Dear Palisades Elementary Parents,                                                                    

August 29 from 6:00 pm to 8:15 pm. The schedule is as follows:

Grades K- 2 from 6:00 pm - 6:45 pm

All parents with the principal in the auditorium from 

6:45 pm - 7:30 pm

Grades 3 - 5 from 7:30 pm - 8:15 pm

  Test Scores: The California State Test (CST) individual student results have arrived. 91% of our students in grades 2 -5 scored proficient to advanced on this statewide test. This is a 3 point gain! The Academic Performance Index (API) score has not yet been released although we remain confident that our "900" club membership is secure for another year. I have often said that the longer we can keep a child at Palisades Elementary School the chances of that child becoming a great student are excellent. Our test results certainly verify this. We are very much looking forward to another outstanding performance this school year also!  

 What is Common Core State Standards?:

In the spring of 2009, in an effort unprecedented in the history of U.S. education, governors and state commissioners of education from across the United States formed the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). What was the goal of this initiative? To develop a set of shared national standards ensuring that students in every state are held to the same level of expectations that students in the world's highest-performing countries are, and that they gain the knowledge and skills that will prepare them for success in postsecondary education and in the global arena. To have all students graduate college and career ready.

Prior to the standards movement, the textbook largely defined what students should learn. The textbook was the curriculum. The fact that each state developed its own standards and then created high-stakes assessments aligned to them put a premium on curriculum and instructional materials that targeted the specifics within a state standard. This state-by-state specificity rendered sharing resources across states problematic. Publishers, to meet the sudden demand, became notorious for quickly producing customized versions of each textbook series for state standards, although many suspected that it was only the ad copy that had changed.

The Common Core provides an established set of standards whose mastery will provide each student with the skill and knowledge to advance in study, whether as a master craftsman, a biochemist, or a pioneer in a field that has yet to emerge. And for the immediate future, we know what our students need to learn to succeed in the next grade or course, just as the teachers who have the students we will receive next year know what their students need to succeed in our classes. This transparency is both a significant obligation and a significant freedom.

The obligation comes in the form of a social contract affirming that we will prepare each student to learn the content specified for the subject and grade that we teach. The freedom is that just as we prepare students for their next class, students come to us prepared. Even if the teacher doesn't know you or teaches in a different state, he or she knows what students need to be successful in our classes. More important, the students and their parents know. We (presumably) don't need to spend time trying to bring students up to the first step because they're already there, ready for us to help them take the next step, and the next. We don't begin the year re-teaching; we begin the year teaching.

  Gratitude: A big thank you to Mathew Rodman and Chuck Hart for surprising us with the new dolphin for our school and mounting it so professionally on the corner of Bowdin and Via de la Paz. So many of our admiring neighbors and graduates have made positive comments about our most amazing artistic addition.  

Question:Do you know that our cafeteria is peanut free?

Salad Bar News: we will start our salad bar days again sometime in October. We are planning to have them on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We will let you know when the greens are going to arrive.

We Love Dogs...but not at School: Due to the great number of furry friends bringing their human children to school and picking them up, a crowded "dog situation" is occurring and causing great concern for parents and other students. Please refrain from these escorts and never bring them onto the school campus.   

Yours truly,

Joan Ingle, 

Principal

Thought for the Week: The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind. Ella Wheeler Wilcox