ASCEND School

As school tours and enrollment season rolls around, I just wanted to take the time to post a review for International Community School (ICS) in OUSD. Last year, around this time, I was researching Spanish dual immersion schools with no idea which to pick. After attending all of the school tours for each of them in the district, I was so enamored with ICS. I am SO glad that our son got into ICS! The principal, Ms. Raquel, is a gift. She is the most accessible principal I've ever come across, having been a teacher at the school, a parent to a former student, and now principal. She hosts monthly meetings with parents to hear their concerns and acts on them immediately. The parent community is unmatched; I've never felt so welcome anywhere. There are numerous opportunities to meet other families, and people often come over to introduce themselves. There are many opportunities to celebrate the various cultures at the school, and English speaking families are welcomed into the community too. Kids all seem to know each other, and they are genuinely happy to see each other every day. My son went from speaking very little Spanish to willingly speaking it at home with his dad, who is fluent. His TK teacher, Ms. Micaela, is absolutely phenomenal, as are the paras Ms. Judith and Ms. Garcia. I couldn't have dreamt of a better experience for our son and family.

The school has a lot of community input and the staff works very hard to fall into compliance with the policies and directions of the district, county, state, and nation. The school uses a dual immersion model for instruction where part of the day is in English and part of the day in Spanish. Some classes are fully bilingual, while others work with credentialed Spanish teachers and credentialed English teachers to deliver the curriculum to the students. Students still take state tests for the most part. With all of parties involved from the community, to the staff, to the district, all playing such an active role in the education of these students you have to wonder why they haven’t been successful in achieving higher test scores in spite of their efforts. Are there larger problems in the community or in the district or in the state or county that are preventing students from this school from having scores that correlate with successful outcomes as students pass developmental milestones.

My experience at this school was very hard at first due to bullying and the school not having any process and procedures put into place. What is worse is finding out there’s sexual assault and school officials not doing anything about it but instead leave it up to the parents to determine punishment and with no outcome from on site staff. Sad to read these past reviews and to live and experience the new reality of this school. Teachers are good they try with what they have as well as other staff but the higher ups at this school say what they need to pacify you. There are hundreds of students in this school with only one yard duty person this year opened my eyes to how Lwl operates I thought there was growth at this school a community but there is neither

One big happy family I love the school and so does my kids

Achieve has a beautiful new campus and a very dedicated team of teachers. The principal is fantastic and works incredibly hard to ensure that students are learning. Teachers use high quality curriculum and monitor student growth closely.