Hi All,

I hope summer has gotten off to a good start - please take time to relax and enjoy the season. We will all show up in August saying it was too short and that we can't believe our children are entering Grade x, for me it is Grade 12 (unbelievable). As of this writing the Cubs aren't in last place and hopefully on their way of fulfilling the dream in Back to the Future 2 of winning the World Series in 2015, ahhh.

As you may have heard, students in local schools are waiting for the results of the Common Core assessments that they took this spring, so I thought it would be a good idea to talk about what it all means and how Riverstone and the IB are meeting those standards. Please click here to get a national perspective on the standards.

The goal of the Common Core assessments in math and language arts is to do on a national level what the International Baccalaureate (IB) was founded to do on an international level; create rigorous standards for students that can be measured across schools and states, and in the case of the IB, across countries. Previously, Idaho's standards were different from other states, whereas now, the Common Core assessments will allow Idaho to measure student success against other students across the country.

These new assessments are causing anxiety across the state. As a teacher was quoted saying in an Idaho Statesman article from March, "The standards are quite a bit more rigorous, and because of that I think there will be some struggles," said Leora White, an eighth-grade algebra teacher at Nampa's Lone Star Middle School. "I don't think that we will have as many students proficient as we did before. But the kids know that." In fact the article goes on to explain that, "State education leaders anticipate that 33 percent to 39 percent of students will meet or exceed the standards in math, and 38 percent to 41 percent will meet or exceed them in English. Under the old ISAT, proficiency rates ranged between 80 percent and 90 percent."

Because a majority of IB World Schools in the United States are public, the IB has ensured that they complied with and exceeded Common Core standards (click here to learn more).

As a school, what we are interested in are standards that ensure our students are successful and lead purposeful lives. While the Common Core and the IB programs align in their standards, they don't come with a curriculum. The experience that we have as a school in creating our amazing units of inquiry and curricula is something that can't be replaced. The thoughtful, constant improvement of how we teach in a way that best meets our mission and inspires our students is our best asset.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to call me.

Head of School 

We have a couple of students who would really like to attend Riverstone next year. Think about how exciting it must be for these students when they find out they have been accepted to the school of their choice in the U.S. Please consider hosting a student next year.

Alejandro is a boy from Spain who would be joining Grade 11. He is an outdoor enthusiast. His parents are both teachers and he has one sister. Alejandro would like to come to school at Riverstone.

Katharina is a girl from Germany who would be joining Grade 10. She loves the outdoors and looks forward to enjoying outdoor experiences both with school and with her host family. She is trilingual and would love to have the chance to practice her English while at Riverstone.

If you have an interest in a student from a specific country, please contact Jane Kaserman, our International Student Coordinator, and she will do her best to find the perfect student for your family.

We will be closed Thursday, July 2 - Wednesday, July 8.