Twenty-eight students in grades 5-7 were selected to join the Safe Schools Ambassador program. Training began last week, as students met for a two-day workshop learning how to act as school leaders and help stop bullying and violence. The training gives student Ambassadors the motivation and skills to resolve conflicts, defuse incidents, and support isolated and excluded students. After the training, small group meetings of Ambassadors are held every few weeks. These meetings, led by the adult mentors, provide time for strengthening skills, support data collection and analysis of Ambassador interventions, and help sustain student and adult commitment to the program.

CACS is excited to introduce the Safe Schools Ambassador program to our middle school, and we thank Community Matters for their generous grant funding to bring the program to our school.

CACS’ 4th-8th grade dancers had a fantastic time in their 'flash mob' experience last Friday, as they joined dancers from across the Bay Area to launch Bay Area Dance Week. Hundreds of dancers joined together in dance at Union Square to kick off the celebration, a 10-day festival with an anticipated 600+ free events including classes, performances, open rehearsals, and lecture demonstrations. CACS dancers prepared for the event in the dance elective classes, and they were thrilled to be a part of this community dance experience.

CACS perfected the recipe for a great party last month: fine food, live music, a tantalizing auction with exciting items for bidding, and a generous and fun-loving crowd of CACS families, staff, and friends. Our annual spring auction filled the West Bay Conference Center with enthusiasm and good cheer. Volunteers served delicious food and beverages from Hog and Rocks, The Little Chihuahua, Max’s Diner, Arizmendi Bakery, and the Barrel Head Brewhouse. Parents danced to live music from the Cut Loose Cover Band, while the CACS afterschool staff provided on-site childcare to make the evening run smoothly.

More than anything, CACS is thrilled by the generosity of our extended community. Funds raised at the auction will be used to support our talented staff as they provide an educational program based on student-centered instructional approaches, cooperative, project-based learning activities, and an integration of the arts into the core curriculum. The auction could not have happened without hundreds of volunteer hours provided by parents at every grade level of the school. We thank families for their time, over one hundred San Francisco businesses and individuals for their generous donations, and all our guests for their financial support of our school. Once again, the spring auction not only raised needed funds, but also offered an opportunity to celebrate our fabulous community and children.

On Thursday, CACS middle school students shared their hard work with the CACS community by hosting the CACS Middle School History and Science Fair. All sixth graders created science projects, each involving careful experimentation using the scientific method. Students spent several weeks preparing for the experience in their science class, where they learned about scientific inquiry, lab tools, graphing, conducting experiments, and writing the pieces of a science project. Five projects were chosen to represent CACS at the San FranciscoScience Fair at the Randall Museum at the end of the month. Look for our students’ original experiments about germs on public transportation; how soda, vinegar, and water affect teeth; homemade radios; how detergent affects gray-water irrigation; and how cat toys influence cat behavior.

While sixth graders and a few seventh graders participated in the Science Fair, the remaining seventh graders and eighth graders contributed to the History Fair. Students created film documentaries, research papers, websites, and exhibits highlighting what they have learned this semester. Students from lower grades visited the Science and History Fair during the day, watching performances and admiring exhibits as they began to wonder what projects they will create when they get to middle school. In the evening, CACS welcomed our families and friends to admire and celebrate our students’ hard work.

All of the projects were judged by professionals within our community, including a judge from the California Academy of Science, parent volunteers, former teachers, and friends of the school. We congratulate our winners of the Science and History Fair, and thank our volunteer judges for helping to celebrate the exciting work that our middle school students have done this semester.

The halls and classrooms of CACS were bustling Thursday night, as students in every grade demonstrated their learning to families and friends. Look! Listen! Learn! featured a showcase of writing, performing, drawing, constructing, painting, and more as students shared their work in their academic and arts classes.
Families and friends enjoyed a wide range of interactive learning experiences. A few highlights include:

• The transformation of one kindergarten class into the Arctic Circle, while the other became an entertaining puppet theater exploring Aesop’s fables
• Presentations from the Innovation Lab, featuring student design projects in the upper grades
• Second graders explaining through words, sewing projects, and art how food flows from farm to market and into our homes
• Fifth graders in reader’s theater, performing a class-written piece on why we have laws and government
• Middle school students explaining their work on ancient societies
• Musical performances by the 4th/5th grade School Band
• Middle school students sharing the poems and art they’ve created through CEYA, a collaborative project with elders at Victorian Manor
• Video exhibits of our dance program
• Families playing board games and examining artifacts and maps created by fifth graders in their study of explorers
• First and eighth graders transforming themselves into historical national and world figures
• Fourth graders teaching the audience about California’s regions
• Eighth graders performing as world leaders
• Third graders discussing their giant art pieces depicting San Francisco landmarks, based on their research of San Francisco neighborhoods

The learning exhibition highlighted our students’ work, offering a snapshot of the school’s work integrating the arts into our academic subjects to support student achievement. The school was a whirlwind of learning, exploding with eager students wearing “Ask Me” badges ready to share their work. CACS applauds its fantastic staff and hard-working students for all their efforts to make the night, and the semester, such a success. For more information, check out our parent-created mini-documentary on the evening, discussing arts integration at CACS.

