Every Monday our school newsletter will come home (Tuesday if Monday is a holiday). If you prefer
to receive this electronically, please send an e-mail to: desotocharter@hotmail.com
News
Thank you so much to everyone who made the Benefit Concert for DeSoto possible! We would especially like to thank 2nd Street Bakery for providing the space, Gainesville Rock Gym, Leonardo's Pizza, Tim and Terry's Music and More, and Satchel's Pizza for donating prizes for our raffle, and Guy, Kristen, Frankie, and Mrs. Kravchenko for donating artwork for the raffle. Also thank you to Darren who generously organized the event for us!! We appreciate your support so much!
We would like to plan a garage sale and carwash (seperately or together) to help raise money. Please e-mail desotocharter@hotmail.com with ideas for the location(s) for these events ASAP!!
Two More Easy Ways to Contribute to DeSoto... 1. Open a SunTrust Personal or Business Checking Account, choose DeSoto as your charity of choice, and SunTrust will donate $100 to us. (SunTrust gives it, not you.) 2. Open a Target VISA, and every time you use the card, Target donates a percentage to the school of your choice, hopefully DeSoto.
Check out this article on LD Online about ideas for continuing learning during the summer!
We Need You!
We can’t do this without your help! Many of you are very talented, very imaginative, and hard-working! We are looking forward to another great year of progress and achievement for our students. We are so thankful for a community that cares about the education of ALL children. With this combination, we are certainly blessed and we know we can accomplish so much. Come be a valued member of our team. We have a wide variety of jobs and needs to choose from. We welcome everyone! Contact Mrs. Lowe and sign up for a committee.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS NEEDED! We all want to see the school continue, but it is impossible for the staff to do it all. You may recall that we asked for people who were interested to sign up for committees. There are a variety of committees, so that you can contribute in a number of ways. The following are suggested committees with ways that you can get started. Contact me at lowedc@gru.net to put your name on a particular committee. We appreciate your coming forward. I can’t wait to hear from you! Development:
Stacey Trainer trainerstacey@bellsouth.net
Deidre Harris (student rep)
Jana Valentine (janavalentine@yahoo.com)
Fletcher & Mary Hope (fhope@maddoxfoundry.com)
Pat Knecht ( knechtp@levy.k12.fl.us)
Brenda Tucci (btucci@ufl.edu)
Janie Alston
Applying to DeSoto High School
If you are interested in applying to DeSoto, please call or e-mail for a Consent for Release of Information form. We must see a transcript, a copy of the IEP (if applicable), and a Behavior Screen. We are located in beautiful, bucolic Archer, in Archer Community School. Directions from Gainesville are: head west on Archer Road, turn left at the light in Archer (US 27). Go about 1/2 mile to SW 137 Ave., turn right. Go 2 blocks to SW 170 Street, turn left. Go about 1/2 mile until you see a school zone. Turn into the Parent Pickup lane, park where you can. We are in Bldg #1, parallel to SW 170 Street, we have a blue and white banner over our double doors. Knock as the doors are always locked.
Our hours are 8:25 to 2:40. DeSoto follows the Alachua County Schools calendar which can be printed off sbac.edu. We are very proud of our program and invite you to visit, or have your student shadow.
DeSoto is a much-needed school
We are incredibly fortunate to have DeSoto here in Alachua County. DeSoto is one of only two public charter schools (=FREE!) in the entire State of Florida specifically for students with reading and language related problems! The other charter school is Pepin Academy in Tampa. We are blessed at DeSoto to have exceptionally creative, caring, and first-rate teachers. Our teachers are highly educated, and are on the cutting edge of education for students withlanguage based challenges (e.g. dyslexia, ADD, short-term memory problems, receptive and expressive language problems, organization issues).
Recently, Dr. G and Mrs. Lowe made twopresentations at the Florida Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (FASCD) conference in Orlando. They presented a session on the benefits of integrated curriculum planning and implementation. Their second presentation dealt with teaching students to beresponsible for taking an active part in their education. Both sessions included data and analysesof reading improvement and FCAT score increases from action research at DeSoto.
DeSoto has small classes, wireless Internet with individual laptops, SmartBoard, Kurzweil, and Dragon voice recognition software, accommodations, and individual attention no other high school can claim in Alachua County. Your children enjoy a rigorous academic program, innovative teaching methods,and training in study and test-taking skills, and memory and organization techniques. We team high expectations with high support. Many of our students have had very poor educational experiences before enrolling at DeSoto, primarily because of ignorance about language based learning issues, and the insultingly low expectations some in the school system still have about children such as ours. For many students, DeSoto is their first successful school experience.
To get the kind of education elsewhere that your child enjoys at DeSoto for free, a student would have to enroll in one of a handful of private boarding schools nationwide. We offer the same courses, and our teachers are just as qualified.
Check out the websites for these schoolswhich provide a similar education as DeSoto, and take note of the tuition: Vanguard School in Lake Wales,FL; Greenwood School in Vermont; The Oakland School in Virginia; The Gow School in New York; Dore Academy in North Carolina, andPurnell School in New Jersey. Vanguard School in Lake Wales, FL (don’t confuse with Vanguard High School in Ocala) is a private boarding school costing $22,500 a year for day students. The Gow School is $46,250 a year (including room and board), and tuition for the Purnell School is $31,950 a year.
