September 10-14,
2001
Woodley Hills Elementary School One of Eight 2001 National Schools of Character in Nation
Fairfax County Public Schools' Woodley Hills Elementary School is
one of eight school winners selected as 2001 National Schools of
Character in recognition of its exemplary work to encourage the
social, ethical, and academic development of its students through
character education.
National Schools of Character is an annual awards program recognizing K-12 schools and school systems demonstrating outstanding character education initiatives that yield positive results in student behavior, school climate, and academic performance. The program is sponsored and administered by the Character Education Partnership (CEP), a national nonprofit and nonpartisan coalition based in Washington, D.C., with support from the United Auto Workers (UAW) and General Motors (GM) Center for Human Resources, Enron, and the John Templeton Foundation.
Woodley Hills Elementary School-"home" to students from every continent as well as a significant number of children with special needs-created a character education program that has made a difference in the life of the school and the lives of the students.
Principal Rima Vesilind said, "At Woodley Hills, we are dealing with a microcosm of the world. We serve children and families from every continent who are learning to be good Americans, and we have an enormous opportunity to make a difference in the kinds of citizens they will become. We're building the positive values that all people share-respect, caring, honesty, responsibility, hard work, trust, and family."
Woodley Hills' initiatives include an unusual program to host Belarussian children during the summer to teach computer and language skills, a buddy program in which fifth and sixth grade classes partner with younger students, and a program for sixth graders to perform nearly 50 hours of community service. Class meetings were also key in giving students an opportunity to work together, solve problems, reflect on their behavior, brainstorm service opportunities, and have positive, respectful interactions with each other.
As the school has evolved into a caring community, discipline issues and incidents have dramatically decreased. Staff members attribute this to a classroom focus on respect, self-control, self-awareness, and empathy and the reflection-driven way that the school handles discipline problems. Classroom attendance has also improved, the school climate has changed dramatically, and students' test scores have increased. For example, the percentage of fifth graders passing the math section of Virginia's Standard of Learning (SOL) exams has jumped from 27.8 percent in spring 1998 to 66 percent in 2000 and to 71.9 percent in 2001.
The award winners are selected for their effectiveness in implementing CEP's Eleven Principles of Character Education, which provides a framework for comprehensive character education efforts in schools or school systems. Woodley Hills and the other eight winners will be honored in an October 18 ceremony held during CEP's National Forum in Denver, Colorado. The National Forum hosts educators from around the country, inviting them to explore innovative and successful character education strategies and ways to improve school culture.
For more information, contact Rima Vesilind, principal, Woodley Hills Elementary School,
SOL Pass Rate Increases for Excel Schools are More Than Double Those for all Fairfax County Schools
Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent, Daniel Domenech
announced Thursday, September 6 that projected cumulative pass rate
increases on Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) tests for the
school system's Excel schools were much higher than those of the
school system as a whole. Excel schools comprise 20 elementary
schools with student populations that require extra resources to
produce high student achievement. These schools have full-day
kindergarten and receive additional resources to increase learning
time and otherwise improve instruction.
The table below shows the projected pass rate for all students (grades 3, 4, and 5) for the EXCEL schools and the school system for 1999-2000 and 2000-2001. These are projections based on unofficial numbers; official numbers will be released when they are received from the state.
Percentage Pass Rate for All Elementary Tests
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Although the total division made gains in all four areas, the gains by the EXCEL schools more than doubled the gains of the division, almost tripling the gains in math and quadrupling the gains in science.
201 Fairfax County Seniors Named National Merit
Semifinalists
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has announced that 201
Fairfax County Public Schools seniors, representing
17 county high schools, have been named semifinalists in the 2002
National Merit Scholarship program. Thomas Jefferson High School for
Science and Technology (TJHSST), which also serves as the Governor's
Regional School for Northern Virginia, has 151 semifinalists, making
it the number one school in the nation for total number of
semifinalists for the last 11 out of 12 years.
