From the introduction:

It’s summer! But “no school” doesn’t mean “no learning.” As you know, learning takes place everywhere, all the time.

Did you know research shows that all children lose approximately two months of math and reading skills during the summer? Summer is a time when you can maintain the academic gains your child has made.

Keeping children engaged in learning throughout the summer means they can start the school year learning new material right away. D.C. has many free, fun and easy activities you can do with your children to keep them engaged, curious and using their academic skills. This guide provides some suggestions, but we encourage you to explore on your own as well. Check the DCPS website (dcps.dc.gov) weekly for new suggestions. You can also submit ideas to share with other parents.
The key to helping your child learn throughout the summer is to tailor the activities to fit your schedule and your child’s interest. Like physical exercise, you need to exercise your child’s brain as well. Do something with an educational focus every day.

You’ll see the rewards in September.

We have compiled a survey for parents. You can find it online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/StoddertParentSurvey. It is an anonymous survey.

The results will be used to build our Comprehensive Plan for next year to meet the needs of our students, parents, teachers, and community. The 4th- and 5th-graders will complete a student survey and the teachers will respond to the teacher survey. Please give us constructive feedback, as we are dedicated to bettering any situation that needs improvement. A paper copy will be sent home on Monday the 14th for those choosing not to respond on-line. Please watch for it or respond anytime to the posted survey. Thanks, your thoughts will contribute to continued excellence at Stoddert.

Not too many days left in the 2009-2010 school year. Even as we wind down, many good things continue to happen at Stoddert East. When you are reading this on the weekend, please know that a marvelous Awards Day took place for all the students. You may have come, having seen it on the website last week, but if not, please ask your children about the day. Many awards recognized achievement, participation, attendance, and citizenship. It is always tremendously rewarding to stand with dedicated faculty in front of terrific students. It is always a very rewarding day for a proud principal.

The fifth-graders practiced at the Russian Embassy Thursday for their Promotion Ceremonies, coming up on June 17, 2010 at 9:30 a.m. It will be a day of celebration with students featured on the program. I will be promoting some very competent fifth-graders who are talented in multiple ways. We will thank the embassy for sharing their lovely space with us.

Thanks to many more of you. Our registration rate for next year has risen to 63%. Now this is certainly an increase over our 48% from a couple of weeks ago, but please help us reach 100%. This means that 85 of our families still need to officially register. Many of you have signed intent to return forms, but we need you to zip over to school and register for next year. We cannot plan without true numbers of students. THANKS in advance for taking care of this before school ends on June 22!

Heads Up! A survey is coming to you to ask your opinions on how all of us at Stoddert East are doing. It is on line at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/StoddertParentSurvey. It is an anonymous survey. The results will be used to build our Comprehensive Plan for next year to meet the needs of our students, parents, teachers, and community. The 4th- and 5th-graders will complete a student survey and the teachers will respond to the teacher survey. Please give us constructive feedback, as we are dedicated to bettering any situation that needs improvement. A paper copy will be sent home on Monday for those choosing not to respond on-line. Please watch for it or respond anytime to the posted survey. Thanks, your thoughts will contribute to continued excellence at Stoddert.

LOST and FOUND items are multiplying! We have so many terrific items. As you know, we are about to pack up the entire school to move to our wonderful new home. Please come and claim items. On the last day, we will donate all items to a worthy cause. The items are available across from the Main Office.

Have a terrific weekend!

— Dr. Marjorie Cuthbert

On June 2, 2010, Mr. Dingledine’s fifth graders visited the Swiss Embassy to demonstrate what they’ve learned about Switzerland during their year of study.

The students gave a two-hour presentation and a musical performance, demonstrating to the Swiss ambassador, delegates, and staff what they have learned about Switzerland and entertaining them. The presentations and the performance were arranged by Mr. Dingledine.

The event was attended by the Honorable Mr. Urs Ziswiler, the Swiss ambassador to the United States; his wife, Mrs. Ronit Ziswiler; Mr. Norbert Baerlocher, head of communications and cultural affairs; Michelle Colburn, manager of cultural projects; embassy staff, representatives of DCPS; and the Washington Performing Arts Society, whose hard work and dedication made the cultural program possible.

The Swiss Embassy Adoption Program is supported by the Swiss Embassy. It’s one of many social and educational programs that introduce and familiarize Americans with Switzerland, its history, culture, and languages.

The event ended with students thanking the Swiss Embassy for supporting this wonderful program. The Swiss ambassador was presented with a beautiful painting and the Ambassador’s wife and key staff were given bouquets of flowers.

The event was educational and fun. The atmosphere was pleasant. The ambassador and staff were quite impressed by Stoddert’s fifth-graders, their presentations, and performance.

The event was very successful and a job well done by all.

