HEADMASTER'S MESSAGE

June 14, 2010

To Le Jardin’s Ohana,

I am pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees has adopted a new strategic plan for the school, a copy of which is attached.

The strategic plan is the result of a year-long process that was initiated by the Board in Spring, 2009. The Board established a planning committee consisting of 18 individuals, including trustees, faculty, staff and parents. The committee conducted meetings and surveys to solicit input from all segments of the Le Jardin community. I thank the committee members and the hundreds of individuals who shared their views about the school and its future.

The plan sets forth nine broad goals for the coming decade, as well as specific recommendations. It envisions the school as a leader internationally in the International Baccalaureate program, as a place which provides a small school environment but with the resources of a large school, and as an institution which plays a leadership role in the community. I urge you to take a few moments to review the plan and understand the vision that it sets forth.

The Board is committed to ensuring that the plan does not simply gather dust on a shelf, but that the vision it represents is fully realized. To that end, the Board has established a committee headed by Trustee Tom Zimmerman to oversee the implementation of the plan at the Board level.

Additionally, during the planning process there were many good ideas raised that related to non-Board-level, operational issues at the school. So, I and the others of us on the planning committee who shoulder leadership responsibilities at our school decided to form a committee at the school level to follow up on those issues. I will be updating the school community on our progress in addressing those issues throughout the coming school year.

In closing, I am excited by the promise reflected in the attached plan, and look forward to working with everyone in the Le Jardin community to make the bright future that it envisions a reality.

Adrian Allan

May 27, 2010

Dear Parents,

This has been another very special year for Le Jardin Academy; a year in which many firsts have been achieved by the school in the instructional program, the addition of facilities and by students both in terms of academics and athletics. It was also a year in which the partnership between home and the school were strengthened with parents regularly being invited to view the products of their student's learning at the end of their units of inquiry.

To begin the year with the opening of our state of the art new gymnasium and a brand new high school would have been major successes in themselves for a single year, but this was only the tip of the iceberg in the school's achievements. The school went on to not only be given the maximum accreditation of six years by the WASC and HAIS but also to be authorized by the International Baccalaureate Organization as the first school in the state to offer the PYP and MYP Programmes. The school completed it's application B (the final application) to become authorized to offer to it's students the IB Diploma Programme (grades 11 and 12). This would make Le Jardin Academy one of only eight schools in the nation to be approved to offer the International Baccalaureate Programme from PK through grade 12. The school was proud to be the recipient of $58,000 towards developing it's program to become a School of the Future with Le Jardin's application being recognized as one of the top two grant applications out of 28 schools that applied. The Junior School was inspected by the State authorities and given a new license to operate for two years (the maximum period), with no areas of deficiency being noted. The school completed a new strategic plan for the next ten years with input from Trustees, faculty, parents and students. This document can be found on the school's website with a link from the Headmaster's page.

On the academic front the school had it's first student accepted at Yale University, another at Johns Hopkins University and two more students were on the wait list for Duke University and one for Stanford. We also learned that two students from the first graduating class were awarded Fulbright Scholarships: one to study in Japan and another to study in Thailand. Our students improved their mean SAT scores by over 100 points this year and their performance on the AP examinations improved with more students than ever taking the tests, and a higher percentage passing with a 3 or better. This year 100 percent of our students graduated and all will be attending college. More college admissions officers visited the school than ever to recruit our students. Could this be that our status as an IB World school is already gaining the institution increasing recognition amongst the colleges and universities? I believe this is the case.

In the arena of sports the school took it's first ILH trophy, becoming ILH varsity champions in kayaking, beating out Iolani, Punahou, Mid-Pac and Kamehameha, no mean feat for a high school with only 200 students. This same group went on to place third in ocean paddling in their first year of competing in this sport. The school's water polo teams, both girls and boys, presented stiff opposition to all their opponents in division two competing in the finals. The Intermediate Boy's Basketball team won their division. The school's HYSA league soccer teams place in all ages in the top three and the under ten boys team was selected to represent the state in the prestigious Surf Cup competition in California, which is one of the top five competitions in the nation for their age group.

The school, in keeping with its commitment to foreign language and a global perspective, organized opportunities for it's students to go to France, Spain and Japan this year. Four foreign exchange students were hosted at the school, one from Switzerland, one from Italy, one from Cambodia and one from Beirut. All of these help strengthen our students' understanding of the global village for which our program is preparing them to become a part. The school took a group to see the inauguration of President Obama in Washington and another group to Berkeley to participate in the Model United Nations program with 1500 other students from both within the USA and from several other nations.