"Student achievement continues to soar in Fairfax County! We are always very proud of Fairfax County Public Schools students' outstanding performance in the National Merit Scholarship competition. This year's 201 semifinalists make up more than half-52 percent-of Virginia's semifinalists. That's great news," said Superintendent Daniel A. Domenech.
Approximately 16,000 semifinalists from across the country were selected from more than 1.2 million students enrolled in over 20,000 United States high schools. Semifinalists are the students who scored the highest in each state on the 2000 Preliminary Scholastic Assessment Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) as high school juniors.
The semifinalists represent less than one percent of each state's
graduating classes. About 90 percent, or approximately
15,000, of the semifinalists are expected to meet the high standards
to advance to finalist standing, and all Merit Scholarship winners
will be chosen from this group. Finalists will compete for more than
$32 million in Merit Scholarships, which will be awarded next
spring.
Semifinalists from Fairfax County Public Schools are: Annandale
High School , Lindsay Young; Centreville High
School, Michael Kim, Dara Phillips, Jessica
Romine, and William Yang; Fairfax High School,
Susan Gross and Aliya Razvi; Lake Braddock Secondary
School, Shelley Chen, Emily Dunn, Sean
France, Matthew Kelberg, Noah Misch, Meghan
Moran, Rachel Poole, Joseph Shin, Ian
Shore, and Evan Winerman; Langley High School,
Sommer Gottke, Elizabeth Horahan, Philip Mause,
Caitlin O'Dwyer, and Alex Tai; Lee High School,
Brian Skinner; Madison High School, Sevan
Abashian; Marshall High School, Rachel Manteuffel
and Carlos Poza; McLean High School, Anyu
Fang, Joshua Hendricks-Riley, and Lily Liu;
Mount Vernon High School, Christopher Bea; Oakton
High School, Christopher Craighill, James Goodwin,
Emily Guendelsberger, and Carol Trevey; Robinson
Secondary School,
Laura Parks; South Lakes High School, Andrew
Howard and Scott Savage; Thomas Jefferson High School
for Science and Technology, Todd Aman, Jason
Amirhadji, Karl Antle, Nii Armar, Emily
Bacher, Lindsey Barnhart, Margaret Barusch, Joseph
Bertini, Padam Bhatia, Stephanie Blatch, Maria Bose, Gregory Bowman,
Andrew Breithaupt, John Brougher, Rachel Brown, Sarah Buckley, Kevin
Cahill, Nicholas Carr, Jack Chen, Christopher Christensen, Eric Chu,
Natan Cliffer, Jeffrey Cohen, Susan Cordovilla, Evan Crawford,
Stephen Crensh, Anthony Cross, Stephen D'Angelo, Kaia Dekker, Joshua
Dezube, Lian Duan, Katharine Duncan, Marilyn Duncan, Helen Durden,
James Egan, Etan Eitches, Chad Ellis, Kelly Ellis, Elizabeth Evans,
William Evans, Christopher Garay, Jessica Geist, Jeremy Gillula,
Martin Glazier, Pierre Greene, Annalisa Grimes, Theodore Gudmundsen,
Kunal Gullapalli, Alka Gupta, Lauren Hall, Christopher Hannemann,
Elizabeth Harrell-Edge, Rayiner Hashem, Erica Hemphill, Dana
Henrickson-Matt, Leo Hergenroeder, Amelia Hollingsworth, Alexander
Hreiz, Jesse Hurdus, Jill Isenstadt, Daniel Jackson, Mee-Jung Jang,
Brian Johnson, Karen Kelly, Jina Kim, Erin Krizay, Justine Kwan,
James Kynes, Stephanie Lai, Peter Landwehr, Sang-Won Lee, Moses Lei,
Jingyi Li, Kathleen Locher, Thomas Lubitz, Nicholas Lynn, Julie
Mackaronis, Molly Mahar, Christopher Marsh, Kevin Maskell, Sam
Maslin, Cory Maxwell, Tanya Mejia, Thomas Mendel, Rachel Metz,
Brendan Miller, Daniel Miller, Maureen Miller, Bethany Milton,
Stephen Munchak, Brian Myhre, Mika Nagasaki, Laura Nally, Robin
Nance, Amir Nezar, Vladimir Novakovski, Meaghan O'Malley, Eugene
Otto, Elizabeth Panarelli, Thomas Parnham, James Pascaleff, Carol
Pendergast, Thomas Perez-Lopez, Laura Phillip, Leah Pike, Geoffrey
Pitsch, Gregory N. Price, Gregory W. Price, Brian Pujanauski, Syed
Qadri, Shrayes Ramesh, Hollen Reischer, Christopher Riedel, Emily
Riggs, Alison Rosner, Emily Schelstrate, Bryce Senz, Ankur Shah,
Haoyuan Shen, Kirsten Sides, Gary Sivek, Steven Sivek, Angelique
Sklavounos, Brendan Smith, Karen Sosa, Stephen Spiller, Arthi
