Elk Hills School District

Don't forget about the Trunk or Treat on 10/31/25! Trunk set-up begins at 8:30AM with Trunk or Treat beginning about 9:15AM! Join us after the Trunk or Treat for a costume contest, Storybook Pumpkin Opportunity Drawing ($1.00 per ticket), and Student Council popcorn sales ($2.00 per bag and .25 per extra flavor)! Please see ​all fliers below for more details.

Weeks 9 and 10 gave some reprieve to the insanely busy schedule here at Elk Hills, but we still stayed very busy!

Cycle two of Walk to Learn math and ELA intervention groups continued and will run through this Friday, October 24. Walk to Learn cycles run for three weeks, then we take one week for assessing and regrouping. Students who test out of intervention groups work independently during Walk to Learn. They can work on class assignments, get caught up on homework, read silently, or use one of the many learning apps available to them to enhance their academic skills! We will begin assessing and regrouping students next week.

On October 8th, we held our second Mentorship Meet-Up where we spent time connecting with our mentees while we wrote letters to Veterans or colored pictures for them. These letters and beautifully colored pictures were then given to the Taft branch of the Kern County Library where the staff will pass them out to local Veterans. We even had some students craft some extremely kind letters to our own Veteran, Mr. Medina. Our mentees have now spent an hour of time with their menters, by the end of the school year we will have spent about five hours of time connecting with our mentees! Did you know that children who have a mentor are much more likely to graduate from high school and have aspirations of attending college?

We had our first Career Community Speaker of the year on October 9th. Krystal Barboza with Hall Ambulance came and spoke to the TK-1st grade students about what it takes to become an EMT or 911 Dispatcher and the importance of reading and math in relation to that career path! The students were full of wonder and excitement and for their participation they received their very own EMT sticker, color page, and very cool tour of an ambulance! Thank you to Krystal Barboza and Hall Ambulance for inspiring young minds!

October 10th brought the end of our Volleyball season with the COED Small Schools League Volleyball Tournament which was held at Maricopa Unified School District. Thank you to all the students who participated and all the families who attended to support our Elk gang! This date also marked the end of the first quarter.

The week of October 13-17 marked Parent Teacher Conference week. I saw a lot of families on campus for these conferences. Thank you for showing up for not only your students but for our staff as well! Showing up for even the smallest of events on campus shows your student that you are interested in what’s happening with them at school and that you value their education. If you’re showing up they will want to show up too!

Elk Hills participated in the Oildorado parade on October 18th, thank you to all the staff and students who came to represent Elk Hills!

We have noticed a significant increase in absences, particularly on Mondays and Fridays, which are two of the most important learning days of the week. Mondays are generally when new concepts are introduced and the foundation for the week is laid. Fridays are when assessments on those concepts are held. It takes three days to make up for the learning loss of missing one day of school. If your student does have to miss school, please be sure to call the office to excuse the absence and provide any doctors notes to Mrs. Shara within 24 hours. Our attendance goal is 97% attendance daily.

The next two months are sure to keep us all busy! Please be sure you are regularly checking your students’ backpacks for fliers, certificates, paperwork, and other important information that may be sent home!


Upcoming Events:
10/20-10/24: Walk to Learn Reassessment and Regrouping
10/21: Virtual PTO Meeting @ 6PM (Zoom link will be posted in Parent Square)
10/23: TK-1st to Cherry Acres Pumpkin Patch
10/23: 6th-8th to USC
10/24: 2nd, 5th, 8th 100% for 20 Pizza Party @ 1:30PM
10/27-10/31: Red Ribbon Week: Life is a Puzzle, Solve it Drug Free!
Dress Up Days:
10/27: Let’s Get Red-y to be Drug Free- wear red
10/28: Kick the Drugs Away- represent your favorite sports team or sport
10/29: Life is a Movie, Film Drug Free- dress like your favorite movie/cartoon character
10/30: Leave Drugs and Bullying in the Past- dress from decades past
10/31: Don’t Get Tricked, Stay Drug Free- wear your school-appropriate costumes
10/28: Elk Hills Family Movie Night: The Addams Family @ 5PM
10/27-11/14: Walk to Learn Cycle 3
10/30: Community Bingo Night @ 5PM
10/31: Trunk or Treat @ 9AM (trunk set-up begins at 8:30AM, this is a minimum day!)
11/3-11/7: Winter Benchmark Assessment
11/10: Make-up Picture Day
11/11: Veterans Day- NO SCHOOL
11/14: Small Schools League Soccer Tournament (Details coming soon!)
11/20: Community Bingo Night @ 5PM
11/24-11/28: Thanksgiving Break- NO SCHOOL

Just a reminder that we will have early dismissals at 1:30pm this week for Parent Teacher Conferences that will be held October 13-October 17. Please sign up on the Parentsquare app if you have not done so already. We look forward to discussing your student's progress with you! The after school program will be available until 4:30pm (no transportation) if needed. Thank you!