The school, with help from the PFA, organized three very high quality gala events: one targeted at families, one for the business community and one for the Soccer Academy and between them they raised over 100,000 dollars to support our programs. There was a very successful Renaissance Faire which featured the artwork of our students and a Family Fun Night organized by the Lower School Student Council.

The list goes on and on but this will give you a sense of the major events of the year. There were so many that I am sure that most of you could think of several that I have missed. I am proud to be the Headmaster of such a dynamic school and know that we have made exceptional progress this year and are well on our way towards our goal of becoming a school of excellence.

I would like to go on record as thanking our faculty, administrators and staff for their sterling efforts that have made this year our most successful to date. Our students have continued to show us just how special they are and what can be achieved in a small nurturing school with high expectations.

I would like to thank all of you for entrusting your children to our care. I wish all of you a wonderful, well earned break and look forward to seeing you after the vacation refreshed and ready to meet the new challenges of 2010 - 2011.

Yours Truly,

Adrian Allan, Headmaster and President

HEADMASTER MESSAGE
April 22, 2010
Host Family Needed
We are looking for a host family for a female student from Finland. She will be in the Junior class next year. If you are interested, please call Mrs. Koki at 261-0707, ext. 1110. Thank you.

College News

A lot has been happening lately at Le Jardin Academy. The school has just had its first student accepted at Yale University, another student at John Hopkins and other students are on the wait list for Duke. Le Jardin students are really starting to make their impact on the college scene. The general buzz of interest amongst college admission officers in the school has only grown with the arrival of the school as an International Baccalaureate World School and I believe that we can only look forward to even more college acceptance successes in the future.

LJA Budding Playwright

The school has had a student winner in a play writing competition. Invalidation by Le Jardin student Samuel Spengler , was selected by three prominent, local playwrights to represent Hawaii in the 2010 VSA Playwright Discovery Call for Scripts Competition in Washington D.C.

Kaiwi Channel Paddler

Congratulations to Junior, Mike Dowsett, for competing in the Kaiwi Channel Solo OC1 World Championship last Sunday. He crossed the 32 mile open ocean channel from Molokai to Oahu in rough conditions in a one person canoe in just over 5 hours. Mike is a part of LJA's Kayak and Canoe Paddling teams and a member of Kailua Canoe Club.

April 20, 2010

JAL sponsors an annual Haiku poetry contest for Hawaii’s students, and 50 top student poets are always recognized. The theme of this year’s contest was “School,” and this year there were 1,010 entries. Seven students in our school (two in grade 8 and five in grade 7) made the top 50 list and their poems appear below. You may have taught them in the past and I thought you might like to see what they are up to now. J Congratulations to all of them!

Natassia Yee, Gr. 8 Always excited Art class fills my heart with joy Colors start to spill

Casey Doyle, Gr. 8 On textbook pillows drifting off into slumber a study hall nap

Renee van Bergeijk, Gr. 7 Pencils are scratching Scribbling swiftly on the page A fierce storm of words

Tyler Lunow-Luke, Gr. 7 Like feathers in wind Experience constant change Learn from your mistakes

Kivalu Ramanlal, Gr. 7 A vortex of words Swirling like a hurricane This is English class

Devin Sandoval, Gr. 7 Early morning class A storm of children’s laughter Breezes through the trees

Giselle Sadler, Gr. 7 The phone rings the teacher leaves the classroom three minute party!

March 31, 2010
Le Jardin Academy is proud to announce that a student from its first graduating class, who went on to attend a university in Oregon, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Japan next year. This student was amongst the first four students who took an IB Certificate in Japanese. We also received word from parents of a student in the second graduating class, who also took the IB Certificate in Japanese. This student has been awarded a full year internship with a Japanese computer company in Osaka. This student will receive a free apartment and $2000 a month for the duration of the internship.
These students were only able to do a single certificate in the International Baccalaureate Programme as a part of our trial pilot program. Congratulations go to these two students and their Japanese Sensei, Yoshiko Tsukamoto on a job well done.

