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June 18, 2025
Dear Families,
We hope your students are enjoying this short break before the summer session begins. Unfortunately, during our last day of school at the beach there was an incident that occurred that some students may have recorded. This brought attention to our team about student phone usage on and off campus, which some students further discussed with staff at the end of the day. Due to this we have to issue a slight change to our phone policy to protect students’ privacy and adhere to HIPAA compliance. Below is the slight change to the policy with further details about options for our students around their phones, as well as some announcements about staffing changes/promotions.
PHONE POLICY
Students will need to turn in their phones once arriving to school and will not be given the option for a Yondr pouch anymore. Students often break these pouches, and they haven’t been used responsibly. Students recording one another on campus or any other school event is not permitted. This is not only a HIPAA violation, but we have also witnessed it as a form of bullying on social media. We want to increase our students’ ability to form healthy relationships with one another and engage in their academics. We want to teach our students how to use their phones responsibly and respect each other’s privacy. We hope you all can have similar conversations at home as we know how harmful the use of social media can be when bullying occurs.
If there are certain plans you feel your student needs around their phone, please connect to one of our team members personally. This may look like having a student check their phone during break or lunch for emergency purposes. We also know students use their phones to connect to music as they engage in their academics. If your student needs this, we will purchase them an MP3 player and support them in downloading the music they need.
Majority of our students already turn in their phone without being given a Yondr pouch so it might not be a big change for many of them. For students who have been using one, this might be difficult for them and we will counsel them through it. Some students also state they do not have their phone on them and they usually do. Our team may contact you if a student is stating this to confirm whether they have their phone on them or not. Please let us know if you have any questions or if you want to connect about a plan for your student. We appreciate your cooperation and collaboration around this change.
STAFF PROMOTIONS
As our school continues to grow, I’m excited to announce to add another assistant director to our administrative team. Steve Moreno will be our new Assistant Director of Educational Services. We announced this to students before the end of the school year as well as provided them with each assistant director role. We also wanted to clarify this for you all below since our team connects with you all regularly.
Angelica Juarez is the Assistant Director of Clinical Services
Alden Hiller is the Assistant Director of Transition Services
Mark Balleza is the Assistant Director of Milieu Services
Again, Steve will be the Assistant Director of Educational Services. Steve will continue to teach one class as he helps the new teacher transition into his previous role. With that said, we’re also excited to announce the new teacher for Class 2 will be Arrian Nicholas. Due to this, we will have Renato Lopez as our new PE teacher.
Lastly, we hired a reading and math intervention specialist to support our students further academically. We’re happy to announce that Rochelle Santos will be taking on this role.
These are all staff who have been part of our team, and our students are familiar with. We’re excited for you all to continue to collaborate and connect with our growing team!
THANK YOU
What a school year! Thank you to all the families who were able to attend our ceremony last week. Although this school year came with it’s challenges, we are so proud of our students’ investment in themselves and their growth. This was the first school year almost all of our student population made it on the honor roll. They couldn’t have done this without all your support while being at our school. Thank you all again and please connect to anyone on our team if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Grace Alvarez
Principal/Director
(510) 362-3602
grace_alvarez@senecacenter.org
Angelica Juarez
Assistant Director of Clinical Services
(510) 999-2874
angelica_juarez@senecacenter.org
Alden Hiller
Assistant Director of Transitional Services
(510) 496-9618
Mark Balleza
Assistant Director of Milieu Services
(510) 914-1630
June 2025
Dear Families,
Happy Pride Month! This month we honor the LGBTQ+ community with our students and our staff. When we return from break students will be engaging in a door decorating contest to honor LGTQ+ leaders, scholars, authors, artists, and more.
Below are a few reminders as we end the school year.
GRADUATION/8TH GRADE PROMOTION/AWARDS CEREMONY
This Thursday we will have our annual graduation, promotion, and awards ceremony for our students. The event will begin at 12:00 PM and end at 1:45 PM. We hope you all can join us for this celebration in honoring our students’ accomplishments with some food, beverages, and music.
BEACH DAY
On the last day of school, we’ll all be going to Robert Crown Memorial State Beach in Alameda. We hope the whole school will be able to attend and the minimum requirement are that students are safe and have completed any relationship work they might have.
MINIMUM DAYS
As a reminder, we’re ending the last few days of this week with minimum days. Students will be released at 1:45 from Wednesday-Friday.
ESY
Extended School Year will be from June 23rd-July 25th this year. Students will be released at 1:45 daily and every Friday we’ll have a field trip planned for students. At the end of summer, we take students who attended ESY for at least 80% of the time to Great America. Students further cannot have any relationship work or after school time in order to attend.
We’re looking forward to ending this school year with you all to celebrate the hard work both you and your students have put in!
Thank you,
Grace Alvarez
Principal
(510) 362-3602
grace_alvarez@senecacenter.org
Angelica Juarez
Clinical Director
(510) 999-2874
angelica_juarez@senecacenter.org
Alden Hiller
Assistant Director
(510) 496-9618
Mark Balleza
Assistant Director
(510) 914-1630
May 2025
May 2025
Dear Families,
Happy Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month! We can’t believe the end of the school year is near. We have a few events coming up and some announcements for you all to be aware of below:
PROM
Our annual high school prom will be this Wednesday, June 21st. Students who are eligible have been notified and our staff have connected with you all. As a reminder, students can get ready at Pathfinder and receive a ride from staff members to the venue or we can just meet them there if they get ready at home. If you have further questions or concerns about prom this Wednesday, feel free to connect with anyone on our team.
FANIME
This Friday, our Program Assistant, Mari Gana, will be taking students who are part of our anime club to attend FANIME in San Jose. Here is a link for more information https://www.fanime.com/. Students who are part of the club need to be passing their classes, have no relationship work, and no after school time. This is the second year students will be going and last year they had a great experience!
STUDENT SURVEY
We received some great feedback from students, family, and our team to continue to improve our school. Below is a summary of some highlights from our students
CALENDAR
We made a slight change to our calendar for next year to accommodate state testing to have minimum days. We realized testing can be a lot for our students and wanted to make it more manageable for them. Below is the link to the new calendar.
BASKETBALL
We had a great season of Basketball. Pathfinder was undefeated and the students did an amazing job working as a team and showing great sportsmanship. We were hoping for one more game but unfortunately don’t think it will occur. Congratulations to our Tigers for their wins!! A big thank you to our coach, Shaun Collins, for making this season memorable for our students.
GRADUATION/AWARDS CEREMONY
On June 12th at 12 PM, we will be hosting our annual graduation, 8th grade promotion, and awards ceremony. This year, we would like to invite all families to attend. We will have a taco cart, beverages, and music to celebrate your students’ accomplishments and the end of the school year. Please check out the flyer and hope you all can join us!
LAST DAY OF SCHOOL FIELDTRIP
On the last day of school, we hope to take all the students to the beach. We’re currently looking into which beach we’re planning to go to and will keep you all updated.
Thank you all again for your continued collaboration and support for your students and our team. Feel free to reach out to any of us if you have any questions about any of the announcements above.
In Community,
Grace Alvarez
Principal
(510) 362-3602
grace_alvarez@senecacenter.org
Angelica Juarez
Clinical Director
(510) 999-2874
angelica_juarez@senecacenter.org
Alden Hiller
Assistant Director
(510) 496-9618
Mark Balleza
Assistant Director
(510) 914-1630
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