Silicon Valley International School Willows Campus

Silicon Valley International School Willows Campus known colloquially as Silco, Alto, or Willows' Campus, as well as Alto International School, is the high school of Silicon Valley International School. The campus is located in Menlo Park, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and offers preparatory, multilingual, progressive education, immersion language programs in French, German, and Chinese for preschool and high school.[1]

Silicon Valley International School (Willows Campus)
Address
475 Pope St

Silicon Valley

Menlo Park
,
California
94024

United States
Coordinates37.4614°N 122.1571°W / 37.4614; -122.1571
Information
Former namesAlto International School
School typePrivate
Established1988
Sister schoolStiftung Louisenlund, Germany
Head of schoolGeneva Robinson
GradesPreK, and 6–12
LanguageEnglish, German, Spanish, French, Chinese
Colour(s)  Kelly Green
MascotGerman Dragon
AccreditationInternational Baccalaureate, Western Association of Schools and Colleges, DSD Schule (German accreditation), Round Square
Websitehttps://www.siliconvalleyinternational.org

As an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School since 2007, the school offers both the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) from Grades 6 through Grade 10, and (Since receiving accreditation in 2018) the IB Diploma Programme (DP) from Grades 11 and 12.[2] The school also used to offer the Deutsches Sprachdiplom Stufe I and II, which entitles foreign students to apply for university entry in Germany, but abandoned it following the merger with Silicon Valley International School.[3]

The school was originally founded in 1988 as the first German school on the US West Coast and changed its name from German-American International School (GAIS) to Alto International School in September of 2016. As of 2016 it had 250 students.[4] In August 2018, Alto launched a partnership with Stiftung Louisenlund near Kiel, Germany, to develop joined student programs.[5] Since Summer of 2019, Alto was part of the Round Square network of international schools, but this association was abandoned with the merger of Silicon Valley International School.[6]

In August of 2021, Alto merged with Silicon Valley International School and the school changed its name from Alto International School to the Willows' Campus of Silicon Valley International School.[7]

Academic achievements

Based on the International Schools' Assessment (ISA) and the PISA test of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Alto students used to consistently outperform comparable schools worldwide and in 2017 Alto's 9th Grade students had tested above the highest ranking schools systems in the world and scored in the top 10% worldwide.[8] In addition, according to the Presidential Honor Roll of the American Association of Teachers of German, students of Alto International School ranked in 2017 and 2018 within the top 3 schools in California and within the top 10 schools nationwide.[9]

Rewards

In 2017, 2018, and 2019, the "Best of the Best" edition of the Bay Area Magazine, Alto International School was awarded Gold and Silver medals for the best school in the following 6 categories: Preschool, Elementary School, Middle School, High School, International School and Language Immersion Program.[10][11][12]

References
  1. "Silicon Valley International School Official Website". Silicon Valley International School in Menlo Park & Palo Alto. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
  2. "Press Release: Alto International School Receives Accreditation for the Prestigious International Baccalaureate Diploma and Announces New Head of School". Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  3. Bradshaw, Kate. "Menlo Park school changes name and focus". www.almanacnews.com. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  4. "The German-American International School (GAIS) Announces Name Change to Alto International School and Launches IB High School in Menlo Park." Alto International School. Retrieved on January 24, 2017.
  5. School, Alto International. "Alto International School and Louisenlund School Partner to Foster German-American Student Exchanges". GlobeNewswire News Room. Retrieved 2018-09-10.
  6. "List of Round Square schools in America".
  7. Kadvany, Elena. "New high school to bring German, French and Chinese language instruction under one roof". The Almanac. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
  8. "Alto High School Students Outperform Highest-ranked School Systems" (PDF).
  9. "Presidential Honor Roll - American Association of Teachers of German". www.aatg.org. Retrieved 2017-05-06.
  10. "Bay Area Parent - Best of the Best 2017, page 77 & 78".
  11. "Bay Area Parents - Best of the Best 2018, page 66 & 68".
  12. "Bay Area Parents - Best of the Best 2019, page 34 & 36". Bay Area Parents.
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