A Message From Our Principal:  Mrs. Keval

Dear Parents and Guardians,

The first trimester is over and we are beginning the second trimester on Monday Nov. 2 nd ( Nov. 30 th for A track). During the second trimester, teachers will be asking more of students, as students would by now have adjusted to the grade level and the expectations for this year. Teachers will be moving students along a very tight schedule as they want to make sure that all the standards are covered before the STAR test which takes place in the spring. Please bring your children to school on time (by 7:55 a.m. ) so that they do not miss out on any learning.

Again this year, our school made strong gains in test scores. The state target was 5 points and we made a 17 point gain! This brings our API score to 772, the top of all title 1 elementary schools in our region! We are very proud of our hard working teachers and students! We will, however, enter program improvement, as our school, like many other title 1 schools, did not meet the federal target. I will send you more information on that as soon as I receive more information.

I would like to thank all of you as we have seen an increase in parent involvement. Many of you came to spend the day on campus for “Bring Your Parent to School Day”. We thank you for that. Mr. MacNeill and I were able to do a small welcome presentation about all the programs going on at our school as well as the consistent gains we have been making in our test scores. Our WatchDOGS, (Dads of Great Kids) have also surpassed our expectations with their response to volunteering on campus. We have dads on campus on a regular basis and this has been a wonderful gift to our students. Our students are so proud to see their dads and moms volunteering on campus!

I would like to take this time to congratulate our kindergarten teacher Mr. Toby Boyd who has been elected to represent District E on the California Teachers Association Board of Directors. Unfortunately it means that he will be taking a leave for a couple of years in order to fill his new position. We wish him the best and hope to see him back at Prairie in 2011!

We hope you have a safe Halloween and Thanksgiving. As always, please contact me if you have any questions or concerns, or join us for coffee the first Thursday of each month from 8:15 – 9:00a.m.

Sincerely,
Fawzia Keval
Principal