Report Card

It’s report card time again -- for schools, that anxiously await their

grades from the state, which tells them how schools here compare to

others across California.

Schools numerical rankings from the Academic Performance Index are

scheduled to be released on Tuesday, which will allows for comparisons

between similar schools.

The index is the system mandated by Gov. Gray Davis’ Public Schools

Accountability Act of 1999. It ranks each public school according to

student performance.

In October every public school statewide received a score between 200

and 1,000, based on the results of the Stanford 9 test taken by students

in the spring and the English-language arts section of the California

Standards Test.

The state has set a target score of 800 for every school. Each school

ranked below 800 is required to improve its score by a fixed percentage

each year until it reaches 800. Schools that receive 800 or higher are

expected to maintain or improve each year.

The update coming out Tuesday compares each school’s index scores to

that of 100 schools with similar socioeconomic and ethnic

characteristics. A rank of 10 is the highest; one is the lowest.

Spring View teacher up for state award

Spring View Middle School math teacher Lois Hoshijo has been named as

a finalist for Region 17 in the California League of Middle Schools

Educator of the Year, the school announced.

Hoshijo teaches seventh grade students pre-algebra and also runs a

mathematics clinic.

“She’s just a wonderful teacher who goes beyond the boundaries of the

classroom,” Malotte said. “She does so many things and touches the lives

of many students.”

In her 27 years of teaching, Hoshijo has taught literature and

language arts, leadership council, social studies, art and mathematics.

She has served as a master teacher through the UC Irvine and Cal State

Long Beach student teaching programs and is currently teaching courses in

the Masters program at National University. She also serves as an

official “buddy” for new teachers in the school district.

Hoshijo has served on the Principal’s Advisory committee for eight

years. In 1991, when the district was considering reconfiguration,

Hoshijo was a leader of the reconfiguration committee, Malotte said.

“As a teacher, Lois utilizes a wide variety of instructional

strategies to challenge and meet the needs of all students, regardless of

the diverse backgrounds from which they come,” he said. “Lois is not so

concerned with teaching as she is dedicated to seeing that all students

are learning.”

Two Dwyer Middle School students, seventh-grader Mirai Oishi and

eighth-grader Rohan Powar were honored this week for their award-winning

art work submitted to the State of California’s Department of Boating and

Waterways statewide poster contest on water safety.

The two students carried on Dwyer’s tradition of strong contest

entries as both won first place in their respective class division.

It marks the third straight year that a Dwyer student has claimed

first place in both the seventh and eighth grade competitions.

Under the theme, “Be Polite, Don’t Pollute,” Powar’s clever poster

depicted a seascape, which featured a boat whose passengers were throwing

litter into the ocean. A transparent sea below revealed litter scattered

across the ocean’s floor and a fish avoiding the falling debris by

standing under an open umbrella.

Oishi, a seventh-grader, composed an abstract poster featuring

Japanese animation.