We're starting to move!  We have made amazing progress and are thrilled with the results.  Our school is going to be gorgeous!  Here is our tentative schedule for this fall and winter.

October

• School Library to six-plex hallway

November

• Vacate the gym until summer

December

• Kindergarten to new building
• Mandarin Resource Center opens in new kindergarten building
• Office to new administration building
• 2nd and 3rd grade to temporary rooms in preschool area

As with all construction, this is only our best guess as of October 1, 2011.  Given early rain and unpredictable weather to come, we won't have exact dates until very close to specific moves.  We'll keep you posted!

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 The state exams are only one measure of a school’s success but one of the most public.    I am delighted to report that according to the state website, College Park jumped 40 points to 825 API!  The API score is derived from state exams given to 2nd through 5th graders in the Spring, 2011.  That means in the past ten years College Park has jumped an astonishing 447 points!!  Why?  Our teachers are wonderful, our parents are committed to excellence, and the students have been working very, very hard.  Teachers have all received GLAD training to enhance academic language development and GATE training to ensure that every child is taught critical thinking stragegies.  ALL our sub-groups(like particlar ethnic groups, students in poverty and students in special education) have made amazing progress.  I am so proud to be the principal of such a wonderful school.

The Mandarin Immersion Talented and Gifted Program at College Park is founded on the belief that all students possess talents and gifts.  The educational program at College Park endeavors to identify, nurture and celebrate these qualities in all of our students.  In addition we believe that all students can benefit from, and have the capacity to be bilingual and bicultural.  Regardless of background or home language, all incoming K-3rd graders spend 30-50% of their instructional day learning the California standards in Mandarin Chinese. We will continue adding grade levels until 2013 when we will have Mandairn Immersion K-5.

All College Park teachers receive ongoing training in GLAD, RtI² and GATE strategies.  GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition by Design) ensures that all students receive daily instruction in language development and advanced vocabulary in listening, speaking, reading and writing.  RtI² (Response to Instruction and Intervention) utilizes frequent and specific assessments to determine how students are responding to instruction and refers students to interventions that may be required.  GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) gives teachers specific stragies to challenge students to think more critcally, approach challenges more creatively, and solve problems in unique and individual ways.  These are not programs taught in isolation but strategies to enrich instruction in all content areas and in both English and Mandarin.

Welcome to College Park, a rare, exciting  Mandarin gem in the heart of San Mateo-Foster City!


Diana Hallock
Principal