Welcome!
Principal Tehniat Cheema
The Loma Verde Community is committed to creating a Culture of Caring, Competence, and Excellence. We believe every child deserves the opportunity and is capable of demonstrating proficiency across all curriculum content areas. Our staff works diligently with students to help them both understand and develop perseverance. Our goal is to instill the idea that hard work and determination are essential factors for success. Expectations are set high for all students.
Our academic growth is directly related to our focus on meeting the needs of a diverse student population. To meet the varied range of academic needs of our students, differentiated instruction and learning is the most fundamental element of our practice. Our staff has strategically created and adapted successful academic learning structures that support the needs of each student.
Our flexible skills groups can be observed as a daily practice throughout all grades, Kindergarten-5th and across curriculum content areas. We offer enrichment opportunities such as Math Olympiads, Student Leadership, School Musical, Arts Attack, Girls on the Run, Boys Soccer Club, Odyssey of the Mind, and Challenge Academic classes. We also provide intervention through kindergarten small-group intervention, before school classes, and computer lab access before and after school.
The Principal and the entire Loma Verde staff are committed to creating a Culture of Caring, Competence, and Excellence. This work is supported through a grant by the Marin Community Foundation. The grant funds teacher collaboration time, professional development, intervention services, and programs that allow for differentiating the curriculum to meet the needs of all students.
School Profile
Loma Verde Elementary School is one of eight elementary schools in the Novato Unified School District, with a student body of typically around 400 students in Transitional Kindergarten through 5th grade.
Located in southern Novato, Loma Verde Elementary is situated in a valley surrounded by beautiful tree-covered hills in a well-established residential neighborhood.
We are committed to a standards-based curriculum while also providing a balanced instructional program that is student-centered, encourages critical thinking, problem-solving, and creative expression. Parents and staff work collaboratively to create a safe and supportive environment that supports the development of capable, responsible, and respectful young people.
Our Mission
The Novato Unified School District is an innovative and effective education system that provides diverse academic experiences to meet individual student needs, and challenges students to realize their educational potential.
Our Vision
The Novato Unified School District is committed to providing an educational experience that will:
- ensure students possess academic and technical knowledge to enter successful careers and post-secondary experiences.
- prepare all students to be successful, responsible, and productive citizens and leaders in a diverse and global society
- encourage students to embrace a variety of learning opportunities throughout their lifetime
- provide students with tools to unlock their full potential The Novato Unified School District will exemplify excellence in education by ensuring high quality, innovative instruction and equitable access to learning opportunities that inspire and prepare students to reach their utmost success.
Diversity
We have an especially diverse student body that reflects the ethnic and social diversity of the Novato community, and believe that greatly enriches our community. Our team works hard to provide a safe and nurturing learning environment where all students can thrive, whatever their individual needs, abilities, backgrounds, and economic circumstances.
Programs
Loma Verde maintains several school-wide programs to provide support and interventions for student success: Title I, English Language Program, a Resource Program, Speech and Language Services, one-to-one mentoring, counseling, and family outreach. We offer an extended day program for kindergarten children, an After-school Homework Clubs for 1st – 5th grade students, and intervention classes for Kindergarten through 5th-grade students to provide additional support.
Student Support
It is the goal of Loma Verde Elementary to assist students in their social and personal development as well as academics. The school gives special attention to students who experience achievement problems, difficulty coping with personal and family problems, trouble with decision making, or handling peer pressure. Loma Verde has a partnership with North Marin Community Services to provide counseling, with two counselors on-site four days per week provided by NMCS.
Enrichment Activities
After-school enrichment opportunities are provided through partnerships with YMCA, Electivity, and other organizations. Examples of recently offered enrichment activities include Track, Golf, Archery, Explorations in Quantum Physics, Urban Architecture, Wholesome Meals for the Family, and Fashion Design.
Parent Engagement
We foster a strong family-school connection to provide a supportive collegial community and make a wide array of parent involvement/partnership activities available, including opportunities to volunteer in classrooms and on field trips, book fairs, school events, parent-teacher conferences, school leadership team, PTO, ELAC, and parent education events.
Nearly 20,000 volunteer hours were given last year by parents and other community members to support school programs. Staff and parents work actively to establish a sense of participation that goes beyond the classroom and the school.
Facilities
Loma Verde Elementary is comprised of 21 classrooms, a multipurpose room/cafeteria, a library, a computer lab, a staff lounge and workroom, and 2 playgrounds. Several smaller rooms are used as office space, for counseling and tutoring programs. The multipurpose room was renovated in 2006.
A highlight of the campus is our school garden, which hosts worm and composting bins, edible plants, and native plants. Our garden is a critical extension of our Next Generation life science studies. Loma Verde teachers use the garden to teach the process of inquiry and observation, with the assistance of a part-time garden instructor underwritten by the Loma Verde Foundation.
The school’s library, staffed by a full-time Library Tech, provides an extensive variety of reference and special interest materials, in addition to hundreds of educational and recreational books. Students visit the library on a daily/weekly basis with their classes and are encouraged to visit before and after school. Four computer workstations as well as iPads are available, so students are able to access resources and information online.
Technology Resources
With funding from the Measure G Bond, the “One to World” initiative provides Chromebooks for every student in grades 3-12. In addition, Loma Verde Elementary School has a computer lab with 30 computers. The Loma Verde PTO funds a computer specialist to maintain the lab and train teachers to become capable of implementing the 21st Century technology skills students will need to become proficient with independent research and independent learning. In addition, Loma Verde has purchased document cameras and projectors to highlight learning programs for classroom teachers in first through fifth grades.
