Hi All,

I hope you are starting to settle into the second half of the school year. From January until spring break is a very busy time at Riverstone and there are many moving parts. I ask that you take the time to look at the school calendar and plan ahead. We hope that you are able to participate as much as possible in our gatherings and sporting events.

As you have seen from the email that I sent out earlier this week, this is the time of year that we ask parents for feedback on how we are doing as an administration and how our teachers are doing in the classrooms. Students in grades 5-12 are completing surveys designed specifically for them this week. 

We are committed to a culture of development, improvement, and partnership. Asking parents and students for feedback in this manner is not a typical exercise at schools; most schools shy away from these surveys, whereas we conduct them every year.

We trust our students and our parents to offer constructive, professional, and positive suggestions.

One of the great benefits of being a private independent school is that we can identify areas to improve and then act upon our decisions of our own accord. We don't have to wait for district or state approval. Our willingness to openly discuss improvement is reflected in our Strategic Plan, and it is reflected in these yearly surveys.

Your feedback will be used over the course of a teacher's career to help adjust their professional development plan. This will be one point of information that is used in each individual teacher's meeting with their Directors; the same is true for the administrative staff.

As I mentioned in my email from Tuesday, which contains the link to the surveys, this is a great leap of faith for our staff and we trust that our parents will approach the surveys in the spirit that they are intended, as a way to thoughtfully improve the experience of every student.

Please take the time to fill out the surveys that will be open until Tuesday, January 27.

Bob Carignan

Head of School

bcarignan@riverstoneschool.org

At Riverstone, standardized testing is only one of the many ways that we assess students' academic progress. Typically, students will be challenged to demonstrate their ability to understand and apply new knowledge through open-ended questions, literary analysis, essays, oral presentations, musical compositions, or original art. In our small classrooms, teachers can quickly gauge students' understanding of new material.

However, we recognize that there are benefits of carefully choosing appropriate tools for standardized testing and have chosen a combination of tests that allow us to do the following:

• Compare our students' performance to both national and international testing benchmarks;
• Evaluate our students' progress over time;
• Evaluate our curriculum so that we may continue to improve;
• Develop students' confidence in and experience with taking standardized tests

Learn more about the ISA here. View a listing of the 204 schools worldwide who administer the ISA here.

Learn more about our students' performance on standardized testing here.

The boys high school basketball team is battling hard through our toughest part of the schedule these past two weeks facing three teams ranked among the top 4 in the entire state this season. Although we have lost handily to Ambrose and Notus the last two contests, the boys have showed significant improvement  and competitive spirit.

The boys compete hard every night and during these past few games have set new school records as a team for the most 3-pointers in a season, and in a game with 8 vs. Horseshoe Bend last week. Starting four sophomores and one junior most of the season, the team also continues on pace to post our highest scoring season ever led by Dedi Seme and Sam Cole. And in the first quarter last Tuesday vs. Notus, sophomore Alex Macha scored the 3,000th point in Riverstone boys' history!

Come out and support the team on the road at Liberty Charter this Friday and at home next Tuesday against Idaho City!

Middle School Boys Basketball 

The Middle School Boys team will be playing in the Tip Off Tournament at The Amborse School on Saturday, Jan 24. Go Otters!

4:00 PM    Riverstone vs. Greenleaf Friends Academy 

7:00 PM    Riverstone vs. Horseshoe Bend 

1. Giant Otter logo installed inside Kennedy Gymnasium
2. Water bottle filling stations - one each for the Elementary School, Middle School, High School, and Kennedy Gym. Plumbing, retrofit, and maintenance is figured into the price.
3. Chairs for events such as Convocation, Winter Concert, Variety Show, etc. We currently rely on rentals for large events.

Please respond to the survey by Friday, Jan 30 using the following link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PAFunds 

We are excited about the opportunity to purchase one or more of these items for the school dependent upon the cost of the highest-ranked selections.

All interested Gr 9-12 boys and girls are welcome to join the Riverstone's Rush Co-Ed Soccer team.

Player meeting

Mandatory lunch meeting on Monday, Feb 2 in Kennedy Gymnasium 

Registration 

Idaho Rush Select High School online registration for Spring 2015 is now open. If you register between January 19 and February 1, your cost will be $120 per player. If you register after February 1, your cost will be $140 per player and you will need to register in person at the Idaho Rush office.