When students, parents , and staff arrived for school at Jack L. Weaver Elementary School yesterday morning they were greeted with yet another sign of their continuing success.  Principal Erin Kominsky told www.OC180NEWS.com “Orange County Department of Ed comes out , and like the little elves early in the morning, they plant a ‘Congratulations 2010 California Distinguished School’ Banner with two helium balloons that say ‘Distinguished School  Orange County Department of Ed.’  It’s in the circular driveway , everybody saw it when they drove in.”

Of course winning this award is nothing new to Weaver Elementary—they have won the award every time they have been eligible since the school re-opened 14 years ago.  Winning the award is based on academic performance plus each winning school must identify and describe two “signature practices” that have led to an increase in student achievement and a narrowing of the achievement gap. Applicants were then selected to receive a thorough site visit to validate the signature practices. 

The awards announced yesterday were for elementary and K-8 schools.  Intermediate and high schools get their awards on alternate years.  A spokesperson for the California Department of Education told www.OC180NEWS.com there were a total of 5,811 elementary and K-8 schools in California that could have been eligible this year.  Of those, 606 met the academic criteria for eligibility and 484 received the award.

Once a school is given the Distinguished School designation, it lasts four years.  Thus, Weaver will not be reconsidered for the award until 2014.  The school previously received the award in 2006, and 2002.

In 2002, Rossmoor Elementary also received the award, but they did not win it when they were eligible again in 2006.  Rossmoor gained the title back in 2008, so now they will not be reconsidered again until 2012.

Also winning in 2008 was Francis Hopkinson Elementary.  They won the award back in 2000, but lost it on their next eligibility in 2004.  Since they re-gained the title in 2008, they will be up for reconsideration, along with Rossmoor Elementary, in 2012.

Two of the Los Alamitos elementary schools last won the award in 2004 and have not won since.  These schools, J. H. McGaugh Elementary and Richard Henry Lee Elementary, were eligible in 2008 and 2010, but did not win.  In addition to their win in 2004, McGaugh, won in 2000.

According to their web site, “Jack L. Weaver Elementary School is the only year round, non boundaried/choice school in the Los Alamitos Unified School District. As a single track year-round school, Weaver provides students with a continuous opportunity for learning.”

Kominsky indicated the two signature practices she selected to use for the Distinguished School application both relate to the way the school teaches math.  One of the practices is called the Music Intelligence neural development, MIND, program, of the Mind Research Institute.  Kominsky said “It is a program that teaches the spatial temporal portion of math, it’s like seeing math in pictures.  So instead of learning math just by the symbols, such as one fourth, or three fourths, it shows you in pictures what that looks like.”

Kominsky continued “The other half of that program {MIND} is piano keyboarding.  All the students, first to fifth grade, are required to play piano.”  Not only is the program highly successful, Kominsky said “It is a parent paid program, it’s sponsored by my Friends of Weaver--they pay for the program in its entirety.”

The second signature practice selected by Kominsky is called Cognitively Guided Instruction, CGI.  She said “Weaver was the pilot school in all of Orange County.  It’s a philosophy based out of the University of Wisconsin…It’s based on problem solving—how students put numbers together and pull them apart.”

Although the two signature practices were both related to math instruction, that does not mean the school is only focused on that subject.  Kominsky simply selected those two practices because they were easy to demonstrate during a one day site visit by the state evaluators.  Winning this prestigious award is only part of a long running success story for Weaver Elementary—their Academic Performance Index (API) scores, which are the composite measurement of state standardized testing, are pretty hard to beat.  See our related article below on the 2009 API, which are the last scores released.  In 2009 Weaver’s API was 980, out of a possible 1000.  If they continue to improve, as they always do, soon they will hit the absolute top.

Principal Kominsky said “That’s our goal—that would be wonderful—that would be a dream come true—to have every child proficient in this school.”

When asked about the school’s success, she said “At the top of my list, I would say extraordinary teachers, dedicated students, and a community that supports us in every learning we undertake.  For every new idea we come up with, we have a community that is behind us all the way.

www.OC180NEWS.com salutes the students, parents and staff at Jack L. Weaver Elementary School