Who were all those zombies, monsters, and superheroes roaming the CACS yard on Saturday? CACS hosted all of these costumed guests and many more at our annual Fall Fair on October 22. Sunny skies and abundant community spirit led to a packed event of fun for kids of all grades. With games galore, a cakewalk with delicious prizes, a crafts table, and the ever-popular middle school-sponsored haunted house, students had a fantastic afternoon. Our good-natured administration and staff cooled off at the sponge-throwing booth, where students with good aim left them just a bit drippy. Our grills burned throughout the afternoon, supplying hungry families with burgers, hot dogs, and veggie burgers, while everyone cooled off with freshly made agua fresca and savored delicious desserts. Parent musicians entertained with live music, and the 5th and 6th grade dance elective performed to a medley of "This is Halloween," "Thriller," and "Ghostbusters."

Hundreds of volunteer hours went into putting on this event, and CACS thanks the students, parents, and staff who worked so hard to make it happen. All proceeds from the event will go to support our school’s programs.

CACS has a strong tradition of celebrating Dia de los Muertos as a community. Over the years we've done several exhibits at the Mission Cultural Center, and danced in the Day of the Dead procession on Nov. 2, and in-between built many Ofrendas at school. Many of our students have created art works to contribute to the Ofrenda, learning about Mexican folk culture and their own cultural traditions recognizing death, by comparison.

Visit this year’s interactive Ofrenda on the downstairs floor. We welcome everyone to bring a photo or momento to honor the memory of loved ones who have passed. The Ofrenda will be installed through Friday, Nov. 16th.

CACS welcomes families to our bi-annual family-student-teacher conferences next week, just one of the many forums in which we share information about student achievement and development. Teachers will host individual students and their families in one-on-one meetings to share information about student growth across the content areas. These conferences are a time of celebration and reflection, as students help lead conversations about their strengths and areas for growth. Furthermore, it represents a time for our staff to reflect on student progress and celebrate the growth we have seen over the fall as well as the past year.

At CACS, our curriculum is driven by both the California Content Standards as well as learning goals established by the school. To measure how well students meet these standards, we use multiple kinds of assessments, ranging from writing samples, performances, and presentations to more traditional forms of testing. Based on our internal assessments, we saw a nearly 20% increase in the number of elementary students (grades 1-5) reading at or above grade level last year, and we continue to use internal assessments to monitor student achievement and help shape program improvements.

In addition, CACS administers the state mandated California Standards Test (CST) each year to students in grades 2-8. This test represents another measure of student achievement, though not one that we consider to be the most accurate or valid form of measuring the success of our academic program. CST scores can fluctuate due to a variety of non-academic reasons, and the skills that the CST measures represent only a subset of those that we value at CACS. However, it is one measure by which CACS is held accountable by the district and state as well as a standard mechanism for comparing CACS with other schools.

That being said, we have a number of opportunities for celebration after receiving the 2011-2012 Accountability Progress Report from the state. For the first time in CACS history, the Academic Performance Index (API) was over 800 at 819, surpassing the statewide performance target for all schools. This is up 42 points from the 2011 base of 777. We are particularly pleased that all reported subgroups (student groups with numerically significant populations, such as socio-economically disadvantaged students) significantly improved, with each exceeding their growth targets. CACS continues to have an average proficiency rate above the state and district in English Language Arts, and our math scores parallel those of the district and state.

Additionally, when we compare groups of students at the same grade from one year to the next, the percentage of students scoring at the “proficient” or “advanced” level increased by 16% in English Language Arts, while the percentage of students scoring at these levels in math increased by 4%, with all but one grade level making positive improvements over the previous year.
CACS still has work to do in order to ensure that all of our subgroup populations are reaching proficiency in all content areas.

Our staff and teachers have implemented a multi-faceted plan to target students for additional support. In addition, we continue to monitor student learning using a wide variety of internal assessments to examine student growth in content areas as well as in the realms of social, emotional, and physical development; and we are actively using these assessments to help shape the design of our educational program. We are particularly excited about our continuing efforts to improve math education, as we have partnered with the Silicon Valley Math Initiative to obtain supplementary resources to improve students’ problem-solving abilities, have increased the time spent on math education at each grade level, and have implemented a math program in the middle school that aims to address students’ different learning needs more effectively.

Based on our assessment efforts, our teachers look forward to sharing their in-depth understanding of their students’ knowledge and skills with families at the upcoming conferences next week. We applaud our students for their continued progress in their journey of learning, and thank families for being such active partners in their children’s education.

Creative Arts is excited to join with Art.com in an effort to grow our art education at our school. CACS was selected as one of three schools to participate in Art.com’s generous art donation program. Our art teachers have selected 24 art images from Art.com’s collection that we would like to see on our walls. Visit art.com to vote for our gallery by liking it on Facebook. In addition, CACS students and families may also cast a vote for their school by sending an email to creativearts@art.com. For every 250 votes our school receives, Art.com will donate one piece of art to that school from their gallery.

Art.com believes in the power of art to encourage cognition, critical thinking, and learning, and CACS welcomes this partnership to support these goals. Thanks to Art.com for their donations!