In the coming weeks, we will continue our practice of recognizing our students as artist/scholars through our Dean's List/Honor Roll. As a community, we must celebrate the values that we all embrace.

I want to encourage all of our families to review these semester grades with your child. Thoughtful reflection about last semester can highlight strong habits from which to build and can help identify obstacles that worked to impede progress. For students who are pleased with their performance, identify those elements that contributed to your success. Perhaps it was due, in part to strong organization, greater emphasis on study habits, or additional time focused in a particular class, or all of these things. As you think about our semester ahead, what goals have you set for yourself? Where do you want your focus to be placed? Where can you continue to grow?

For our struggling students, these grades allow us an opportunity to examine underlying obstacles to success. Our Watch List protocol at LACHSA was designed specifically to do this. By issuing progress reports four times each semester faculty, parents, and students can monitor  performance every four weeks or so.  This transparency helps to illuminate areas of strength and challenge and provide feedback at regular intervals. 

For students who may need additional support, a Student Success Plan is crafted with clear and measurable action items outlined as commitments from the student, parent, teachers, counselor and administrator. All students who receive at least one failing grade will be placed on our Watch List and thus, receive a Student Success Plan. This approach illustrates our sense of collective accountability. When students struggle, it is important for all of us to reach out and respond. The success or failure of our students is our success or failure.  Our counselors will be contacting all students and families who have been identified for our Watch List.

Because we know that strong students tend to have highly developed habits of success. It may be a statement of the obvious to say that students who are organized, can prioritize, have strong time management, devote time to study, arrive on time or early achieve more artistic and scholarly success than those who do not exhibit these habits. It is also true to say that these habits are learned and cultivated. Our goal is to promote strong habits of success with all of our students.