Superintendent Mary Sieu: ‘Student Achievement Continues to Climb in ABCUSD’

Dr. Mary Sieu, Superintendent of the ABC Unified School District

By Superintendent Mary Sieu 

In ABCUSD, we take great pride in our student achievement. We continue to celebrate the District’s rise in student achievement as confirmed by the release of the latest California Standards Test results this month.  Our students, teachers, staff, families and communities can take pride in their work throughout the past year.  I applaud the success of the District in reaching increased levels of student learning on the Academic Performance Index (API) from 849 in 2011-2012 to 852 in 2012-13.  This year, we made great progress especially in the south end of the District serving HawaiianGardens and east Lakewood.

The following schools made significant gains on the API: Aloha ES (786) with a 15 pts growth; Furgeson ES (800) with a 32 pts growth; Hawaiian ES (752) with a 12 pts growth and Melbourne ES (814) with a 17 pts growth.  Other notable gains with schools in Cerritos include Tetzlaff MS (858) with a 13 pts growth; Haskell MS (831) with a 12 pts growth and Gahr HS (802) with 12 pts growth.  A complete list of the schools may be found on the District’s website.

The District also recently received news that two programs are finalists for the California School Boards Association’s 2013 Golden Bell Awards. They include NixonAcademy’s JAM (Jaguars in Arts and Media) Program and the District’s SMART (Saturday Morning Academic Reading Time) Academy. In addition, the U.S. Department of Education, Arne Duncan informed the District this week that LealElementary School was selected for the 2013 National Blue Ribbon School Award.

Seal of the United States Department of Education (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As we usher in a new year for the students in ABCUSD, our resolve remains steadfast to: 1) Challenge ourselves to improve an already outstanding system of delivering high quality instruction to our students; 2) Use data to inform us where we need to improve; 3) Dedicate resources and time to transition to the new Common Core State Standards and prepare for the new State assessment.

I’m confident that with the continued hard work of our students, staff, parents and the community, ABC will continue to be a District recognized at the State and national level for its outstanding student achievement.