Principal's Message

Principal - Kathy Scott

Welcome to the Corona del Mar website. This is my sixth year as the principal of Corona del Mar HS and I am very excited about the work we are doing to provide our students with an excellent educational experience as well as creating a more supportive and healthier school climate. Our school’s mission statement: to provide the highest level of comprehensive instruction aimed at empowering students to learn with resiliency, act with empathy and live with integrity; is the foundation from which we are building.

Per our block schedule, teachers utilize the first half of the Monday Late Start time (7:30 am – 8:10 am) for professional development and peer collaboration to develop curriculum and assessment alignment. Our goal is that all students will have the opportunity to experience a guaranteed and viable curriculum regardless of which teacher they may have. For the second half of the late start time (8:10 am-9:00 am) teachers meet with students individually and/or in small groups to provide extra academic support.

Beginning this school year, through the support of our district, Corona del Mar High School is partnering with Challenge Success, a Stanford University program that has partnered with over 150 top-performing high schools across the nation. Challenge Success provides information and strategies for parents, students and school staff to create a more balanced and academically fulfilling life for students. Challenge Success was developed to address the national trends of overscheduled students, lack of sleep, anxiety & depression, cheating, bullying, and lack of academic engagement.

As a staff we are pursuing practices and strategies that create a healthier school climate by redefining what success means for our school community. Students are providing input and insight through periodic student-led meetings and through a comprehensive student survey that was developed by Challenge Success. CdM parents are collaborating with us through parent-led meetings to learn effective parenting strategies that also support a more balanced path to success. Our collective goal is to improve student well-being by promoting student engagement and connectedness in the classroom. We empower students to self-advocate and teach them how to respond with resiliency, while interacting with empathy and integrity.

We are very fortunate to be in a community where parents, staff and students are not only eager and willing to work together, but are also willing to make the needed changes to support a healthier school climate both on campus and at home.