• Category 2

    Selected in 2019

  • Grades: 6 - 8
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 217,000
    Student Enrollment: 600
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 5%
    White/Caucasian: 7%
    Hispanic: 85%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 3%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:36
    % Reduced Lunch: 100%
    % ELL Learners: 10%
    Founded: 1980
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Jenny Paige
  • CONTACT:
    455 S. K Street
    San Bernardino, CA 92410
    909-388-6438
    jenny.paige@sbcusd.k12.ca.us
Richardson PREP HI Middle School
San Bernardino, CA
High Expectations with High Support for All.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
We have several parent groups that play a part in the success of our school, which include our PTO, SSC, and ELAC. While these are specific, we also have parents regularly attend "Coffee with the Principal" which is a forum for parents to come chat with the principal without the restrictions of a formal meeting. Our Fall and Spring Family Movie Nights are ripe for parent involvement, as well as our Clay Night where students get to teach their parents what they have learned in Ceramics. We also have a Parent PSAT meeting to inform our 8th grade parents of the significance and role of the PSAT and we have High School Awareness Day where all of our high schools come promote their programs and career pathways so our students and parents can make informed choices regarding where they attend high school.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
Richardson PREP HI Middle School takes a team approach in everything we do. Our teacher teams meet at least twice a month to discuss student success and areas for growth. The grade-level teacher teams meet with parents, counselor, and administration to ensure clear communication and to present a united plan and effort to help students succeed. In addition to our team approach, we invite our parents and community to multiple "Family Nights" where we show movies, host games and fun activities, as well as have our extremely talented bands, dance team, and choir perform. We believe that the success of the school is contingent on every stakeholder working together to provide our students a place they feel comfortable and supportive to help them reach their potential.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
Our philosophy of school change and improvement is that it is indeed constant and there is ALWAYS room to improve and evolve into even more successful programs and systems. Students bring a constant change and challenge to Richardson each year and it is our job and passion to meet them where they are in their learning and help them progress and thrive.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
Our top two goals with remain the same as this year-Continue to improve our school culture and continue to implement technology with the purpose of improving student learning. We believe that goals should be the focus for multiple years before moving on to provide time, resources, professional development, and trial and error before we feel confident moving on to other goals or foci.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
Our district motto is "Making Hope Happen," and this is truly something we do every day at Richardson for all stakeholders-not just students. It is imperative to have a culture of passion and dedication from all parties to ensure student achievement. Our school motto is "High Expectations with High Support for All," and this has proven to be a surefire way to show our students that we know they are capable of high success and we also know that it takes a village of support that everyone deserves to reach their goals.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
The intervention program called AIM (Academic Intervention and Monitoring) we began 5 years ago has had the most profound and positive effect on student achievement. Before this program, we would have at least 50 6th graders every year fall below a 2.0 GPA on more than two progress reports. After implementing our 3-tiered AIM program, the number of 6th graders who fell below a 2.0 more than twice went down to single digits. In turn, this trickles down to sports, music programs, etc because students are better able to focus on these enrichment programs since their core subject areas are no longer an area of need.
Explain how ESEA federal funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
The majority of our Title I funds are used for our AIM personnel that help us provide our multi tiered support for our students. Training the staff is crucial to our success, therefore we send them to a conference each year as well as ensure they have all the tools and technology they need to reach their students at their particular learning level. We also use our Title I funds for our parent involvement activities and opportunities, which includes trainings and stakeholder events to include them in site-based decisions.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
We have implemented a cyclical professional development calendar so we are able to focus on our school goals regularly and in several different capacities. We meet as a whole staff, in content specific departments, as well as grade-level teams. This allows for us to have diverse learning and professional groups to improve teaching and student learning. While we occasionally bring in outside resources to help us develop in our profession, we mostly send our own staff to professional development opportunities then have them come back a do a trainer of trainer method so we are constantly tapping into our own experts.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
At RPH, we use data regularly to inform our students, parents, and intervention team of our students' progress and areas of need. Every 5 weeks, we send home a progress report that includes a space for parent comments, concerns, and questions with their signature that is mandatory to return signed. This serves as school to home communication so families are regularly informed of their student's progress as well as any support or interventions planned. Every 9 weeks, our school counselor runs a thorough report and disaggregates the data according to student needs, repeat students who have already been flagged for academic interventions, etc so we can conference with their parents and implement new strategies or a more intense level of intervention.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
Our school motto is "High Expectations with High Support for All," and we truly hold ourselves to that for every system, program, and person in our school community. One change we have recently made is to provide more opportunities for our parents and families to come to school just to have fun and see what their students do every day. One example is family nights where we have multiple performances, a movie, games, and food to bring our community together outside of academics. Another recent change that has been made to increase our school pride and culture is a revamp to our ASB class and roles. They have planned and implemented more school spirit functions, healthy class competitions, and we have seen a dramatic increase in both students and staff in their outlook on school culture.
Stats
  • Category 2

    Selected in 2019

  • Grades: 6 - 8
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 217,000
    Student Enrollment: 600
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 5%
    White/Caucasian: 7%
    Hispanic: 85%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 3%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:36
    % Reduced Lunch: 100%
    % ELL Learners: 10%
    Founded: 1980
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Jenny Paige
  • CONTACT:
    455 S. K Street
    San Bernardino, CA 92410
    909-388-6438
    jenny.paige@sbcusd.k12.ca.us