Srinivasan, Stephanie Sud, Margaret Sullivan, Meng Tan, Vivian Tan,
Scott Thompson, Elise Thorsen, Shujun Tian, Jennifer Tison, Tam Tran,
Vijaya Tripathi, Will Vandervaart, Nina Vujovic, Justin Warren, Rose
Weill, Christopher Wenzel, Erica Westcott, Matthew Wester, Andrew
Wright, Jason Wright, Sarah Wyatt, Han Xu, Yuan Yao, Janet Yoo, and
Wenhong You; West Potomac High School, Benjamin
Rankin; West Springfield High School, Andrew Brooks,
Kathleen Freund, and Brendan Williams; and Woodson High
School, Stanley Beckwith, Daniel Buescher, Jared Campbell,
Rebecca Goldberg, Sarah Hardy, Brian Hedden, Wade Miller, Whitney
Todd, and Adam Weissman.
Fairfax County Public Schools Parent
Satisfaction Survey Results Presented
At its September 13 meeting, the Fairfax County School Board received findings of a parent satisfaction survey. The survey was conducted in May and June last year by WorkForce Technologies, Inc., under a contract with the school system.
The survey results indicate that, overall, parent groups are satisfied with the support FCPS provides schools and students. Parents indicated that they think FCPS does well in the areas of technology support, school safety, quality of teachers and staff members, courteous and respectful attitudes of teachers and other staff members, and communication between parents and FCPS.
Survey results indicate that FCPS needs to improve resource availability for salaries of teachers and other employees, resource availability for new building construction and renovation, and parent understanding of resource limitations and allocation methods.
The parent satisfaction survey was ordered by the school system as part of its effort to increase its level of customer service. In spring 2000, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) was reorganized from three areas into eight clusters to reduce spans of control and to bring support services closer to schools. The reorganization aimed to improve services to schools so that principals, teachers, and other school staff members could focus on improving student achievement. The major emphasis of the reorganization has been to create a strong client-centered customer service organization.
Questionnaires were mailed to a random sample of 25,000 parent addresses selected to represent the just over 100,000 households with FCPS students. Returns numbered 8,273; 8,000 were needed to draw accurate conclusions from the information received.
Two of the 11 top-rated survey items concerned perceptions of school safety, another 2 of the 11 top-rated items concerned special services (translation and students with disabilities), and technology support rated high.
Low ratings on some items indicate that the school system needs to help parents to understand resource limitations and allocation methods. Most of the lower-rated items centered on such resource-related issues as teacher pay, communicating opinions on pay issues, understanding teacher allocations and ratios, reflecting priority school needs in the budget, and understanding capital construction limitations.
The survey results indicate that parents' satisfaction diminishes as their students reach higher grade levels and the longer the parents are associated with FCPS. Minority parents generally reported higher levels of satisfaction with FCPS; Hispanic parents reported the highest levels of satisfaction, and White parents reported the lowest satisfaction levels.
Other demographic indicators were that there were no statistically significant differences between responses of parents of special education students versus those of general education students, and, with one exception, no statistically significant differences in parent satisfaction among high school pyramids.
High ratings were given to communication from parents to FCPS and from FCPS to parents. Safety received high ratings. Instruction and classroom management ranked above the mean, while resource availability issues generally ranked lower.
