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Irvine as a whole does very well yet again.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/schools-284228-school-elementary.html
Orange County's best elementary schools of 2011
By FERMIN LEAL and SCOTT MARTINDALE
2011-01-14 15:40:38
Irvine elementary schools maintained their dominance in The Orange County Register's 2011 public school rankings, sweeping the top three spots even as a handful of less privileged campuses surged unexpectedly upward, defying the odds to join the elite Top 10.
Meadow Park Elementary in the Irvine Unified School District earned the Register's No. 1 rank, blending an unrivaled mix of academics, diversity, low discipline rates and physical fitness to define the model school.
And Davis Elementary in Newport Mesa Unified ? transformed last year into one of the county's rare elementary magnet schools ? surged from near the bottom of the list up to No. 7 thanks to aggressive campus leadership and a bold, visionary path to reinvention.
Click here to see the data behind this year's Best Public Schools rankings.
The biggest surprise, though, was Harvey Elementary in the Santa Ana Unified School District, a traditional school in a rough, inner-city neighborhood that cast aside stereotypes and assumptions about its poor, predominantly Hispanic students to grab the No. 9 spot.
The Register's 2011 Best Public Schools report honors a total of 146 elementary schools with gold, silver and bronze medals. Included in the mix are campuses with lengthy track records of academic excellence, schools that have been steadily improving, and campuses that languished for years until undergoing a sudden renaissance.
"'What can we do for kids?' That's my question as the leader of the school, that's the staff's question and that's the parents' question," said Lisa Livernois, principal at top-ranked Meadow Park Elementary.
"We don't just want the kids to do well academically. We love all the kids and support them in any way we can. It's that continuous improvement feeling ? that we can always improve and do better, that it does make a difference."
At Davis Elementary, Principal Kevin Rafferty led the conversion of the once-struggling school into a magnet, hand-picking a staff of motivated, enthusiastic teachers, and introducing a challenging curriculum focused on science, math and technology.
"Our goal is to have Davis recognized as one of the finest schools in America," Rafferty said. "Everything we do here is helping us work towards that goal."
O.C.'s best
This year, the Register honored 27 schools with gold medals, 63 with silver and 56 with bronze. These top-ranked schools come from all parts of the county.
All medal winners earned an Academic Performance Index score of at least 800 ? considered the minimum target for campuses statewide ? and each met all federal No Child Left Behind Act standardized testing targets.
Even so, Orange County's best elementary schools offer many different recipes for success.
No. 9-ranked Harvey Elementary learned that to find success, it first had to acknowledge both the neighborhood's poverty and parents' lack of education, and from there, deploy a no-nonsense, no-excuses attitude to lift both student and parent from those underpinnings.
"The staff has good communication with the parents ? they have a system that works really well, and that's what makes this school really good," said Harvey Elementary parent Minerva Mondragon of Santa Ana, who initially considered Catholic school for her two kids. "We always know what opportunities our children have for achieving higher goals academically. They let the parents get involved."
No. 10-ranked Sunnyside Elementary in Garden Grove soared to success by rolling out a simple, easy-to-understand program designed to put kids on the college track. About 66 percent of Sunnyside's students come from low-income families, and about 60 percent are designated English learners, with Vietnamese, Korean and Spanish the primary languages spoken at home.
Through the school's "Ten Education Commandments" program parents get a crash course in navigating the U.S. educational system. The program takes the confusion out of the college admissions process, helping parents make sure their kids are taking the right classes in middle and high school.
Struggling, but improving
As with many other school performance measures, the Register's rankings show that high student poverty levels remain as the strongest indicator of poor-performing schools.
Irvine Unified ranked as the county's top district, followed by Los Alamitos Unified and Laguna Beach Unified. Anaheim City ranked at the bottom, followed by Savanna School District and Westminster School District.
All but seven of the bottom 60 schools in the Register ranking had 65 percent or more of students qualify for subsidized meals.
Also, 172 of the 236 schools that didn't win medals had half or more of their students identified as low-income.
Educators have long maintained that schools with high concentrations of poverty struggle academically due a combination of several factors. Parental involvement is often lacking because parents tend to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
In Orange County, the vast majority of low-income students are also still learning English, another obstacle toward academic achievement.
Still, two-thirds schools without medals improved their API scores in 2010.
About half also earned an API similar-schools rank of 6 or higher, meaning that when compared statewide to schools with similar demographics, they ranked in the top half.
The Register included the state's API similar schools data ? a 1-10 ranking ? as a key measurement in the elementary ranking because it targets how schools with similar challenges perform when measured against each other, rather than against a static bar set for all schools.
In Santa Unified, a district where schools have traditionally struggled academically, 34 of 41 campuses improved their overall API score in 2010.
District officials credit a data-driven approach where principals and teachers use test scores and other measurements of individual students to target who needs additional support and remediation in subjects. Teachers target students with specific lesson plans, and use the data to collaborate across grade levels and over time.
Graciela Romero-Ruiz, a parent at 317th-ranked Garfield Elementary in Santa Ana said she's proud her daughter's school API score grew by 55 points this year.
"We're moving in the right direction," she said. "We don't compare ourselves with schools in Irvine because we're not anything like them. Our success is based on how much we improve as a school from one year to the next."
