Our Junior High program is tailored to teach character traits and Christ-like virtues in a strong academic class atmosphere. Students will learn how to integrate Godly character into their daily lives, a critical aspect of their foundation as they learn and grow and then continue on as high schoolers. Wtih class sizes consisting of 25 students per class, Junior High students will also have the option of two electives per semester in addition to their daily core subjects. Truly these students become leaders on our campus and one way that we help to facilitate their leadership is a week long Spiritual Camp at Woodleaf where Junior High students deepen their relationship with the Lord and with one another and develop ways that they can serve on campus to mentor younger grades. Student council is another way that Junior High students can become involved in campus activities and leadership opportunities including raising the American flag for the school as well as the potential for morning bulletins that are broadcast to each of the classes in the school.
Students will recite the pledge of allegiance, Christian flag pledge, and Bible pledge daily as they learn to honor God and their country. Our curriculum is approved by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) to teach students their daily academics including Math, History, Science, Bible, and Language Arts. Students will also receive additional subjects throughout the week such as Physical Education, Computer Lab, Spanish, and Music. For more specific information on the curriculum used in each grade level, please refer to the following:
Similar to public schools, we also participate in standardized testing in the Spring. Since we are a private school, we are not permitted to use the testing instrument currently used in California public schools known as Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR). However, we believe that these standardized tests are a critical tool for our administration to help evaluate our curriculum and the effectiveness of our teaching. In past years, we have used Stanford Achievement Test 10 (SAT10), a standardized testing instrument endorsed by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI). Shown below is a graph illustrating our performance on the SAT10 test in past years as compared to other schools in the nation who also use ACSI curriculum.
We often get questions from parents who would like to know how our student performance on standardized tests compares to public schools. Because we are a private school, we do not have access to the public school STAR tests, nor is there a formula or means of comparing public school STAR scores to our SAT10 scores. What we are able to offer parents with regards to standardized test scores is a graph showing our performance by grade level compared to the National average which is available in the school office.
In the spring of 2011, ACSI announced that it had selected TerraNova as the new standardized testing instrument. Beginning in the spring of 2012, our school will now use the TerraNova test instead of the SAT10. One of the benefits of moving to this test is that TerraNova will give us electronic results within 5 days of receiving the tests, enabling us to provide more efficient turnaround times for our parents and faculty.
