Welcome Back!

This school year will be very exciting. Already teachers are planning field trips to enhance their lessons plans. With the school's new technology, students will have an opportunity to polish their work and to learn different software packages such as Excel and Word. Also, students will be able to login to INSTR. This will allow them to save and retrieve their work from anywhere in the school. Our school's media center now has computers so that students can do research and reports in the comfort of the two newly installed air conditioners.

Beginning in September, students’ progress will be measured several different times instead of just once in the spring. The Stanford Learning First has been adopted by the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) as the assessment tool to be used for grades 3-8. This low-stakes standards-based reading assessment program is being rolled out in response to requests for more appropriate, timely, and useful data. It is administered three times per year—September, January, and April. As well, for the primary grades, the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBLES) will be utilized to assess students’ performance in phonemic awareness, phonics, and oral reading fluency skills; and, the Illinois Snapshot of Early Literacy (ISEL) continues to be a favorite individualized assessment tool used by grades K and 2. For now, The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) have been eliminated from the CPS’ pool of assessment tools, which leaves the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) as the lone annual high-stakes assessment tool.

Earlier this year the Computer Club traveled to Springfield, Illinois to participate in Tech Expo 2005. While there, students in the club were recognized from the floor of the House of Representatives by Rep. L. Jones for their work. Click Computer Clubs to see the project the club took to Springfield.