Headmaster's Message

February 10, 2010

IB STUDENTS SOUGHT BY COLLEGES

Last night, we were privileged to have a presentation by Michele Sandlin, Director of Admission at Oregon State University. She began by letting us know that the IB was the fastest growing program in the USA and that Korea was in the process of making the IB their national program. Le Jardin Academy, she said, had made the right decision at just the right time to allow its students to benefit from this internationally acclaimed program. This program would place LJA in a completely different category when its students were being considered for admission by colleges, by raising to new heights the credibility of our students’ ability to perform at college. During her presentation, she stressed the high regard that colleges and universities have for the students who have taken the IB program. She pointed out that while SAT scores and GPAs (because of its grade inflation) were terribly weak predictors of success in colleges, whereas examining the level of challenge of a student’s course load in grade 11 and 12 was a good indicator. With this in mind, students who had taken the IB were highly sought after by US colleges. Colleges tried to entice these students to their campuses by giving genuine college credit (up to sophomore status with associated savings in tuition), awarding IB specific scholarships (just having an IB diploma without applying automatically resulted in you getting a 3000 dollar scholarship every year in Oregon), allotting housing preferences, giving course sign-up privileges and even allocating free on-campus parking. She indicated that the concerns that parents had about the recognition of the grading system for IB were unfounded, for all colleges were familiar with the IB grading system. She spoke eloquently about the importance of ensuring, as a parent, not just that their student was accepted by a college but also that they were able to be successful at the college and would complete the course. IB students had the best record in completing college. She said that IB students at Oregon, who had completed just one or two parts of the IB Diploma, had GPAs upon graduating of 3.07, while students with the full diploma had GPAs of 3.67. These scores were significantly better than the average for all other students, which was 2.85. Next year, there will be a special list being created where the names of all students involved in the IB can be located by colleges that wish to find these students. She said Le Jardin Academy can start to look forward to a long line of college recruiters trying to get our students to join their colleges in the years to come.

January 19, 2010

This was a very special day for Le Jardin Academy.

Le Jardin Academy joined 2,815 schools in 138 countries as an IB world school. Our students will be graduating in future not only as LJA alumni by with 60,000 other students from the International Baccalaureate Programmes all around the world.

In the latest poll of the top one hundred high schools in the nation, 39 of them were IB schools. This is more impressive, when one remembers that IB high schools make up less than 2 percent of all high schools in the nation.

In 2011/12, we will complete the third phase of our effort by becoming a PK through Grade 12 IB World School. This will make Le Jardin Academy one of only 8 schools in the nation to have the full program.

So today, we celebrated the completion of phases 1 and 2 of Le Jardin Academy’s vision for providing an educational program for our students to prepare them for college and work in the 21st century.

In our 2000 strategic plan for the school, the Administration and the Trustees took not only the bold decision to create a High School for Le Jardin Academy, but also to become a World School and a member of the International Baccalaureate Programme.

At that time, the importance and potency of this program for preparing students for success in the college and the world of work was not nearly as well appreciated. It speaks volumes to the Trustees’ commitment and vision that they were willing to take this challenge on.

Since that decision, the Trustees have committed to developing this campus using well in excess of 35 million dollars to build a facility worth of delivering this high quality program to the students on the Windward side of the island.

But perhaps even more impressive, was their willingness to fund over 6,000 hours of professional development for the school’s faculty to prepare them to use the best current educational practices for the delivery of the program. They did this by infusing the school’s professional development budget with an additional 600,000 dollars over the past 2 ½ years for that purpose.

I want to go on record as say how proud I am of the faculty for embracing the challenge of change which this program brought. They have given up many hours of their time beyond the regular work day to prepare themselves to deliver effectively this program. Change is always a challenge and hard work and they have shown that they have the desire to make Le Jardin an educational leader in this state.

What are some of the things about the International Baccalaureate Program that have resulted in it being recognized around the world as a leader in educating students?

The I.B. is a program that understands the importance of learning readiness. It understands that asking questions about what you want to know prepares the brain to receive information which makes recalling what you learned easier. For this purpose, the program begins all units through developing a list of student questions.

It recognizes the need to integrate student learning by linking what is being learned and providing a unified learning experience for the students’ day.

It recognizes the need to learn to work in groups effectively. Very few jobs are done in isolation and being an effective team worker is a critical skill for success at work. Yes, EQ is as important as IQ.

It emphasizes the need to spend time reflecting upon what you have done to see if you could do it better. In the past, this has been a much under valued skill in schools.

It requires students not only to learn but to put into practice in their lives what they have learned.

It prepares students to be open-minded, tolerate and caring world citizens as a result of its global perspective and commitment to learning a foreign language.

This process has not only applied to our students but has become a part of our faculty culture too.

We have been fortunate as a private school to have had the freedom to be able to fully implement the IB program and link its curriculum with national standards and international standards.

• Quick Links to:
• Go Bulldogs! Athletics News and Sports Calendar
• Construction Update
• Back to LJA Website