Join us for our final community gathering of the school year next Friday, May 8, at 8:30 am by clicking this link. We have expanded our Zoom capabilities for this meeting to include up to 500 participants so everyone can participate.
A message from Ms. Allen:
As we finish the 2019-20 school year, it is time to celebrate all that we have accomplished together. This year ICS was awarded the Governor’s Greatest Gains award for our improvement in student achievement. Our staff also rolled out Eureka math curriculum and watched as students started to love math and understand the concepts behind the numbers. By January, our staff checked our progress and we were on track to make the highest academic gains in ICS history by the end of the year.
While educational equity is our primary purpose, ICS is so much more than that. This year we launched the ICS Community Resource Center to begin serving families. Teachers implemented a school-wide social-emotional curriculum during daily morning meetings, and we began a new ritual of weekly in-person community gatherings for the entire school. ICS staff also agreed on and launched Seesaw, our virtual IB portfolio platform, to document and celebrate student learning and growth through their IB Primary Years Programme journey. In collaboration with IPTSO, ICS also held a successful UN DAY in the fall and Fine Arts and Languages Night in the spring showcasing the talents of our students.
Through generous gifts and partnerships, ICS made several updates to our physical learning environment: we installed air conditioning in our gym, opened a brand new computer lab, and commissioned a mural from immigrant-activist-muralist Yehimi Cambron featuring our actual students, staff, and families. ICS also secured funds this year to purchase one-to-one technology so we can start the 2020-21 school year ready to prepare every child to be a responsible digital citizen.
Last but certainly not least, ICS pulled together to support each other in unprecedented ways during COVID-19. As a staff, we quickly mobilized to contact each family during the first weeks of the crisis, identifying needs, and serving as a link between our community needs and the organizations that could help. Through these partnerships, we distributed 60 laptops to students in need, handed out over 50 bags of food, and connected over 40 families with the basic supplies they needed. Our staff also banded together to provide meaningful virtual learning overnight. From providing small-group interventions, to holding morning meetings, to sharing read-aloud books with classes, our teachers and teaching assistants went above and beyond to make sure that families and students had the support they needed during this time.
This global health crisis is a marathon, not a sprint, and we will continue to show up for our students and families as we plan for the 2020-21 school year. Thank you for all you have done to be involved at ICS and in your students’ education this school year. Each one of us contributes to the legacy of the International Community School.