It was great to see so many of you at International Night. The array of food was great. It is also very rewarding to see everyone interacting and enjoying being together. The International Day presentations were also terrific. The students and teachers worked hard studying, writing, and creating about their chosen countries. All of the students rotated around the school to see the displays and to taste delicious treats from the countries. What a wonderful learning opportunity for everyone. Please check on the website for a slide show of the wonderful displays.

Thanks to those of you who have registered for next year. We need everyone! We still have about 90 returning families who have not yet registered for next year. Detailed planning is impossible unless we have an accurate count of our verified registrations. THANKS for helping us get this done.

Please let me remind you about helping us pack on Friday, June 18 and Saturday, June 19 from 8:00 am – 4:00 pm. The packing boxes will arrive on June 14th and we will begin. We will work hard on sorting out the materials that go to the new school so that they can be packed and ready for pick-up on June 23rd. As mentioned before, our phones will ring at Hardy MS starting June 23rd and you will be able to find Ms. Wilson, Ms. Rivera, and me housed there – the actual space to be identified soon. I will keep you posted.

We are planning our Awards Day for June 11, 2010. Grades 3–5 will celebrate at 9:30 am and PreK–2 at 2:00 pm. We have so many accomplishments to celebrate this year. Go Stoddert Wolves!

Dr. Marjorie Cuthbert

In preparation for the upcoming math competition on June 3, Stoddert students in Grades 3 through 5 competed today. Mr. Duff and Dr. Pesek led the competition.

Some of the sample timed challenges follow.

24 (time limit: 1 minute):

Combine the numerals using any mathematical operation so that the end result is 24.

4    7   7    6

Estimation (2 seconds mental math)

392 + 469 =

357 – 146 =

Mixed fraction (6 seconds)

17/6 =

Problem Solving

1. Jason is 57 inches tall. What is his height in feet and inches?
2. The auditorium at Claiborne Elementary School has 600 seats.  There are 24 rows of seats.  Each row has the same number of seats.  How many seats are in each row?

Today’s winners are:

Problem Solving:        Joel Clark 5th and Lucie Warga 4th

Challenge 24:             Andrew Estrada 4th

Estimation:                 Sam Fox-Halperin 3rd

(Gabriella Sanchez 5th is the Alternate Winner.)

What an exhilarating week for the Stoddert Wolves and their teachers. On Tuesday, representatives from DCPS and SchoolWorks visited our school as part of the process to determine if we can be designated as an Autonomy School. As previously explained, Stoddert ES applied for this status at the invitation of the District because our achievement in math and reading showed 75% proficiency in reading and math, as measured by the DC CAS. For those who missed last week’s message, we applied for Autonomy to have some latitude in the budgeting process; to have freedom to design professional development to meet the needs of our faculty; and to use appropriate assessments that measure the capabilities of all of our students, including those students performing above grade level. The review team arrived at 7:00 a.m. and left at 6:00 p.m. They visited classrooms, met with a group of parents (10 strong & THANKS), met with a group of students (12 strong), met with three different groups of teachers, met with our Leadership Team, met with me individually, and compiled their recommendations. Their findings go next to the Office of School Innovation and then to Chancellor Rhee to determine if we will be placed in the status of Autonomy School. It would be ideal to open our new school with this status, but the goals listed in the process are those that we will achieve irrespective of a status designation. I was bursting with pride as the first salient point made by the team to me was, “We observed 80-100% of your students to be engaged, across multiple classroom visits, and we do not usually see this.” What is more exciting than students engaged and learning? I will keep you posted as to the outcome that is to be given to us in early June.

As of the last meeting with the engineers and architects, the new school is on target for opening in August. We will begin planning for the move from Stoddert East to the new Stoddert ES. In the first week of June we will begin labeling items to go with us. We will work again with Spectrum moving company and the DCPS warehouse. Actual packing boxes will arrive the week of June 14th. If you can volunteer to help pack things for our teachers, mark your calendars for the weekend days of June 19 and 20. The school will be open on the weekend for teachers and helpers. Stay tuned for details. The telephones and office will move to Hardy MS (for the summer) on June 23 and Stoddert East will be dismantled the following weekend starting on the Calvert Street side. So, please GET YOUR REGISTRATIONS FOR NEXT YEAR IN AS SOON AS YOU CAN. I think some DCPS papers say you have until June 15, but please do not wait. It is going to be an exciting time, but we need you to register new students or reregister returning students SOON so the transition can be smooth and we meet our needed enrollments. It helps us plan everything if we know who is really going to be with us next year to open our new STODDERT ES.

— Dr. Marjorie Cuthbert

THANKS for helping us!

Three students from the top five placements will present at the DC City-Wide Science Fair (details below).

From the DCPS website:

The District of Columbia Citywide Elementary Science Fair is an annual event where students in grades three through five from the District’s public, charter, private, and parochial schools come together and compete against one another in projects related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

This year’s event will take place on Saturday, June 5 at Walker Jones Education Campus.