DeSoto offers the Standard Diploma only
DeSoto offers the Standard 24-credit diploma only. This consists of:
English 4 credits Math 3 credits Social Studies 3 credits Science 3 credits PE 1 credit Arts 1 credit LMS .5 credit electives 8.5 credits Total 24 credits
Students entering the 9th grade after 2007-2008 must take 4 credits of Math, 8 elective credits, and LMS is not required.
Foreign language is not required, but students wishing to receive a Bright Futures Scholarship must take 2 credits. DeSoto offers Spanish I and Spanish II.
The Standard, or Traditional, 24-credit Diploma offers the student a much greater range of opportunities than does a Special Diploma, which, sadly, students of our category are often offered at the large high schools. The Standard Diploma allows the student to enter Community College, vocational school, or the military. The large high schools simply cannot offer the attention and accomodations DeSoto can offer. Some students end up in the Special Diploma program out of frustration because they are not taught in the way they can best learn. DeSoto offers a multimodal approach to learning, taking advantage of all the learning styles students, in reality, have.
DeSoto High School serves bright high school students with reading and language difficulties, including:
word decoding
reading comprehension
oral expression
auditory processing
organizational problems
Students without learning issues are also welcome, as our program will benefit any student.
For most students, DeSoto is their first successful school experience.
DeSoto is not an appropriate school for students with emotional or behavior problems.
DeSoto students take the same courses offered at Alachua County high schools, but receive individual attention and accommodations. DeSoto offers a rigorous academic program, in a multisensory presentation, combined with innovative methods to teach and learn, including the use of technology in all classrooms. Our outstanding and dedicated teachers are certified by the state of Florida.
DeSoto also employs an occupational therapist, paraprofessionals, and a speech pathologist.
DeSoto is very proud to host the "da Vinci" chapter of the National Honor Society, the "Santiago de Compostela" chapter of the Spanish Honor Society, and the Beta Club, a national service organization.
Service Projects
DeSoto students have worked at the St. Francis House. They worked serving in the dining room, cleaning up, and also cleaning an apartment for a new resident.
Students collected various items such as toiletries, socks, snacks, and DVDs for distribution to our troops in Iraq over the holidays.
DeSoto students collected canned goods at Thanksgiving for donation to St. Francis House and Catholic Charities.
They are currently collecting old cell phones for donation to victims of domestic abuse shelters.
For Earth Day, DeSoto students are planning on collecting donations to give to a National Parks system in Costa Rica. Only $130 will purchase an acre of rain forest which is then donated to a National Park to protect and preserve the rainforests. DeSoto students have participated in a variety of service projects. Our students raised just over $700 for Heifer International. Since 1944, this nonprofit organization gives technical training, and animals such as cows, llamas, water buffaloes, chickens, and ducks, to villages for sustainable food and income from the sale of eggs, milk, and wool, and to pass the offspring on to other families.Heifer currently works in 50 countries worldwide and in the US.
Meet Our Outstanding Faculty and Staff
We are very proud of our faculty and staff:
Dr. Kay Gonsoulin, our Lead Teacher, is certified by the State of Florida in English grades 6-12, and ESE, grades K-12. Dr. Gonsoulin holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English from California State University, Long Beach, and an EDS and a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction in Reading and Language Arts from the University of Florida. Dr. Gonsoulin has taught Language Arts and Reading from remedial to AP in California and New Orleans, with the Florida Virtual High School, and for 25 years at Buchholz High School. Dr. Gonsoulin teaches English and Reading at DeSoto.
Mrs. Carol Lowe is certified by the State of Florida in General Science, grades 5-9, and ESE grades K-12. Mrs. Lowe holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Education in Instruction and Curriculum from the University of Florida. She has taught at PK Yonge, Bronson High School, and Oak View Middle School. Mrs. Lowe teaches Integrated Science, Biology, Environmental Science, and Earth and Space Science. Mrs. Lowe is working on the Reading Endorsement.
Ms. Machelle Hottinger has an A.S. degree in Visual Arts from the Art Institute in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the University of Florida. Ms Hottinger is certified by the State of Florida in Art, and Physical Education. She has worked at Littlewood Elementary, Gainesville Arts Co-op, and Einstein Montessori School, Gainesville. Ms Hottinger is teaching Art, Physical Education, and is working on the Reading Endorsement.
Mrs. Mary Malo is the Director. She teaches Spanish I and Spanish II. She has a Bachelor of Science in Plant Pathology and a Master of Science in Agronomy from the University of Florida. Mrs. Malo is bilingual in Spanish/English. The DeSoto High School Board has approved her as Qualified but not certified. She is working toward certification in Spanish.
Mrs. Linda Bernstein is our Administrative Aide and Database Manager. She worked at B’nai Israel Day School, and has extensive business experience in her native country of South Africa. She holds diplomas from Anchor College and Birnam Business College in Johannesburg.
Ms Heidi Dickerson has a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Florida. She is certified by the State of Florida in Social Studies. She teaches World History, World Geography, American History, American Government, Economics, Florida History,Sociology,Psychology, and Reading. Ms Dickerson is working on the Reading Endorsement.
Mrs. Oksana Kravchenko graduated from Kiev State University in Kiev, Ukraine. She has a Master’s degree in Physics, with a specialty in Optical Engineering. Mrs. Kravchenko teaches Pre-Algebra, Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, Computer and Introduction to Technology. She is Temporarily Certified in Math (grades 6-12), and Physics (grades 6-12).
Last but not least are our two excellent paraprofessionals:
Ms Katje Janisch has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Florida. She has a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) from the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland. Prior to coming to DeSoto, she taught English for nine years in Taiwan.