A 10-point rating scale, from "strongly disagree" equals 1 to
"strongly agree" equals 10, was used. Scores ranging from
5.0 through 10 indicated increasing degrees of parent
satisfactions.
"My student receives the textbooks and supplies they need," was the highest rated question at 8.258. "FCPS staff are courteous and responsive" was rated 7.849, "FCPS seeks active parent participation" was rated 7.94, and "FCPS provides ways for parents and the community to be involved" was rated 7.829.
Service standards that the school system attempted to measure through the parent survey include availability (the client receives the product or service within the time expected), responsiveness (the client receives clear, responsive, and respectful communication from the service provider), accuracy (the client receives a quality product or service), partnership (the client participates or is heard when issues and best solutions are defined), and advice (the client receives advice in making the best choices about products and services). Parents generally reported higher satisfaction with the customer service items (availability, responsiveness, and accuracy) than they did with the client service items (partnership and advice).
Note: For further information about the FCPS parent satisfaction survey and its findings, call James Johnson, 703-246-3794.
National Geographic Features Stuart High
School in September Issue
Stuart High School, a Fairfax County public school, is the focus of an extensive National Geographic report about record waves of immigration that are sending teens from around the world to high schools in the United States. "Changing America--A High School Melting Pot," in the September issue of National Geographic, spotlights Stuart High School to show how students from various cultures have joined together to create a positive educational and social environment.
Stuart principal Mel Riddile and several students and teachers were interviewed for the 20-page article, which was in development for more than a year. According to the 2000 census, 10 percent of America's 281 million residents were born in other countries, the largest number in U.S. history. In many ways, Stuart mirrors this immigration revolution. Half of its 1,400 students were born in 70 countries. Riddile is proud that his students mix well together despite their varied backgrounds. "Everybody's a minority here, and that's the best mix of all," he says.
More than half of Stuart's students have to learn English as a second language. The importance of the English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) program is discussed in the article, because Stuart High School is preparing immigrant students for the world outside high school by making certain that they can read and write in English and compete for higher paying jobs.
For more information, contact principal Mel Riddile, Stuart High School, 703-824-3909.
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) will host its First Annual Thomas Jefferson Community Carnival on Saturday, September 22, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the school. TJHSST is a Fairfax County public school located at 6560 Braddock Road in Alexandria, Virginia. The carnival will be held rain or shine, and adults and children of all ages are invited to join the fun at TJHSST.
The First Annual Thomas Jefferson Community Carnival has four main objectives:
Fifty of the student-run interest clubs at TJHSST plan free demonstrations, presentations, and workshops for the carnival. These will include a demonstration by the Martial Arts Club, an inkblot game by the Psychology Club, rocket launches by the Aeromodeling Club, and a presentation by the Amateur Radio Club. Other clubs will sell ethnic foods, such as samosas from the Islamic Culture Club and bubble tea from the Asian Awareness Group. Presentations from several of TJHSST's ethnic groups will be held throughout the day, including Namaste (an Indian organization), the Black Student Union, and the Hispanic Alliance.
Free athletic clinics will be sponsored by TJHSST's crew, field hockey, lacrosse, and cheerleading teams. The school choir will present a special performance along with the Shakespeare Troupe and the Swing Dance Team. Typical carnival attractions, snacks, and games will include two moon bounces (one for younger children and the other for older middle school students) and an 85-foot-long inflatable obstacle course suitable for all ages. The moon bounces and the obstacle course will be free. The TJHSST Chapter of the National Honor Society will sponsor free games.
For parents who are interested in the application process, an Introduction to Jefferson segment will be followed by a question-and-answer session with representatives from the admissions office and the guidance department and several TJHSST students.
Members of the TJHSST class of 2002, in cooperation with the Student Government Association and the school administration, have planned the community carnival.
Note: For more information, e-mail tjcommunity@hotmail.com, call the information hot line at 703-764-4428, or call student representative Carrie Dann at 703-690-7982.
Last update: September 14, 2001
Curator: Therese Payne -- Therese.Payne@fcps.edu