TROJAN UPDATE

Dear Catalina Students and Parents –As we get set to close the books on the first semester of this school year, I’d like to share with you someitems of interest and note that were part of our school’s growth and development over the last few months:· Catalina was fully accredited by the national rating organization responsible for assuring that schoolsare doing all that is required of them. An accreditation review team visited our school for two dayslast month, reviewing significant documents, visiting classrooms and interviewing students, staffand parents. The team looks at seven standard areas at each school it visits and, quoting from theirwebsite, “considers all aspects of how institutions deliver quality education, which include teachingand learning, vision and strategies, governance, data use, resources, and self- improvement.” Tolearn more about the accreditation process, paste this link into your web browser: http://www.advanced.org/what-accreditation· Our teachers continue to work in their classrooms and with each other to fully implement theEssential Elements of Instruction decision-making model. All teachers in TUSD have been trainedin this model as of the end of this semester and are now focused on using what they learned withtheir students. Each of our teachers has selected two faculty “study buddies” to work with them oneffective use of this model. They visit each other’s classrooms to conduct formative observations.Administrators are also working with teachers on better use of the model, which emphasizesfrequent checks of student understanding during any given lesson.· Assistant Principal Dave Berry has come up with an innovative and helpfulAIMS tutoring program for sophomores that we believe will help themto pass the AIMS tests when they take them in February and April. Byanalyzing student performance on other tests they took as freshmen andin 8 th grade, Mr. Berry came up with a list of students who will most benefitfrom this tutoring program. Students will be excused from one of theirelective classes to engage in the program right before the AIMS tests areadministered.· Incidents of student behavior requiring out of school suspension havedeclined drastically at Catalina over the last three years. During the 2009- Principal Rex Scott10 school year, there were 120 suspensions during the first four months ofschool. The following school year, that number was reduced during the same period of time to 80.This school year, there were only 36 suspensions during that same span of time. These significantreductions speak to the hard work our staff is doing with our students, but is also a credit to the factthat our students are more focused on the work that they must undertake to be successful in school.· The renovations in our Fine Arts wing are partially completed and will be completely finished by theend of this school year. Work in the Auditorium and Little Theater is already done and both facilitieslook terrific! We will be working with one of our feeder middle schools to share staffing resourcesso that we are able to offer more classes in choir, drama and orchestra next year, as well as continueour commitments to band, guitar and mariachi. Kudos goes to Assistant Principal Pablo Madrid andProject Manager Ed Lees for their oversight of this important project.· During two Saturdays in November, over 100 students, staff and neighborhood volunteers workedtogether to plant trees, clear brush and weeds and beautify the campus and its perimeter. I want toespecially thank Catalina teacher Julie Kasper and her students for securing grant funds for some ofthe campus beautification efforts and our friends in the Palo Verde Neighborhood Association fortheir leadership and support of both these projects.- Continued next pageTROJAN UPDATE December, 2011 Page 2