Quote of the week gets MacArthur students involved
Attempting to get students engaged, Principal Mr. Gonzales invites a quote-of-the-week email contest.
Every Monday morning in the Seminar class, the administration of MacArthur hosts a livestream on Youtube to share the morning announcements. One announcement is the quote of the week introduced by Principal Mr. Ray Gonzales.
Quote of the Week is an activity in which students have the opportunity to win lunch from a choice of a fast-food restaurant such as Raising Canes, In-n-Out, and Subway.
The Quote of the Week can be located at the morning announcements during seminar class on the Youtube live stream. The quotes are also included in the weekly digital agenda.
To enter, students send Gonzales an email discussing the significance of the quote and what the meaning of the quote is. The winner has been decided in different ways. Early on in the school year, Gonzales would select strong responses to highlight. As more entries came in, Gonzales chose several entries to enter into in a raffle through a virtual spinner.
“The money has come out of my own pockets for the first four weeks, and then parents have donated gift cards, and also the PFO, and then restaurants had started to donate gift cards,” said Gonzales
Gonzales and the administration staff had received sponsorships and gift certificates from BJ’s restaurant, Subway, and Raising Canes. In-n-Out and PFO have donated gift certificates, too.
“I would usually spend around 20 dollars, 10 for each lunch,” said Gonzales. The average number of participants is around 50. The most participated is 200 students. Also around the first week of school, only 15 students participated. The winners have so far have been:
- Darlene Castro
- Isabella Cisneros
- Oscar Hernandez
- Vincent Do
- Amie Alvarado-Mariano
- Adrian Jimenez
- Yayoy Espinoza-Soriano
- Terry Nguyen
- Miranda Montes-Antonio
- Mia Kelly
One of the winners, sixth-grader Mia Kelly said, “Personally, it was difficult to understand the meaning and significance (of the quotes).”
Gonzales said, “A good quote takes time to think about.”
Since the students and staff are going through a hard time right now with distance learning, the quote of the week attempt to draw everyone from the virtual campus into one conversation.