Who We Are
City Heights Prep At a Glance
Meet Our Staff
We believe that academic motivation for students is enhanced by strong relational connections with staff that care about their success, and invest in their growth.
Our staff is made up of individuals that strive to accomplish this by cultivating a school and classroom culture where respecting one another, trying one’s best, making good choices, working hard, encouraging each other, and recognizing that everyone is important are things that are championed and celebrated.
Dr. Vargas
Director
Mr. Messinger
Interim Assistant Director
Mrs. Salvatierra
Mrs. Janikowski
School Counselor
Ms. Parris
Website & Social Media Coordinator
Ms. Gruschow
Visual Arts Teacher & Coach
Mrs. Winter
Teacher
Mrs. Sharif
Teacher
Ms. Sharif
Assistant Teacher
Ms. Gustaff
Assistant Teacher
Ms. Mohamed
Assistant Teacher
Mr. Osman
Assistant Teacher
Dr. Mohammed
Assistant Director
Ms. Lopez
Secretary
Mr. Chalabi
Ms. Ortiz
Student Support Coordinator
Ms. Monzon
Office Support
Ms. Sa
Mrs. Varns
Mr. Morris
Ms. Davey
Teacher
Ms. Hernandez
Teacher
Ms. Buch
Teacher
Ms. Jaime
Assistant Teacher
A LETTER
From Our Principal
“I am committed to the best educational experience possible and I look forward to working with our families and community members. School and home can work together to build skills and knowledge to reinforce values, and to develop a strong sense of self-confidence. We must invest our time and energies in our nation’s most valuable resource – our children.”
– Dr. Vargas
Individual Online Learning
Each of our students has access to their own computer
This allows us to provide them with the best possible resources for their academic development. In addition, computer access is provided in Tutoring after school so that our students always have a quiet place to finish up homework and to receive extra help from teachers.
AVID & Restorative Practices
Each student attends an AVID Class, aimed at equipping them with skills that will ensure their collegiate success
We know that rigorous academics can only go so far if they aren’t accompanied by the right life skills and emotional development. That’s why we incorporate AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination), which provides students with organizational skills such as tracking academic progress, managing calendars, and keeping materials organized. In addition, we use restorative practices to grow skills such a conflict management, handling stress, and community building. This moves our school from being punitive, to restorative, allowing everyone to be heard and feel safe.
Small Class Sizes
A typical classroom has a 16:1 student to instructional staff ratio
In this way, students have access to help whenver they need it. In addition, our schedule creates a situation in which teachers and students spend more time together consistently and teachers are spread less thin in terms of the number of different students they work with each day. This model optimizes the relational aspect of the student teacher interaction.
Project Lead the Way
Students have the opportunity to explore computer science concepts and skills through Project Lead the Way
This is done by allowing students to create personally relevant, tangible, and shareable projects. Throughout the experience, they learn about programming for the physical world by blending hardware design and software development. Some learners are visual, some are auditory, and some are hands on – each student learns information in a unique way, and this approach gives them the ability to merge these learning styles and bring their physical designs to life, cultivating learning on a whole new level.
