May 2, 2004

Canoas Elementary named California Distinguished school

By Carol Rosen
Editor

Canoas Elementary School was selected as a California Distinguished school in late April. It’s the only San Jose Unified school to receive that distinction this year.

The school, which has been in existence for just four years, received the award based on last year’s spring testing including the Academic Performance Index announced in March.

Scores for Canoas students grew from 698 in 2002 to 728 in 2003, increasing their statewide rank to 10. This was accomplished with a population that includes 51 percent that are English learners and 71 percent that receive free and reduced lunch.

Couple those statistics with a high rate of mobility, and the teachers, administration and students have achieved a significant victory.

Most of that is due to the principal’s guidance along with hard work by the teachers, parents and students. Carol Garcia spent 10 years as principal of Shallenberger Elementary School. When she was asked to open the school, “I came with an idea and a purpose that we had to acclimate to ourselves and to our students. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, to open a school, to start from scratch to implement my beliefs,” she said.

“We developed a vision that continues to guide us. And, we have target goals under that vision. Part of the vision is student achievement. That achievement promotes them to believe in themselves and, at the same time, promotes an enthusiasm for learning. [In other words,] we developed a program and vision to guide us that allowed us to focus on academic achievement and create the atmosphere that allows the children to achieve. When children feel successful, they achieve.

Garcia says that receiving the award is a real honor, one that honors not just the school, but the entire community, the staff and the children. “This is not about awards. It’s about student achievement, belief in themselves and belief that they can do anything they set out to do.”

“It’s an award that is well deserved and it’s to be enjoyed by the entire community,” adds Karen Fuqua, San Jose Unified School District’s spokesperson. “We’re very proud of Canoas Elementary School and its faculty and staff. The school and its community has worked hard and worked together to increase the children’s learning and they have succeeded quite well.”

The first week of May marks the 2004 round of tests for the school, said Garcia. She hopes that the school can at least match last year’s scores and perhaps exceed them. It’s a difficult goal because many of the children don’t have luxurious living conditions and the school population is quite mobile.

A number of students, she adds, are Hispanic and don’t have the background in English that children from other schools enjoy. In many or most of these cases, for example, children go home to families that don’t speak English. But a lot of these parents also have a goal to promote learning, and together with the faculty and administration provide an atmosphere that induces a love of learning.

In other cases, especially some of the fifth graders, Garcia said, the students need to be challenged. Providing these children with an atmosphere that enthuses learning and keeps them challenged at the level they need so they don’t get bored is part of the Canoas vision.

Congratulations to the school’s students, faculty, administration, parents and the general community. Well done!