It is with great honor to announce that for the first time in many years, McFarland Middle School grew an outstanding 48 API points during the 2011-2012 school year! Each year the state measures student achievement and as a result our goal for last year was 8 points of growth. Not only did we reach our goal, but we exceeded it by 40 points! This definitely can be attributed to the efforts of our students, parents, teachers, and administrators. We had two students who achieved a PERFECT score on one of their CST’s: Ruben Cruzin Science and Julian Castellanos in Math! Also, our very own Science teacher, Mr. Johnson, had 42% of eighth graders achieve a proficient or advanced score in Science, while Mr. Catlin, our 8th grade History teacher, had 48% percent of students score proficient or advanced! Both 6th and 8th grade had a 12% increase in the number of proficient and advanced students in English Language Arts, and 6th and 8th grade achieved an increase of 5% in math. What is even more amazing is that as a school site, 133 students improved by at least one level in Math and 187 students improved by at least one level in English Language Arts.
Tania Courtney, our Food Service Director, recently submitted an application requesting salad bars for 4 schools in the McFarland Unified School District. Tania Courtney; Food Services Director, attended the Let’s Move Salad Bars to California Schools Celebration to accept the award of 4 salad bars on behalf of the McFarland Unified School District.
On May 15th at 10:45am at the San Diego Convention Center, the United Fresh Produce Association hosted a Let’s Move Salad Bars to California Schools Celebration press event to announce the produce industry’s donation of salad bars to over 400 California schools (our school included) to improve children’s access to fruits and vegetables. Food Services Directors from other school districts near San Diego, and from across the State attended the event also. The produce industry and foundation donors were there, as well the California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson and other child nutrition officials from CDE.