepage to help you quickly find resources and support. We hope you’ll visit the “Announcements” section frequently and take a look at our weekly emails to learn about our latest news and upcoming events.

At Visions we are always striving to add additional benefits for our students’ learning experience. Our Home School families are starting the new school year with new services. We are proud to offer over 1,000 community partners for our homeschoolers and we’re hosting 10 Community Partner Fairs in the beginning of the year to connect students with services, Visions staff and other students.

Our Independent Study and University Prep students can also jump right into the school year by joining an upcoming college tour. We’re proud to offer our high school students many advantages including early community college funds and the opportunity to participate in our new Automotive program with American River College.

Also, don’t forget to post your #VisionsFirstDay photos on Facebook and Instagram to be entered in a gift card raffle! We look forward to seeing how you kick off the school year.

We wish you all an exciting start to this new year of learning, growing and having fun together! Thank you again for partnering with Visions In Education.

Sincerely,

Jody Graf
Executive Director

First Day of School is August 29!

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First Day of School Pics of Students

First Day of School is August 29!

The 2017/18 school year starts next Tuesday and we can’t wait to jump right in. To celebrate the new school year we’re holding a social media photo contest!

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram to see photos of our students on their first day of school. Students and families can submit their photos using the hashtag #VisionsFirstDay and be entered in a gift card raffle! (Participants must have a public account so we can see and share the photos.)

We hope all of our students and families have had a relaxing and enjoyable summer. We look forward to supporting you this school year!

Class of 2017 Graduation Highlights

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Class of 2017 Graduation Highlights

Congratulations to the class of 2017! We’re so proud of our recent graduates.

Words of Wisdom

“Graduates… your destiny is beckoning you. As you go off to a university, state or community college, trade school, workforce or the armed forces – wherever your path leads you, let it be a path with purpose,” said Visions In Education’s Executive Director Jody Graf at the ceremony. “Remember, purpose is not defined by big actions, it is measured in the small deeds that contribute to greater goodness, truth and beauty of life… in your life and others.”

Graduation by the Numbers

  • 783 graduating students in the class of 2017
  • 505 students participated in the commencement ceremony
  • 3,800+ attendees

Capture the Memories

  • Enjoy our Facebook album of over 200 photos from commencement
  • Watch our graduation slideshow on our YouTube channel
  • Share your grad photos with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter using #VisionsGrad

Graduation Flair

This year we added extra cords and medals for graduates to wear and celebrate their accomplishments:

  • Green cords represented students that participated in our Find Your Voice writing class offered in partnership with local nonprofit 916 Ink.
  • Our Success Through Education Mentoring (S.T.E.M.) students wore orange cords to symbolize their participation in our UC Davis mentoring program.
  • Yellow cords were worn by students with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or above and gold medals were given to those with a GPA of 4.0 or higher.
  • Additional medals were given to students that had earned the Seal of Biliteracy for mastering more than one language.

Thank you to the Board of Education, Visions office staff, teachers, advisory board, SJUSD administration, parents and students for making graduation day a fun and exciting celebration.

Visions Home School Student Sings in Six Languages

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Image of Tiara on the Steve Harvey Show

Visions Home School Student Sings in Six Languages

Tiara is a multi-lingual soprano singer, member of Mensa (the high IQ society) and a Visions In Education homeschooler! If that’s not impressive enough she has been a college student since she was seven, sung at Carnegie Hall twice and recently released her first album, “Winter Nightingale”.

Tiara appeared on the Steve Harvey show and performed “Ave Maria”. She blew the crowd away with her performance and witty banter with Steve during her interview. She explained that she has taken nine semesters of Spanish, Italian and French and she’s currently learning German. She chatted with Steve about how she enjoys singing in Italian the most and they entertained the audience by comparing accents. Watch her amazing performance here.

Tiara’s enrollment at Visions In Education has allowed her the flexibility to manage her education, attend college, travel, perfect her singing skills and record an album. All of this hard work has earned her recognition and praise across the country. Learn more about Tiara and her accomplishments on her Facebook page.