A Celebration of the 2023-2024 School Year

We are so proud of what Stratford Landing accomplished this school year. We’ve had one of our best years yet, and there is much to celebrate. When we tell the story of this school year, it might sound like this.

A story about student progress and achievement …

Our preschoolers demonstrated progress in the areas of math and literacy as shown by the VKRP and VALLS assessments. They also demonstrated social emotional development progress and indicated by the CBRS. Our kinders are heading into first grade with important literacy fundamentals!  Our K PALS assessment data indicates 87% of our kindergarten students met necessary benchmarks. They are also budding mathematicians with an achievement rate of 90% as indicated by the EMAS. We are so impressed with our PK/K teams and our little dolphins.

I’m proud to share that preliminary overall Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) results evidence a solid year of learning, improvement, and growth. Our 3-6 students were reading rockstars. We administered 467 reading SOLs and achieved a 93% pass rate. We also have some marvelous mathematicians in grades 3-6. We administered 461 math SOLs and achieved an 89% pass rate. 90 students took the 7^th grade math SOL and achieved a 93% pass rate. We also saw great gains from last year to this year in our 5^th grade Science achievement. 104 tests were administered with an 88% pass rate.

All our subgroups of students, which include Asian, Black, Hispanic, Economically Disadvantaged, English Learners, Multiple Races, Students with Disabilities and White students, achieved at Level One. This means that performance of our subgroups meets or exceeds Virginia standards. Additionally, this year we improved performance with two subgroups of students, moving achievement in those subgroups from Level Two / Level Three (near/below standard) last year to Level One this school year! This preliminary data suggests that Stratford Landing will be a fully accredited Virginia school for the fifth consecutive school year, 2019 – 2024. Wow! Way to go, dolphins. You can learn more about Virginia accreditation here.

This achievement data is a testament to our dedicated and skillful teaching staff and our hard-working students. Providing our staff necessary professional development, such as UFLI, LETRS, and OG has impacted student progress and growth positively, especially with our special education students. Our commitment to remediation and intervention during our structured Dolphin Time, as well as support from our high-impact tutors, also contributed to our success. Ensuring access to rigor for all students and implementing engaging, real-world instruction are other indicators of successful learning this school year.

We also saw a 25% gain with our Social Emotional Learning (SEL) data as evidenced by our FCPS SEL screener data. We improved from 51% last school year to 77% this school year in the SEL domain of self-management and responsible decision making. This addresses regulation of emotions and behaviors. We attribute this gain to our school-wide implementation of Zones of Regulation and our commitment to social emotional learning at SLES. Our school counselors and Wellness Team worked tirelessly to support our little students with big emotions. Our library had over 150 books to support the social and emotional needs of our students. Our morning meetings and commitment to student relationships made all the difference.

Our overall school-wide behavior and incident data shows a decrease in the intensity, frequency and duration of behaviors and incidents school-wide. Overall, teacher referrals for behavior responses to administration were down from last school year to this school year. We honored about 400 students with Distinguished Dolphin recognitions during eight (8) recognition ceremonies during the school year. These dolphins exemplified our Dolphin Decree.  Our commitment to Responsive Classroom remains strong and we see the impact of this approach each school day.

A story about student leadership …

We embraced student leadership this school year, and our students stepped up in several ways. It was our inaugural year for our new Student Leadership Association (SLA). This was a rebranding of our traditional Student Council Association (SCA) officer program to eliminate popularity contest elections and expand access and opportunity to more students to participate in leadership opportunities and community service. In our second year of publication, our student led literary magazine, Dolphin Voices, celebrated the stories of our students and provided additional leadership opportunities for our students. Dolphin Voices received a shout-out from Superintendent Reid in her weekly reflections during her visit to SLES this year.  

Our Get2Green initiative was fully embraced by our fourth and fifth grade students this school year, and our students were the voice for change. In addition to a robust recycling program facilitated by our students, we partnered with Casey Trees to plant 30+ new trees on our school campus. Our student team crafted a Get2Green vision (School EcoCode) for SLES to uphold in the years to come. Our SLES student Get2Green team was honored by EcoSchools U.S

Learn more about the recognition and work of our Get2Green team here.

