What a week at Ross. We have so much to be proud of this week.

Our student presenters at the board meeting Tuesday night were exceptional. The Poetry Slam performances were moving and our CAST Student Leaders explained their purpose and plans so well. As one board member said, "Our future is in good hands."

This week, I was also able to interview 50+ students on Thursday and Friday who had set and achieved Innovation goals. They shared their accomplishments and their ideas for how to make Ross a better place in this YouTube video:

• 5th graders are in the first half of the video.
• 4th graders are in the second half of the video.
• The last 5 minutes of the video is the CAST Student Leaders presentation at the board meeting.

This week and next, students are completing their i-Ready (Math) and ISIP (Reading) winter benchmarking tests. This is a chance for them to see how much they've grow in Math and Reading over the last three months. It's an exciting time for kids--hard but very rewarding brain work. Kids set goals in classes about how much they'd like to grow and work hard every day to make that growth happen. Our kids grow so much at Ross! Already one today bragged to me, "I grew 29 points and my friend grew 25!" (for context, that's a huge amount of growth from Fall to Winter). I'll keep you posted on how they did when we get results. We're optimistic about all that they're learning--they are a motivated group of students.

AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) is our instructional model, and it's all about students setting individual goals and achieving those goals through hard work. We were just selected as a national demonstration school for AVID, which is a great honor only afforded to a handful of schools in the state and nationwide. We see our students take ownership of their own learning every day at Ross. They are getting future-ready. Ask your student what goal they set or achieved this week--I think they'll amaze you! They amaze us daily.

Love,

Principal Tripp

Monday, January 16

No school--Martin Luther King Jr./Human Rights Day

Mondays

During lunch recess in room 12

Art Club by Jaya M. (4th grade) with Cori N. (Parent Volunteer Extraordinaire)

Thursday

11:41-12:11 in room 1

CAST Student Leader Planning Meeting

February

Change Wars--more details coming soon!

April

Community AVID Showcase, including a family breakfast activity and a chance to see and hear from students at Ross who are growing through our AVID program--more details coming soon!

Each day at Ross we will:

Engage. Empower. Educate.

Our dream is to:

Ignite a passion for lifelong learning and personal growth so students will be successful in college, career, and life.

Our school values are:

We treat others with dignity and respect. We are ethical and humble in our actions. We are COMPASSIONATE.

We hold tight to our convictions. Decisions are made to make the lives of others better. We are LEADERS.

We are stronger and better when we work together. We are a part of a beautiful and diverse COMMUNITY.

We are bold, we take risks, we are flexible and willing to step out of our comfort zone. We are INNOVATIVE.