Welcome to Madison Heights, home to 420 pre-school through fourth grade students. We have a picturesque campus nestled at the base of the Squaw Peak Mountain. I'm glad you are taking time to read and learn about Madison Heights. It is a great place to learn!

The 2005-06 school year will be our first year of offering a full day Kindergarten program for our students. The Madison School District Governing Board approved the full day program to provided extended academic opportunities for our students. This is a great opportunity for our community to continue to provide academic services to our students. We are excited to begin the school year with our Kindergarteners on campus all day!

Being a smaller school, the Heights campus has the feel of a small community. The teachers work at creating a community of learners in the classroom, while the Parent Teacher Organization helps to create a community atmostphere by providing many opportunities for everyone to come together and celebrate. The PTO provides financial and personnel support for the teachers and students at Heights. If you visit the PTO page, you can read all about the various activities/events that are offered at Heights. We offer a complete academic curriculum with emphasis on literacy, mathematics, social studies, and science. Our Kindergarten through fourth students also participate in art, music, and physical education on a six day schedule.

One focus on the Heights campus is professional development. We provide collaboration time for our teachers to meet and discuss best practices, lessons, student work, and assessments during the school day, and then implement these strategies into daily practice. We have trained Literacy and Math Teacher Leaders who facilitate the collaboration meetings as well as provide support to individual teachers in the classroom. The Literacy and Math Teacher Leaders work alongside other teachers so that everyone continues to grow as learners, develop new understandings of student work and achievement, and implement new strategies into thier teaching. We know that continually increaseing the expertise of our teachers is the best way to increase student achievement. This has assisted us in obtaining an Excelling label with the State Department of Education for the past two years. We continually grow as professionals to provide the best learning opportunities for our students.

We are proud to announce that on September 17, 2004, US Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, visited Madison Heights School to award us the No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon School Award. This is a national recognition given to only 5 school in Arizona, and only 250 schools nationwide. Madison Heights received this award for increased academic achievement over the past three years. We were formally recognized in November at an awards ceremony in Washington DC. Madison Heights was also one of six schools chosen to have a school profile on the U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon School website. A team of researchers came to campus and interviewed teachers, students, parents and administration. They then compiled the information into a profile for the website. The entire Heights Learning Community is very proud of this recognition, which honors the hard work by our teachers and students.

Heights was awarded a Learn and Serve America Grant supported by the Corporation for National Service. This grant allows us to have a part-time volunteer coordinator who is working hard at recruiting and training volunteers to work one on one with our students to develop literacy skills. We also have community members help publish students' writing. If you would like to join the volunteer corp at Heights, please call the office and ask for Maggie Kraft.

If you have any questions about our school please call 664-7800.

I hope you enjoy the rest of our website!

Denise Donovan
Principal