Our student leaders stepped up in other ways during the school year, including our SLES patrols, buddy readers and buddy classes, classroom helpers, our Morning News Team and sixth grade service hour participation. Not to mention countless of “classroom jobs” that helped promote student leadership at the classroom level in all grades. We also recognized several sixth grade students this year with the Abbie Bachmore Service Leadership Award.

A story about our families and community engagement …

We celebrate numerous events that contributed to a sense of belonging, joy and school pride. Our first annual World Culture Night showcased our community culture and our family identities. Our second annual Young Authors’ Night and Young Artists’ Night highlighted the talents of our terrific writers and artists. Our second Annual Young Scholars Conference was a great day of learning for our students, and we provided our families access to resources.

Our first attempt at a chorus performance musical was wildly successful, and our 5^th and 6^th graders shined in the Willy Wonka musical. What an exciting tradition to begin here at SLES. We can’t wait for next year’s performance. Let’s not forget that our kindergarteners took center stage in an end of year musical performance as well. Our band and strings students exceled and performed both at the school level and division level. Project Based Learning (PBL) was alive and well at Stratford Landing, with many grade levels hosting several events such as Share Fairs, Wax Museums and Publication Parties for families to attend and celebrate learning.

When students, staff and families partner together, wonderful things happen. We increased our collaboration with the Gum Springs Community Center. We hosted another successful Career Day, with family volunteers sharing their work and service stories. Our active and retired military families helped make our Veterans Day celebration a special one. Our Field Day this school year was one for the record books with an overwhelming response from family volunteers. Our family volunteers also served as mystery readers and contributed to our academic success by supporting student learning one on one and in small groups.   

We implemented new access for family volunteers this school year with the establishment of the Family Volunteer Room. Our dedicated volunteers ran copies for teachers, laminated special projects, created bulletin boards and other classroom décor and helped support the organization of our new literacy basal materials for next school year. Teachers shared they appreciated this extra support from families, and their work contributed to great time-savers for our teachers!

This was also our inaugural year for our SLES Parent and Guardian Advisory Council. We had several productive meetings this year, and families were able to provide direct feedback to SLES administration. Some accomplishments of this council include helping us revise our Lexia program implementation, improve our weekly communication through SLES News You Choose and influence our new homework policy which will be introduced in the 2024-2025 school year.

We also appreciate all our field trip volunteers. With about 20 field trips taken this school year, our family chaperones were critical for the success and safety of each of these trips (including the one trip BACK to the Spy Museum!) Our sixth grade family volunteers were there every step of the way from the fall festival to the end of year picnic. Our PTA continued their partnership with our school through a successful Rock N Run and Spring Fling. Our PTA supported many initiatives this school year, including purchasing novels for all our great book clubs as well as items to promote social and emotional regulation in our Calming Corners in each classroom. Traditional PTA events like our National Spelling Bee and our wonderful D3 Showcase and Talent Show was a highlight for many of our students. New initiatives, such as the Family Neurodiversity Workshop and Twice Exceptional Family Workshop provided resources and engagement for our families. Our Family Resource room continued to be supported by our community through donations that help ensure we have necessary resources to provide for our families that may be in need. Our families supported students with special events during the Month of the Military Child, and the much-anticipated Thanksgiving Luncheon returned this school year with over 200 families in attendance.

Our SLES story this year is awe-inspiring ...

Our students, staff, school and community accomplished so much together. I’m hopeful you take pride and joy in knowing your children are surrounded by love and hard-working, dedicated individuals that do their best everyday to impact the lives of those around them positively.

We know the work isn’t done, and that each school year we must bring our very best to continue to impact student academic learning and social emotional growth. We will continue to reflect and refine our practices until each and every family can feel passionate and positive about Stratford Landing.

Onward!

Kevin Morris, Principal