To participate in the DC Citywide Elementary Science Fair, your child must have placed either 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in their school-level science fair. Many volunteers from local schools, universities, professional organizations, and government and private agencies have helped make this event, now in its 26th year, a success as a vehicle for connecting the entire city and engaging our young people in the scientific process.

Research has shown that good science instruction is inquiry-based. In fact, the first domain or strand in the DC science standards for every grade is scientific thinking and inquiry.

One of the best ways to assess the achievement of this standard is through a student’s science fair project. Students identify a problem, research that problem, collect and analyze numerical data, describe results, and communicate and support their conclusions.

Link: http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/About+DCPS/Events/DC+Citywide+Elementary+Science+Fair

Stoddert's stellar spellers, Joel and Samer

by Reem Nourallah Chiaviello

Stoddert School, represented by fifth-graders Samer Chiaviello and Joel Clark, participated in the Citywide Spelling Bee on March 20, 2010. Twenty-seven students in grades four to eight, and winners of five District of Columbia Cluster Bees participated in this event that was taped by NBC Channel 4 at their studios in Northwest.

Participant schools were Alice Deal Middle School, Bolling Area Home Educators, Brightwood Educational Campus, Browne Educational Campus, Columbia Heights Educational Campus, E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, Eaton Elementary School, Emery Educational Campus, Elsie Whitlow Stokes Public Charter School, Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science, Johnson Middle School, Key Elementary School, Kimball Elementary School, Lafayette Elementary School, Leckie Elementary School, Murch Elementary School, Oyster-Adams Bilingual Educational Campus, Paul Public Charter School, Root Activity Learning Center and Stoddert Elementary.

All 27 contestants were encouraged to ask to repeat the pronounced words, ask about the origin of the words, and ask to put the to-be-spelled words in a complete sentence. Joel, contestant number eight, remained in the competition until round four. Samer, contestant number three, remained in the competition until round six and tied at fifth place with three other contestants.

The Citywide Spelling Bee competition was featured in the April 8th edition of The Washington Informer and was televised on April 10th from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. on NBC Channel 4.

Congratulations to Samer and Joel … keep up the good work!

Link: http://www.washingtoninformer.com/03D3689845149D458A074F9FF5747707/index.html

All forty students in Stoddert’s two fifth grade classes participate in an innovative, online learning experience called Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) run by Stanford University. Last year, Mr. Dingledine heard two different recognized education experts talk about how online learning could (1) narrow the achievement gap across students of different racial groups and (2) increase a person’s malleable IQ (the part that can be changed). Mr. Dingledine, after looking into EPGY, proposed a one-year trial to the Stoddert PTA and the rest is history. Stoddert PTA purchased slots for all 40 fifth graders and some extra slots for several students in other grades.

EPGY, affectionately called “epp-gee” by students, has two areas of instruction: mathematics and language arts (grammar). During school, after-care or at home, students complete one 20 minute section in mathematics five times per week and in language arts three times per week.  EPGY, which is conducted completely online, walks students through new concepts with lectures and then reinforces the lessons with closely related questions.  EPGY mathematics is based on 40 years of research and improvement by Stanford University.

The value of EPGY is that it is truly individualized instruction for each student. The difficulty of the topics and questions automatically adjusts based on each student’s ability to comprehend the topics and answer questions correctly. In Mr. Dingledine’s words, “Students are free to zoom ahead at their own pace, others to work remedially to develop their skills.”

Teachers can review the performance of each student by topic in order to identify who needs additional instruction in specific areas.  In addition, if many students have difficulty with the same topic, the teacher knows that the entire class needs additional instruction in that area.

Does EPGY improve performance? End of the year DC CAS standardized testing will shed some light on that question. For now, Mr. Dingledine notes that one student moved from “proficient” on the beginning-of-year DBAS interim tests to “advanced” on the mid-year tests. Answering 2,369 EPGY questions (85 percent correct on the first try) and watching the related lectures may have contributed to his success. Another student said that he is now able to help his high school babysitter with some of her algebra questions thanks to EPGY.

James Fredericks on EPGY staff at Stanford University cites two studies that prove EPGY’s effectiveness. A study conducted in California from 2006-2007 examined the performance of students using EPGY compared to those who did not in a single classroom with the same teacher. Students achieved significantly better math performance “across all grade levels, as well as all mathematical aptitudes.” A second study at Lowell Elementary School, in San Jose, California took place from 2005-2006 and 2008-2009. “After three full years of using the EPGY mathematics program Lowell Elementary School saw a profound jump in its proficiency rates.  The entire school went from 38% proficient in 2006 to 68% proficient on 2009.”

The entire fifth grade – students, teachers and parents – looks forward to end-of-year testing to provide more data for Dr. Cuthbert and the PTA on the value that EPGY added to this school year. If things go well… we may hear more about the mysterious “epp-gee” in the halls of Stoddert.

Parents should visit http://epgy.stanford.edu/ to learn more about EPGY.