SVDP Newsletter

Dear SVDP Community,

We are halfway through our first trimester! Last week, you had the opportunity to meet with your child's teacher and discuss their progress. We have also been reviewing the school's progress and wanted to share some impressive data points regarding our WCEA/WASC parent survey, shifts in the curriculum and instruction, and the STAR September baseline assessment results.

SVDP Administration and Advisory Board

Thank you to the 66% of parents that participated in the survey. Here are some highlights.

These three elements ranked either first or second in your responses:

Academic Excellence 73%

Catholic Values 54%

Safe Environment 49%

Most respondents commented that the family and school community were overwhelmingly the best thing about our school.

1) facility upgrades with a focus on security and safety

2) curriculum and instruction -- differentiation in the classroom and co-curricular integration

3) school communication

In comparing the data from 2014 to this year’s data collection, our overall rating on curriculum and instruction has improved. There is a noticeable shift from somewhat-effective (SE) to effective (E) and highly effective (HE) in all curricular disciplines.

During the past four years, the school adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in both mathematics and ELA. In 2014 the mathematics program was reevaluated, and the school purchased and implemented Eureka Math (grades K-6) and the Big Ideas Mathematics (grades 7-8) curricula. Additional tools and resources have supplemented the curriculum such as, but not limited to, IXL Math (4-6) to target practice skills and ST Math (K-3) to support visual learning in mathematics.

In ELA, one of our WCEA/WASC goals set at our accreditation, was to develop a plan to support literacy across the curriculum through differentiation. With the identification of writing as an area of growth, the school created ELA Coach positions at the intermediate level (3-5) and at the middle school level (6-8). These instructors collaborate with homeroom teachers in developing a more rigorous curriculum that focuses on the CCSS specifically targeting writing skills – i.e. using evidence from the text to support a claim.

STAR assessments provide teachers with data to guide their instruction and pinpoint areas of growth for our students. The results of our September baseline assessment demonstrate that 63% of our students are scoring in the top quartile for math and 51% of our students are scoring in the top quartile for reading. We look forward to reporting out the progress that our students achieve after the summative assessment administered in May.

The Student Growth Percentile (SGP) will be utilized by high schools to assess how students are progressing through the middle school years. This is great news for our SVDP students. Based on 2017’s summative assessment results, the combined SGP of our students was higher than those of similar schools.

Email: administration@svdpsf.com
Website: svdpsf.com
Location: 2350 Green Street, San Francisco, CA, USA
Phone: (415) 346-5505