About
Our school is located at Avenue P-8 and Hubbard St. in Palmdale in the southwest portion of the Antelope Valley. Cottonwood serves approximately 550 students in grades Universal Pre-Kindergarten through Sixth Grade. Our educational program is guided by the state standards and district priorities with collaboration between parents, staff, and administration. The School Site Council with input from stakeholder groups develops an annual School Improvement Plan.
Instructionally, we continue to embrace the district learning goals. They are:
- Critical reading and writing in and across all content areas
- Inquiry grounded in evidence from text and other sources
- Rigor and real world application
- Integration of technology
In addition, we utilize STEAM (integration of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) and the 4 C's of creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration to engage all students in learning. All students have the opportunity to learning engineering and the design thinking process the Project Lead the Way and the use of iPads and Chromebooks.
Cottonwood is focused on supporting each student to reach their potential academically, socially and behaviorally. Cottonwood is an all AVID Elementary school with a focus on the AVID strategies in all grades for critical thinking, note taking, organizational skills and planning. Goal setting is utilized to help students identify areas of strength and weakness and devise a plan for improvement, as needed. Schoolwide we have embraced the AVID "Culture of Success" goal as we strive to help our students think now about their futures.
We use strategies and social skills instruction from the Boys Town Program and Character Lab to support a structure of Positive Behavior Support (PBS) school wide. We have four school expectations which are: Be Safe/Be Prepared/ Be Respectful / Be Responsible.