Welcome to Sycamore Park Elementary School!

If you are a returning Sycamore Park Elementary School parent this year, welcome back. If you are new to our school, we offer a hearty welcome to you and your child. We are excited about this school year and we look forward to working in partnership with you as we promote the learning and social development of your child.

Our school continues to experience growth in enrollment and we are becoming more diverse as we have families from many different nations and cultures in our school district. Our class sizes range from 21 to 24, with kindergarten classes being the largest despite adding a new kindergarten class this year. To further accommodate this growth in student population we have also added a new teaching position in third grade as well. (Unfortunately, we lost a reading specialist as a result.) In order to better understand our population changes, I will detail them below:

In the fall of 2004 we had approximately 550 students and 30 homeroom teachers, today we have 34 homeroom teachers with almost 200 more students, making out teacher to student ratios much higher as a result. A new elementary school is being built and should open next year which will help with our enrollment as some students will be redistricted to another school.

Our student body continues to increase in the number of non-English speaking students. In 2002, we had only 4 students who received English as a second language service; we now have over 108 students who receive such instruction. These students are recent immigrants from Mexico , Guatemala , El Salvador , South Africa , Nigeria , India , Pakistan , Portugal , and Albania . We welcome these students who bring the richness of their native cultures to our classrooms. The changing face of Culpeper and of our nation can be easily seen as you walk the halls of our school.

The number of children at Sycamore Park Elementary who are counted as disadvantaged has also increased. In 2005-06 approximately 44% of our students came from low-income families as measured by their eligibility for free or reduced price lunches; in 2006-07 that increased to 52% of our children.

Understandably these trends have created immense challenges for our teachers and staff, but thus far we have been meeting the challenge. Sycamore Park Elementary continues to make overall progress in our student achievement as measured by the Virginia Standards of Learning Tests (SOL's). We were fully accredited by the Virginia Department of Education based on these scores and we have exceeded the state's requirements once again. While Sycamore Park did not meet all the requirements for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as determined by the federal law, the No Child Left Behind Act, we did meet 28 of the 29 benchmarks for progress that the U.S. Department of Education uses to determine A.Y.P. These benchmarks include SOL test scores in reading and math and other areas such as school safety and student attendance. Test scores are broken down by student groups for race, ethnicity, second language learners, disability, and for economically disadvantaged students. Benchmark test scores for all these groups must be met, and Sycamore Park has met or exceeded these benchmarks with our African-American students and Hispanic students, but our economically disadvantaged students did not make the benchmark with only 68% passing the reading test last spring. (The benchmark was 73% passing for each group.) Though we believe that schools are about more than just the test scores of our children, we will continue to work to our fullest to achieve the goals set forth in the law as the benchmarks become more challenging each year.

In the spring of 2004 Sycamore Park Elementary School was the first school in the county to be both state accredited and accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (S.A.C.S.). This accreditation by S.A.C.S. was the result of a review of our school by educators from around the state who examined our instructional program, student discipline, and the level of parent involvement in our school. We were given high marks in nearly all areas and we have developed a school improvement plan to set us on the course of continued educational excellence.

One of our goals for improvement involves you. We are seeking to increase our parent and community involvement in our school. We recognize the most important teacher in a child's life is the parent. Your engagement and interest in the education of your child is one of the strongest predictors of school success for your child. We need you to be an active participant by sending your child to school daily (except in cases of illness, of course), ensuring that homework is completed, that your child reads or studies nightly, by communicating regularly with teachers, and by supporting the school in enforcing the Code of Conduct if your child misbehaves. These are the basic requirements of a good parent and school relationship. Our staff will always be respectful to you and we expect the same courtesies, though at times we may have cause for disagreement. We are here to assist you in the education and social development of your child and we will do our level best to honor the trust that you place in us. I am appreciative of your past and continued support as we begin a new and exciting school year.

R. Russell Houck, Principal