Contact the writer: 714-704-3773 or fleal@ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/news/schools-284228-school-elementary.html
Orange County's best elementary schools of 2011
By FERMIN LEAL and SCOTT MARTINDALE
2011-01-14 15:40:38
Irvine elementary schools maintained their dominance in The Orange County Register's 2011 public school rankings, sweeping the top three spots even as a handful of less privileged campuses surged unexpectedly upward, defying the odds to join the elite Top 10.
Meadow Park Elementary in the Irvine Unified School District earned the Register's No. 1 rank, blending an unrivaled mix of academics, diversity, low discipline rates and physical fitness to define the model school.
And Davis Elementary in Newport Mesa Unified ? transformed last year into one of the county's rare elementary magnet schools ? surged from near the bottom of the list up to No. 7 thanks to aggressive campus leadership and a bold, visionary path to reinvention.
Click here to see the data behind this year's Best Public Schools rankings.
The biggest surprise, though, was Harvey Elementary in the Santa Ana Unified School District, a traditional school in a rough, inner-city neighborhood that cast aside stereotypes and assumptions about its poor, predominantly Hispanic students to grab the No. 9 spot.
The Register's 2011 Best Public Schools report honors a total of 146 elementary schools with gold, silver and bronze medals. Included in the mix are campuses with lengthy track records of academic excellence, schools that have been steadily improving, and campuses that languished for years until undergoing a sudden renaissance.
"'What can we do for kids?' That's my question as the leader of the school, that's the staff's question and that's the parents' question," said Lisa Livernois, principal at top-ranked Meadow Park Elementary.
"We don't just want the kids to do well academically. We love all the kids and support them in any way we can. It's that continuous improvement feeling ? that we can always improve and do better, that it does make a difference."
At Davis Elementary, Principal Kevin Rafferty led the conversion of the once-struggling school into a magnet, hand-picking a staff of motivated, enthusiastic teachers, and introducing a challenging curriculum focused on science, math and technology.
"Our goal is to have Davis recognized as one of the finest schools in America," Rafferty said. "Everything we do here is helping us work towards that goal."
O.C.'s best
This year, the Register honored 27 schools with gold medals, 63 with silver and 56 with bronze. These top-ranked schools come from all parts of the county.
All medal winners earned an Academic Performance Index score of at least 800 ? considered the minimum target for campuses statewide ? and each met all federal No Child Left Behind Act standardized testing targets.
Even so, Orange County's best elementary schools offer many different recipes for success.
No. 9-ranked Harvey Elementary learned that to find success, it first had to acknowledge both the neighborhood's poverty and parents' lack of education, and from there, deploy a no-nonsense, no-excuses attitude to lift both student and parent from those underpinnings.
"The staff has good communication with the parents ? they have a system that works really well, and that's what makes this school really good," said Harvey Elementary parent Minerva Mondragon of Santa Ana, who initially considered Catholic school for her two kids. "We always know what opportunities our children have for achieving higher goals academically. They let the parents get involved."
No. 10-ranked Sunnyside Elementary in Garden Grove soared to success by rolling out a simple, easy-to-understand program designed to put kids on the college track. About 66 percent of Sunnyside's students come from low-income families, and about 60 percent are designated English learners, with Vietnamese, Korean and Spanish the primary languages spoken at home.
Through the school's "Ten Education Commandments" program parents get a crash course in navigating the U.S. educational system. The program takes the confusion out of the college admissions process, helping parents make sure their kids are taking the right classes in middle and high school.
Struggling, but improving
As with many other school performance measures, the Register's rankings show that high student poverty levels remain as the strongest indicator of poor-performing schools.
Irvine Unified ranked as the county's top district, followed by Los Alamitos Unified and Laguna Beach Unified. Anaheim City ranked at the bottom, followed by Savanna School District and Westminster School District.
All but seven of the bottom 60 schools in the Register ranking had 65 percent or more of students qualify for subsidized meals.
Also, 172 of the 236 schools that didn't win medals had half or more of their students identified as low-income.
Educators have long maintained that schools with high concentrations of poverty struggle academically due a combination of several factors. Parental involvement is often lacking because parents tend to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
In Orange County, the vast majority of low-income students are also still learning English, another obstacle toward academic achievement.
Still, two-thirds schools without medals improved their API scores in 2010.
About half also earned an API similar-schools rank of 6 or higher, meaning that when compared statewide to schools with similar demographics, they ranked in the top half.
The Register included the state's API similar schools data ? a 1-10 ranking ? as a key measurement in the elementary ranking because it targets how schools with similar challenges perform when measured against each other, rather than against a static bar set for all schools.
In Santa Unified, a district where schools have traditionally struggled academically, 34 of 41 campuses improved their overall API score in 2010.
District officials credit a data-driven approach where principals and teachers use test scores and other measurements of individual students to target who needs additional support and remediation in subjects. Teachers target students with specific lesson plans, and use the data to collaborate across grade levels and over time.
Graciela Romero-Ruiz, a parent at 317th-ranked Garfield Elementary in Santa Ana said she's proud her daughter's school API score grew by 55 points this year.
"We're moving in the right direction," she said. "We don't compare ourselves with schools in Irvine because we're not anything like them. Our success is based on how much we improve as a school from one year to the next."
Contact the writer: 714-704-3773 or fleal@ocregister.com
