Our Academic Standards

Our curriculum is based to a great extent on California standards and current national directions in elementary education.

Special features of our core curriculum:

  • The University of Chicago "Everyday Math" Program
  • FOSS (Full Option Science System) Science Program, produced by Laurence Hall at UC-Berkeley
  • Our immersion-style Hebrew program and our Judaic Studies programs follow the curricular standards of the Bureau of Jewish Education
  • Our Technology Program is aligned with the ISTE's National Educational Technology Standards
  • Our Physical Education program emphasizes daily fitness to promote a healthy, active lifestyle as well as instruction in the fundamentals of a variety of team and individual sport activities.
  • Our Visual Arts program includes instruction at all grade levels in drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, and ceramics. Our students also become familiar with the techniques, style, and works of a selected world-renowned "artist of the year".
--more on Academics
--our Curriculum by Grade

Homework

Our students in all grades receive age- and level-appropriate homework assignments each week. For kindergartners, the weekly homework project (for example, "draw a meal of different shapes" or "what objects float and which ones sink?") is designed to help them try out new concepts at home with their parents and to introduce them to the pattern of handing their homework in.

In grades 1-6, homework includes daily written and reading assignments and problem sets, as well as longer-term projects. All students, including kindergartners, create their own projects for the Spring Science Fair.

Academic testing and achievement measures

In addition to taking their regular class tests, each spring our students in grades 3-6 participate in a week of Educational Record Bureau standardized testing to demonstrate competence in their core subjects in comparison with private and public school students in California.

Our students consistently score very well on these tests. Approximately 70% of our 5th and 6th grade students score well above the 97th percentile in math, reading, comprehension, verbal ability, and writing mechanics. Their high scores have qualified these students for prestigious university-sponsored programs (for example, John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and University of California, Irvine) designed to recognize academically talented youth.