State of the School - June 5, 2025

Well friends, we've done it! Another school year is in the books. It's been a great year and has been my pleasure serving our IJP families this year. I appreciate your support, kindness, and generosity of time, talent, and treasures. Know that you will always be in my prayers!

I wanted to take a few minutes to give you some updates on next school year!

We recently received the results of our 5Essentials survey. While there’s still a lot of data to decimate, I can tell you that we were rated Very Strong in Involved Families, and Strong in both Effective Leaders and Collaborative Teachers. I’m excited to spend some more time with the data so that we can see where we are doing well and where we need to improve. Thank you to those of you who took the time to take the survey!

We are in the process of hiring our new kindergarten teacher. I have two interviews next week, and am excited to help find a great fit for some of our youngest friends. We are also looking for help in our extended day program. We have a wonderful soul who will likely work mornings for us, but still need to figure out the afternoon coverage. 

As you know, we have some changes to our programming for next year. We are finalizing the details for our Spanish program so students will work with the teacher once or twice a week. Our Preschool program is growing rapidly. We have many waitlisted students and are changing and improving our program to accommodate the larger group. Hopefully we’ll need to hire an additional aide to help out. We will continue our Catholic Cool program with Deacon John McNichols so students (and staff) will continue to grow in their understanding of our faith. We will also continue our house program with some tweaks. 

Good news on our final diagnostic testing with iReady! Over the year, we grew 116% in reading and 111% in math. 69% of our students scored at or above grade level in reading and 58% in math. Even though we use different types of testing, a local school district reported 46.3% of their students met or exceeded expectations in reading and 23.8% in math for 2024. In our state, 41.2% of students met or exceeded expectations in reading and 28.4% in math for 2024. We are proud of the progress we made and continue to seek ways to improve our teaching and learning.

Staff will continue our mission of improved academics with opportunities for professional development and collaboration. We will focus on improvement in math with a focus on differentiation and better meeting the needs of individual students. Science and social studies teachers will be working on better articulation through the years and incorporating writing and projects that will help prepare them for the seventh grade science fair. Teachers will continue use of our Social Emotional Learning curriculum and will participate in updated training before school starts helping us to develop better relationships with each other. iReady will also continue to help us understand what students know and need to know so that we can plan according to our data and students’ needs. 

Many plans are being made to improve our extracurricular activities. Perhaps you saw the post on dojo about the sports programs for next school year. Your help will definitely be needed in getting those up and running. We will continue our Kingsmen Clubs, and teachers are already talking about the fun classes they’d like to offer. Perhaps you will find something you’d like to sponsor/teach. Our band and choir programs will continue. The directors hope more students will join their programs. Mr. Francis, our new principal, is very excited to get our drama program going again, and all of us are collaborating on offering more field trips next year.

We are super excited to welcome 37 new students enrolled for next year already! We are getting multiple calls and website inquiries each day. Please spread the word to your friends, family, and neighbors. We’d be happy to chat with them to see if we are the right fit. With another Blue Ribbon award in our sights, the future sure looks bright! 

Summer beckons fun for sure, but please plan to have your child(ren) work on academics, too. iReady lessons will stay open through July 31. Two lessons a week in math and reading each week would help reduce summer slide! Also, it is incredibly important that students memorize their math facts. Doing so will make complicated math problems easier, for sure. Reading for pleasure is also a great way to spend time. Perhaps you read a book together as a family, read to learn about a place you will visit, or discover a new genre of interest. 

Have a wonderful and safe summer! Perhaps we’ll see you at church or somewhere in the neighborhood! Watch Class Dojo for events happening over the summer including a Meet the Teacher evening when families can stop in to meet the teacher and drop off supplies. 

Many blessings! Have a wonderful summer!

Dr. Kelly