Principal's Weekly Update #123

1. The culture of the School is characterized by an exemplary level or trust, collaboration and collegiality

2. The creation of, belief in, and adherence to the “STAMPEDE” mission and vision

3. The School’s instructional focus is data driven and directly supports the School’s vision, targeted improvement goals, and critical academic needs

4. Ongoing analysis of achievement data allows for students to participate in a rigorous relevant and coherent standards-based curriculum that supports the “STAMPEDE” mission vision

5. All academic classrooms have been provided with state of the art technology that supports student learning

6. All disciplines include Step-Up-To-Writing in their curriculum

7. The allocation of Professional Learning Community (PLC) time, allows the staff to develop and analyze common assessments and share best practices to increase student achievement.

Sit back and take a deep breath for a job well done – not for just the last four days, but for the last three years and seven months. All of you are “The Rest of the Story” and “IT IS A BEST SELLER”!

Dan Dupont – One More Time – THANK YOU! - for volunteering three years ago to spearhead our WASC report and all the preparation it takes for such a successful visit at YLHS. As you stated in your message from Thursday – “People aren’t just born as great teachers and administrators. Great schools don’t just magically appear. It takes work – a lot of freakin’ work. All of our work was just given a huge stamp of approval yesterday.” This is also true for you, Dan, our coordinator of the WASC Report and visitation. Great job and Thank You!!!!!

Distinguished School Visit – now that the “table is set” we have a five member team from the Orange County Department of Education coming for a one-day visit on Tuesday, March 26th. Unlike the WASC visitation team, OCDE will only be here for one day and will try to see as many classroom presentations as possible. Their focus for the day is to validate the two “signature” practices we summarized in the Distinguished School Application.