Just a reminder that we will have early dismissals at 1:30pm this week for Parent Teacher Conferences that will be held October 13-October 17. Please sign up on the Parentsquare app if you have not done so already. We look forward to discussing your student's progress with you! The after school program will be available until 4:30pm (no transportation) if needed. Thank you!

Weeks 7-8 brought a robust schedule!

In week 7 we continued with Walk to Learn assessment and regrouping, we saw growth in 56% of our students in literacy groups and 42% growth for students in math intervention! Week 8 brought upon the second round of literacy and math intervention, this round will run through October 17th.

We held our last Power League Flag Football game on 9/23 and our last Power League volleyball game on 9/26, but some of our 7th/8th grade girls went on to compete in a separate volleyball tournament in Buttonwillow on 9/27. Our volleyball season will conclude with our Small Schools COED Volleyball Tournament on 10/10 at Maricopa, which will include 7th-8th grade students.

Our 2nd and 3rd grade students visited the Bakersfield College Planetarium to learn about outer space and our TK/K-1st students attended the Kern County Fair to learn all about animals, thank you to all the parents who chaperoned these events! The learning trips are essentials to connecting the real world with what our students learn in school.

We hosted our second Community Bingo Night.Thank you to everyone who continues to show support by donations and/or coming to the monthly event. This is a free event open to everyone, we encourage you to join us! It’s a good time!

October 2nd marked Custodian Appreciation Day! Each class filled out a card thanking Cowboy for his hard work every day to keep our campus safe and beautiful for all of us and I heard many students and staff thanking him throughout the day. Let’s all remember to clean up after ourselves to make Cowboy’s job easier!

October’s Character Strong Pillar is: Responsibility. Students were brought into the auditorium on 10/3 to learn about what it means to be responsible and how they can show those attributes at school as well as at home. Students who earned enough ELKS Tickets were then able to play a student vs. staff kickball game in the afternoon as a reward for their awesome behaviors and ability to show the ELKS Way everyday!

All students were treated to our annual Book Tasting event on 9/26 and 9/27, this year’s theme was McBooks. Students entered the Reading Room by grade for about 30 minutes each where Mrs. Linnell read aloud to them. The students then went to different tables to “taste” different books from both the fiction and nonfiction genres and make a wish list of books they would like to read in the future. They also received a delicious snack from McDonalds. This is a wonderful event that our Literacy Intervention Team works hard on every year and the students are “lovin’ it!”

Our first classes to reach 20 days of 100% attendance received their first pizza party of the year on 9/29. Shout out to 3rd grade and 7th grade for achieving that goal so quickly this year! Keep up the amazing work! Our 100% for 20 attendance incentive gives each class the opportunity to win a pizza party for having 20 days of classwide 100% attendance- the days do not have to be consecutive, but the more days of 100% classwide attendance, the more pizza parties they can earn throughout the year!

The Elk Hills PTO held its first meeting of the 25-26 school year via Zoom and had an amazing turn out! Thank you to everyone who joined! The PTO will continue to hold virtual meetings on the 2nd Tuesday of each month- all are welcome so be on the lookout for the Zoom link and join us!

September was a very busy month for us all at Elk Hills and there’s no slowing down! Be sure to check the calendar on Parent Square as well as notifications sent out about upcoming events to be sure you’re in the know! Also, be sure to check your students’ back packs on a regular basis for fliers, certificates, homework, and other important items that may be sent home throughout any given week!

Upcoming Events:
10/6-10/17: Cycle Two of Walk to Learn
10/8: Great Shakeout Earthquake Drill
10/8: Mentorship Meet-Up
10/9: TK-1st Community Career Speaker: Hall Ambulance
10/10: End of first quarter
10/10: Small School League 7th-8th COED Volleyball Tournament @ Maricopa
10/10: TK/K, 1st, and 4th to have 100% for 20 Attendance Pizza Party
10/13-10/17: Parent Teacher Conferences (minimum days all week)
10/20: Classroom Spelling Bees begin (grades 1st-8th)
10/21: University of Southern California learning trip for 6th-8th grade
10/23: TK-1st learning trip to Cherry Acres pumpkin patch
10/20-10/24: Walk to Learn Reassessment/Regrouping
10/27-10/31: Red Ribbon Week (more info to come!)
10/28: Elk Hills Family Movie Night @ 5PM (more info to come!)
10/30: Community Bingo Night 5PM-6:30PM
10/31: Trunk or Treat @ 9AM