The district goal is for every school to reach an API of 800 by 2010, which is our mission. Our API score for our first year(2007/2008)was 741, our second year(2008/2009) is 770 and for our third year (2009/2010) is 763. Our goal for 2011 will be to reach that goal of 800 as stated in the district school accountability and assessment report. We did make 9 points growth on our API for 2011 with a score of 772. A detailed outline of our school goals are attached to the measure effectiveness portion of this plan.

Our mission statement is at the heart of what we do as an educational team: "Mission Crest is a school of thinkers challenged by new ideas and experiences every day!"

          Mission Crest Elementary opened August of 2007 for students in grades K - 5 for the 2007/2008 school year on 2 campuses until our move in March 2008. Hesperia is experiencing a population growth and opening new schools to help accommodate that growth. We opened with 745 students and 33 classrooms which includes 2 special education classrooms. For the 2008/2009 school year we opened together as a K-5 school for the first time on one campus. One unique thing about our campus is that it is the first all indoor campus in Hesperia. Our 6th graders joined our campus in March 2009. For the 2009/2010 school year we are a K-6 campus with 960 students. Our campus remains the same configuration for 2010/2011. We have the unique distinction of being the largest elementary school in Hesperia with 1,000+ students. This continues to be the case in 2011/2012.

           At Mission Crest we advertise our Kindergarten registration in our local and school newspapers for Spring. At this registration we give out handouts to parents so that they can help prepare their student for entering Kindergarten as well as assess each incoming child at registration. Before school starts in August parents and students are invited to attend an orientation.
Our goals this year will focus on 4 things that our state test scores indicated are our weakness: Reading Comprehension, Writing Strategies, Multiplication, Division and Fractions, and Measurement and Geometry.

          All programs have been designed from the ground floor up. ExCEL(Excellence: A commitment to every learner) is a program to which the staff is committed. With a student essay contest a vote the new name for this intensive time block on our campus is Power Hour. English Language Arts is the focus for this scaffolded standards based instruction. Our leadership team is focused with leading staff planning for this block of time that will assist our students in becoming better readers. This year we have hired 2 instructional aides that are working with students in our lower reading groups.

           Hourly Interventions after school are focused on meeting the needs of any student scoring from the far below basic to basic range on California Standards Testing. 

          We monitor student progress formally every 7 to 8 weeks through our district benchmarks and our data teams meet during collaboration to look at this data,focusing on continuous improvement and PDSA goals in each classroom.

          Teachers and administration are seeking to make any time they spend together focused on becoming more knowledgeable in our profession. We are focusing on research regarding closing the achievement gap and high performing school standards. We do this by devoting at least one staff meeting a month to professional development, each teacher will have an account on PD 360, a professional book for summer reading, and through reflection.

           Students are encouraged to develop positive character traits through Best Practices, Trimester Awards Assemblies, weekly Time to Teach lessons, Wednesday Ribbon Awards, and Chargers Ignite (every student can earn awards 6 times a year for 90% completion of homework, classwork, good behavior, and good attendance). Chargers Ignite was all staff as now been implemented as well (monthly rewards for attendance, meeting deadlines, and giving positive recognition to each other and our students). Red carpet awards recognized all students(318) who scored proficient or advanced on the CST in grades 3 - 6.

           Our staff spent days in May focused on instruction on our campus. As a result of those 2 days we have in our staff handbook instructional expectations for staff. As well as student expectations for all curriculum areas while on campus.
 

Welcome,

Principal of Mission Crest Elementary