LTUSD: Focus on Sierra House Elementary

Each month for the remainder of the school year, Lake Tahoe Unified School District will feature one of its eight innovative and engaging school sites with a short article intended to educate the community and future families about our local schools, educational programs, and options for students. This month we’d like to highlight Sierra House Elementary School!

Sierra House Elementary School serves over 400 students. The diversity of our student body reflects the diversity of our community. Our school boundary runs from Stateline to Golden Bear and includes the Bijou and Al Tahoe neighborhoods. Sierra House is also the home to three classrooms that support special needs students. We are so lucky that these students and their families are part of our Sierra House family.

Kindness is a thread that runs through all that we do at Sierra House. We acknowledge students when they demonstrate kindness in the classroom, on the bus, at recess or anywhere else! Our school counselor supports our kindness effort by creating weekly videos for morning meetings, providing whole class lessons as well as meeting with small groups.

Our school theme is Health and Fitness with a focus on mountain sports. Heavenly and the Vail Corporation work with us through the Epic Promise Grant to get every one of our students up on the mountain for 2-3 days of skiing or snowboarding each year. This grant includes lift tickets, coaching, and equipment rentals. It is an amazing opportunity for our students to experience the mountain and gain confidence on their skis/boards and in themselves. In addition to skiing, students also have the opportunity to ice skate at the South Lake Tahoe Ice Arena. The ice rink generously provides our students with ice time every Wednesday afternoon. We appreciate these partnerships and the benefits they provide to our students!

Another partnership that we have been participating in for the past 33 years is the 5th grade Sierra House Weather Kids Program. Selected 5th graders participate in extra classes to learn about the weather and then go on KRLT radio every weekday morning with Howie Nave to share their weather forecast for the day.

Of course, we focus on academic growth for our students and our staff works incredibly hard to provide academic opportunities that are rigorous and engaging. Our math lessons focus on helping all students access and master the critical California state math standards. Through our lessons, our students are discovering that math is fun and that everyone has math talents! We even get our families into the fun with our math family nights. We are constantly working on improving literacy skills. Reading and writing are taught daily and are woven into every subject. This year LTUSD has
introduced a new science curriculum (FOSS) that encourages hands-on learning and application of science concepts. This curriculum makes students active investigators, not passive spectators.

Thanks to the LTUSD commitment to our students, we are able to offer every elementary student 40 minutes of music instruction and 40 minutes of library time each week. Additionally, our Career Tech Education team visits regularly to ignite students' imagination and start them thinking about
what career paths they may like to follow. These lessons reinforce the idea that a strong education makes any career possible. Our CTE team also works hard to make sure our beautiful gardens are incorporated into lessons for our students.

Sierra House Elementary school is a great place to learn and grow!