As our third grade teachers declared recently, “We are ending this school year on a fantastic note.”  The state recently announced that Mark Hopkins Elementary achieved 91% proficiency on the state’s third grade Reading TCAP test.  This is an amazing score that makes us very proud of our students, our staff, and the learning that is happening at our school.  Several additional facts are worth noting: 

• This score is 27 percentage points above our scores from just three years ago. 
• Our score is 3 percentage points above the district average. 
• Hopkins is one of only seven district schools to score over 90% proficient or advanced. 
• 16% of our students scored advanced on this test compared to 7% statewide.
• Hopkins had no students who scored unsatisfactory on this test. 

This is historic achievement for our school and reflects the efforts of all our community, including the pre-school, kindergarten, first grade, and second grade teachers.  We look forward to getting the data on our other grade levels and subject areas in August.   Be sure to encourage your son or daughter to read this summer so we can keep our momentum going strong.

Many Hopkins 4th and 5th Graders entered an annual writing contest (organized by Colorado Humanities and Colorado Center for the Book) called Letters about Literature. Each student wrote a letter to an author of a book that has somehow changed the child's view on life or the world. Out of hundreds of students, three 5th Grade students earned 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in this statewide competition! These winners were, Ainsley Borak, 1st place, Alex Arellano, 2nd place, and Skyla LaFord, 3rd place.
The students, along with their families, and Ms Catie Sandoval, an enrichment teacher at Hopkins, attended a Student Literary Award ceremony and reception May 10, 2012 to be recognized for their writing excellence.