You may have noticed that Great Schools (a private school ranking company that Redfin and other services use) has now listed us as a 2 out of 10. A couple years ago they had us at 6/7, but they recently changed their calculation formula to place priority on other things. This has also resulted in other nearby schools changing from 10 down to 8.
Things to keep in mind when viewing school rankings and test scores:
- There are multiple private companies that attempt to grade and rank schools such as Great Schools, School Digger, school-ratings.com, niche.com, etc.
- Tests required by California have also gone through many changes in the past several years. Today testing is done through adaptable software which presents students with questions based on their answers to previous questions. This also provides teachers with excellent information on each students skill level and how to help them progress. California State Dashboard has the most recent scores released.
- Santiago has seen multiple changes to our boundary, including a change in 2012 when nearby Aliso Elementary closed, and a new change this year 2018 to have a smaller boundary with room for more students to choice in. While there will be both returning and new students at each grade level, these changes are usually most noticeable in the new kindergarten class the next year, who will not have any impact to our test scores until they are in third grade.
Next year Santiago will experience a large number of changes as we become a STEAM Magnet school, including:
- new curriculum
- facility improvements
- many new teachers
- full day kindergarten
- shifts in our diversity balance
- changes in our PTA funding/support and provided programs
Keep in mind that rankings from these private companies will not see much change until the Spring tests, meaning that the numbers from Great Schools and Redfin may not see any change until 2020 when we will have real results from our first year as a STEAM Magnet, and it will be 2024 before our first group of STEAM Magnet Kindergartners contribute to scores and rankings.
Our long-time parents will tell you that every one of their student’s teachers have been incredibly devoted to our school. As parents we are very excited for this new chapter for our school, however we are very sad to see so many of our long-time devoted teachers not be a part of this new chapter they have worked so hard for.
We are very excited for this new chapter to begin, but we also hope to continue to honor our history as the small school in the woods.