We are on the way with 644 students enrolled! Welcome to our newest staff member, Mr. John Huh. Mr. Huh is our three days per week Speech and Language Specialist. John is coming to us after years at Commonwealth Elementary School. We have such a fabulous working, dedicated group of staff members. In addition, I can already see that we have committed parents who strongly support their children’s many endeavors. Special thanks to PTA President, Nivie Jhawar and the PTA Hospitality Committee for providing a “Welcome Back Breakfast” for the staff. We are definitely destined for greatness this year and the years ahead! On Friday, August 26th, we held our first Staff Development meeting of the year, we met as a staff to discuss Benchmarks and CST test scores.
Our API score went up six points to our school all-time high of 965. This is good news for all of us! We looked at our scores in depth at each grade level, grades K-6 to determine where we are doing well and where we need to focus our efforts.
I look forward to working with you this year, as we strive to offer a strong educational program with high standards for student behavior, as well as academic achievement. Working together, we will achieve our goals and hopefully surpass them.
Sincerely,
Harold Sullivan
Principal
LAGUNA ROAD SCHOOL
SUMMARY STATEMENT
Take hundreds of eager, enthusiastic, smiling youngsters. Place them in a confined space with a group of adults who are experienced in high-quality instruction and learning and who are totally committed to the immediate and long-term well-being of those youngsters. Add an exciting, challenging and proven program. Sprinkle with innovations that encourage the students to be the best they can be. Mix and simmer. The product would be Laguna Road School.
A visitor will be struck by the way the total staff works together and with the larger community. Partners, grade level teams of teachers, primary and upper grade groups and whole staff activities are conducted throughout every day of the school year. Scattered around the school parents are at work in classrooms with students and in the common areas managing enrichment activities. The success of every student is a responsibility for all of us. We are equally dedicated to the success of every teacher. Parents are welcomed as partners, and community events and resources are integrated into the program.
Laguna Road has always been a good school. We have and have had very involved parents who have high expectations. Our test scores have always been high and they remain at the top of the district, and near top in Orange County and State. What has changed for teachers is the way we see our role. Our personal learning is focused, directed toward bringing about changes in program that will ensure success for every student. Beginning many years ago with the first teacher to become a fellow of the Writing Project, we have added staff members to state curriculum projects each year. Teachers here see the work as a profession and continually strive to get better at what we do. Advanced degree programs are often selected to enrich the school program. We have undertaken grant projects with the specific goal of making this the very best place for children to learn.
Our student population is diverse and continues to change. Like most schools in California, our 639 students represent a range of ethnic cultures and languages. We are physically located in an upper income area of the community, but most of our students are bussed to the school from throughout the city. We receive about 50 students from one school, in addition to our own, who comprise a Gifted and Talented cluster in grades three through six. Many of our students are from first and second generation immigrant families. The socio-economic range is equally broad.
In two wings of two pods of four classrooms, five portable buildings and the administration building the walls are filled with student writing and art. The library/performing arts center overflows with students engaged in purposeful learning activities. The author's tea may have students reading personal work; story hours are in progress; or students are being guided through the research area by the library assistant. An additional portable building houses our technology center, and buildings provided by the PTA are used to store physical education equipment and disaster preparedness materials. Primary and upper grade playgrounds adjoin each other and are located at the side and rear of the school property. Primary and upper grade lunch periods overlap and teachers are able to use lunch time to work and socialize together daily.
For the past ten years, we have been a leader in innovation and classroom research within our district and around the state. We read the professional research. We respond to changes in guidelines and standards. We analyze changing conditions on our campus. These activities have led us to become a technology model and to initiate the restructuring that is currently taking place. We began serious innovation in 1987 with the Model Technology Grant in language arts. We have demonstrated that given adequate funds, training and time to find ways to make it useful, teachers integrate technology into the classroom in exciting and enriching ways. Blending site funds with grant funds, we added overhead projectors, video cameras, computers, television monitors, classroom internet connections, classroom telephones, and other technology resources to classrooms as teachers indicated an interest and suggested ways in which students would benefit--and they have. Our students and staff use technology as easily as they use a pencil. They use e-mail and fax outside of school as well as in class. The quality of their writing has increased in clear and measurable ways as we made desktop publishing routine. They recognize the value of collaborative work. They do not fear change; they embrace it.
The video network takes down walls between classrooms. Simple things like field trips via the Internet, instructional television and cable broadcasts or distance dialogue are everyday video activities. More difficult are the demonstrations where students serve as teachers via the broadcast network or teleconferences where students share important information gained from research or surveys. Simulating national elections prepares students to evaluate televised events. Students do real things for real reasons that produce products in which they take pride which results in genuine self-esteem.
Local civic groups, businesses and the university bring Einstein or Odysseus to the classroom. Expert teachers arrive to create unique art experiences in visual, dance and music through the PTA and district co-sponsored All the Arts program. Students on the playground in physical education learn to think healthy and develop life styles that promote physical well-being for a lifetime. Scientists, architects, builders, doctors and other professionals share time and knowledge with the students. Students here are familiar with the larger world, one that is often very different from that in the neighborhood.
The focus on problem-solving and persistence when faced with difficulty led to the work with reflection. How is student progress affected by the way students see themselves? How does what we do affect the way students see themselves? What factors lead students to persist? Who does and who does not and why? We have clear evidence that students who are successful reflect well and often without prompting. A look in the classroom will show students at work solving difficult problems, sharing and comparing, rethinking, trying again and again if necessary. This is true throughout the grades. The evolution of staff here to become classroom researchers who collaborate to solve problems specific to the school population is an unique and distinguishing characteristic. The desire for all students to succeed fuels the ongoing research.
Adaptations of a successful program to more actively engage students in purposeful learning activities is another distinguishing characteristic. Students are actively engaged in the work of learning, talking, challenging, comparing, analyzing--testing their own ideas and knowledge against that of their peers and the experts in the textbooks, on the Internet, and in the community. Young scientists create experiments and tests that look very much like those in the secondary school. Young mathematicians collect data and produce statistics that prove or disprove projected theories. Young writers advance serious positions about issues of importance and defend them vigorously with evidence from literature and life. On a walk around the campus you will meet students who are involved. Purposeful play and work are clearly the order of the day.
Traditions are important to students here. They are the milestones for students. The sixth grade musical brings every student to center stage to sing and speak in tryouts for both large and small roles. The annual Jump Rope for Heart motivates students to become more community-minded and to value exercise. The Day of the Reader brings adults from business, education and the community to read with and to the students, sharing literature they love. Alumni return to talk about college, supporting the tradition of academic excellence. We are a very good school, a school with a history of success... and the work goes on, searching for Utopia, the place where everyone is the best he or she can be, student, staff and the rest of the world. We will take our places. We will make a difference.
Written by Ginger Britt, Laguna Road Grade 6 teacher
1998
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