With an API score of 830 in their spring, 2007 STAR testing, Willow Creek students came abreast of many schools in Marin County. The increase of 92 points in their API ranking from the previous year provides one more piece of evidence that Willow Creek is growing and thriving. The exciting thing about this improvement is that WCA staff and students did not neglect their commitment to project based instruction, extending the classroom walls to incorporate a variety of field trips and real life experiences and working as much as possible to employ a variety of instructional techniques.

Perhaps most important of all this increase reflects the students' growing perception of themselves as capable and successful learners. The entire Willow Creek community is responsible for helping students develop the study skills and focus that are reflected in this test score increase.

While we are very proud of our students for this accompishment, we are even prouder and happier when we see a student take the time to help someone in trouble, to say please and thank you, to remember to recycle a plastic bottle and to welcome new students to their classroom. Our main goal, after all, is to help our kids become responsible, compassionate and literate citizens of their community.

We just learned, in late December, that Willow Creek was accepted as a member of PG&E's Solar School's Program. With this designation, our teachers are eligible to receive intensive training on energy development and conservation that they can then integrate with their regular classroom curriculum. A cornerstone of the PG&E program is the installation of a $20,000 solar panel on our campus. This solar panel's energy collection will be tracked by computer and available on this web site for all of us to follow. In addition to learning how solar energy works, this panel will reduce the over all District electric bill by several hundreds of dollars a year. As an official Solar School, we can apply for a "Bright Ideas" grant to develop and implement our own ideas regarding solar energy. If you have a "Bright Idea" you think would work, let us know.

We are also well on the way to becoming a "Green Business", certified by the Marin County Board of Supervisors. We worked with a group of Drake High School students who served as our energy audit team to prepare our application for this certification. As a result, you will now see a variety of signs in each classroom reminding us all to turn off lights, save water, work with the outside temperature to minimize use of the heating system and composting all of our green waste. WCA students are encouraged to take these practices home as well, so don't be surprised if your garbage cans suddenly have much less waste.