photo credit: Dru Bloomfield – At Home in Scottsdale

From the Scottsdale Unified School District Community Connection newsletter : 

SUSD Outperforms the State on AIMS Tests

The Arizona Department of Education recently released the Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) results from the 2008-2009 school year.

Once again, Scottsdale Unified School District continues to outperform the State in the percentage of students passing AIMS across all grade levels and content areas. The average AIMS scores range from 5-18 percent higher than State averages.

Additionally, some individual schools scored exceptionally high on the test. One hundred percent of third graders at Cheyenne Traditional School and fifth graders at Cochise Elementary School met or exceeded the standard in writing. Sophomores at Chaparral High School did extremely well on the math, reading and writing portions of the test; 95 percent passed the math portion, 94 percent passed the reading portion and 90 percent passed the writing portion.

District trends include continuing to outperform the State in writing in all grades.

To view the results, please visit www.susd.org/district/assess/testresults.cfm.

A couple other facts to know about Scottsdale schools:

• Twenty-two “Excelling” schools as rated by the Arizona Department of Education.
• Twenty-seven National Merit finalists.
• SUSD students score higher than state averages on both AIMS and Terra Nova tests at all grade levels and in all content areas.
• SAT scores for our college-bound students were above the state and national averages in both English and Math.

The following video made the rounds last year, and I stumbled across it again recently. Still brought a lump to my throat.

A special moment for a “special” kid. Enjoy.

Today, I got a Google alert where a Chaparral graduate posted a recent photo and invited alumni to comment with memories of the building.  Stop by Austin Hamilton’s blog and make a note or two.  I know that I’m not the only one taking photos.  Beside Austin’s post, I see people stopped regularly snapping photos.

Building 200 – Pre-demolition

Progress has been delayed due to asbestos containment procedures.

One of the new classroom buildings is in the background.  As of this week, this east parking lot was paved and ready for striping.

The new Administration building has been open and occupied since late last school year.

I’ll stop by in the next week or so and get some new photos.  I know a lot of students and alumni are excited to see the renovations completed.

A few more details:

From the contractor, McCarthy: $50 million in new construction and renovation work is underway in two phases in the center of Chaparral’s 2,300-student campus. Phase one includes the construction of a multi-purpose gym (with five sports courts), auditorium additions and a central plant, while Phase two comprises construction of a new main classroom structure and administration building.

From CHAPTS, the parent teacher organization, where the summer newsletter outlines a few of the challenges related to parking for the first semester of this coming school year: Summer 2008 Newsletter.

For more information on Scottsdale schools, see:

Scottsdale Schools Start August 11th

Scottsdale Public School Contact Information, Attendance Boundaries, and Start Dates