Principal's Message

September 25, 2008
What do you get when you combine 400+ enthusiastic runners and walkers (including the Los Altos Cross Country Team), delicious food, rocking music, exciting raffle prizes and Santa Rita spirit? The Bobcat Chase, of course! Last Saturday’s 2nd annual Bobcat Chase was a huge success! Check out the Bobcat Chase glass case at the front of school for pictures of the event.

Bobcat Chase Thank Yous!
The Bobcat Chase could not happen without a great team, including Santa Rita parents, teachers and staff, students and the community. A heartfelt thanks!

Opening Ceremonies and Running Path Headliners

• Principal Gallagher
• The Los Altos High School cheerleaders, who warmed us up
• The 6th graders, who led us in The Star Spangled Banner
• Our fearless bobcats: Lucas Andrade, Daniel Beatty,
• Aiden Conway and David Survilo.

Outstanding “Day of” Volunteers
Anchal Deep, Susan Cook, Susan Mirbach, Jaya Pandey, Dan Yu, Yu Sun, Ray Milkey, Songpeng Yu, Ann Enthovan, Harry Chang, Alan Cyron, Charlene Chang, Diane Hutchison, Jackie Radcliffe, Dave McLoughlin, Maureen White, Anitha Karagagnapathy, Lillian Terada, Christine Costa, Felix Salemi, Peg Tsao, Susan Kinne, Molly Black, Bill Gaylord, Richard Caloca, Suzanne Caloca, Andy Cohen, Darren Jones, Jocelyne, Bing Hai, and everyone who brought water! Please accept our apologies if we missed your name!

Thank you to our Amazing Sponsors
Aldo Los Altos, Baskin-Robbins, Capers Eat & Drink, De Martini Orchard, Hobee’s (Palo Alto), Jamba Juice (El Monte), Maltby’s Restaurant & Tavern, Pompeii, Rick’s Café, Santa Rita PTA, Skip’s Pizza, Starbucks (Main St.), State Farm Insurance (Miramonte), Sumo Japanese

Thank You to the Bobcat Chase Committee
These seven individuals were instrumental in the planning of this fabulous day. Thank you to Mirtes Friedani, Jennie Ho, Amy Hoffman, Tiffany Jenab, Yvonne Milkey, Holly Cohen and Helena McLoughlin.

September 18, 2008
Thank you to Gretchen Craford and Kristy Hamlin for the leadership and support they have provided Santa Rita with emergency preparations. Under their guidance, parent volunteers have already prepared emergency kits for each of our classrooms and have restocked our emergency shed with new water, blankets, and other emergency supplies. Today, we held our first official practice emergency drill and evacuation. All students and staff exited the classroom in a quiet, efficient manner, gathered on the playground and lined up according to their room number. Teachers immediately took roll and reported any missing students to the command center. We also used this drill to focus on our new Student Checkout Procedure, inviting several parents to “check-out” their student as they would in the event of a real emergency. While this was an area we identified last spring as needing more refinement, I am pleased to say that with our new procedure in place it ran very smoothly. Should a large disaster occur while your children are at school, we would remain with your child until your or your designee arrives and would only release students to a person designated on your Student Data Sheet. Should you have any changes to your emergency information at any time during the school year, please contact Mrs. Arnett in the school
office. Let’s hope we never need to respond to a real emergency, but rest assured we are prepared if an emergency occurs.

Friday Assemblies
Every Friday we have a school-wide assembly at 8:30 a.m. for students in grades 1-6. While informal, the assembly provides us a time as a school community to share announcements and celebrate student achievement. Parents are always welcome to attend.

September 11th, 2008
Thank You Parent Volunteers
As we begin our school year, I would like to extend a special thank you to those who have helped us get the year off to a fantastic start! It is evident that parent support is an integral part of our school community. Thanks to all those who are assisting with the traffic and parking lot safety during the morning drop off and afternoon pick up time. Thanks to those who helped put the Back to School Packets together and improve our school website. Thanks to all of our new Room Parents who are helping to organize events, calendars, etc for individual classrooms. Thanks to our Hot Lunch Program parents who have worked hard to get the hot lunch program started and volunteer daily serving our lunch to our students. It takes many people with dedicated and caring hearts to make Santa Rita a fun and safe place for students to learn. If you haven’t found your volunteer niche yet, I invite you to attend the first general PTA meeting next Thursday, September 18 at 8:00 a.m. to explore available volunteer opportunities.

September 4th, 2008
Last week, you should have received a STAR Student Report in the mail for any student who was enrolled in second through 6th grade at Santa Rita last school year. While this report provides valuable information regarding your child’s achievement levels in English Language Arts and Mathematics, please keep in mind that the information in the STAR Student Report is one source of information about the progress students are making in school. Grades, classroom work, and other test results also should be reviewed for a more complete picture of each student’s academic progress. Parents are also encouraged to discuss with teachers any differences between test results and the work students generally do at school.

Santa Rita experienced an increase this year in our Academic Performance Index (API). As the cornerstone of the Public School Accountability Act of 1999, the API measures student performance and academic progress based on the STAR testing program. The state establishes API growth targets for schools with the goal of all schools reaching the score of 800. Santa Rita’s 2008 API is 959, which reflects a 7-point increase over our 2007 API of 952.

As we all know, educating students is a team effort. Parents and guardians, students, and schools benefit when there is a shared responsibility for learning. Santa Rita’s continued growth in CST scores and the Academic Performance Index (API) serve as indicators that the focused efforts and hard and intelligent work of the entire Santa Rita staff and parent community continually impact individual student learning and school-wide student achievement.

Thank you For Supporting LAEF & PTA!
Thank you for supporting both LAEF and PTA as we begin a new school year! Your support of LAEF provides technology, music, art, physical education and smaller Kindergarten classes. Your support of the PTA provides classroom materials, school equipment, computers, facilities enhancements, assemblies, special events and emergency preparedness. Both LAEF and PTA work closely together to help provide a well-rounded, high quality educational program for all of our students.

Let’s continue to work together to make this year another successful year filled with exciting learning opportunities for students at Santa Rita!

Alyssa Gallagher
Principal