Dear MSJ Parent/Guardian,

It is with pleasure that we welcome you to the 2022-2023 school year! We have many reasons to be optimistic about this new school year: Covid appears to be becoming a lesser factor in our daily lives, students and staff have a full school year of experience being back in the classroom after the pandemic shutdown, and we have a school full of students ready to get back on track to graduate.

And while there is plenty to celebrate, we also write to ask for your partnership and cooperation. As hard as the staff at MSJ works to support and educate your student we cannot do it alone. There are many factors beyond our control that we deal with daily: gangs, violence, drugs, and chronic absenteeism are all challenges we face. We need your help to make sure MSJ is the safe, supportive school that it aspires to remain.

In order to keep our campus safe, this fall we will be enforcing a stricter dress code policy to help keep some of our students from displaying their gang affiliations on campus. All hats with the letter D (usually a Diamondbacks, Dodgers, or Detroit hat), the letter P (usually a Pirates hat), or the letter B (usually a Boston hat) will NOT be allowed on campus; other hats may be identified as gang affiliated as the school year continues and those hats will also not be allowed on campus. We would greatly appreciate your help in paying attention to what your student is trying to wear to school and requiring them to leave the hats at home. For a full outline of our dress code, please review that section in the Student Parent Handbook.

Another challenge we dealt with last year was students vaping in the restrooms. In order to help ensure students are making better decisions at school, no congregating will be allowed in the restrooms. If more than one student is found in a restroom stall or if students are grouping up in the restroom, they will be subject to a Health and Safety check. We are working hard to make MSJ a drug-free school—we encourage you to have a discussion with your student about vaping and the consequences students face when using marijuana products.
Finally, for your student to take full advantage of their opportunity at MSJ, we highly encourage you to help make sure your student arrives to school on time. Each day, unless your student is unscheduled during first period, students need to arrive to class no later than 8:35 AM, except on Wednesdays when classes begin at 9:35 AM. There is a huge correlation between students attending all classes daily and passing all classes! We will continue to reach out to parents of students who are chronically late or absent, but also remember that all parents can use ParentVue to check student attendance and grades whenever they want.

During the school year we will be offering not only our Back to School Night (date to be determined) but four “Coffee with Administration” dates. We invite you all to come and discuss, ask questions, or find out more about the school and the staff on our campuses. Please mark your calendar if you can be available: August 30th and January 31st at 8:30 AM and/or November 1st and April 18th at 2:30 PM.

We look forward to strengthening our partnership to better support your student as we all work together to help your student achieve. Please feel free to reach out to Principal Seiple at bseiple@psusd.us or call the number for the Cathedral City campus; you can reach Assistant Principal Watson at ewatson@psusd.us or call the number for the Desert Hot Springs campus. Feel free to communicate in English or Spanish.

Sincerely,
Brad Seiple
Principal