Executive Summary. Nexus Academy of Lansing. Mr. Charles Carver, Principal 2175 University Park Drive Okemos, MI 48864

Transcription

1 Mr. Charles Carver, Principal 2175 University Park Drive Okemos, MI Document Generated On February 28, 2014

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Description of the School 2 School's Purpose 4 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement 6 Additional Information 7

3 Introduction Every school has its own story to tell. The context in which teaching and learning takes place influences the processes and procedures by which the school makes decisions around curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The context also impacts the way a school stays faithful to its vision. Many factors contribute to the overall narrative such as an identification of stakeholders, a description of stakeholder engagement, the trends and issues affecting the school, and the kinds of programs and services that a school implements to support student learning. <br><br> The purpose of the Executive Summary (ES) is to provide a school with an opportunity to describe in narrative form the strengths and challenges it encounters. By doing so, the public and members of the school community will have a more complete picture of how the school perceives itself and the process of self-reflection for continuous improvement. This summary is structured for the school to reflect on how it provides teaching and learning on a day to day basis. Page 1

4 Description of the School Describe the school's size, community/communities, location, and changes it has experienced in the last three years. Include demographic information about the students, staff, and community at large. What unique features and challenges are associated with the community/communities the school serves? is focused on serving students throughout the Greater Lansing metro area while providing Michigan's capital city with a living laboratory for 21st century education innovation. Located near a major highway interchange just outside Lansing proper, Nexus Academy launched in the fall of 2012 and doubled in size for school year on its way to its 300-student maximum. As the seat of Michigan government and the home of Michigan State University, the Lansing area is very much a "knowledge economy," one of the engines helping the state as a whole make the transition from 20th century manufacturing to the Information Age. Lansing's economic health - and in turn, Michigan's - depends on an educated workforce with the high-tech skills necessary to innovate in both the public and private sector. While some 57% of adults in Ingham County have some college experience, according to the U.S. Census (see more than a third have only a high school diploma or less. More than one-third (35%) of the population 16 years and over is not in the labor force, creating an effective unemployment rate of 9.6%. Median household income in Ingham County is $45,758, very close to the median for all of Michigan but lower than other white-collar areas of the state such as Oakland County. The challenge for Greater Lansing is to develop workers, thinkers, and leaders for Michigan's Information Age future, which will require high school graduates who are truly prepared for college success. Even students in "good" local schools face challenges staying engaged and graduating truly prepared for college - part of a national phenomenon decried by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ( among others. Nexus Academy addresses these unmet developmental and learning needs through a personalized, data-driven, blended learning approach. According to the U.S. Department of Education, students in blended learning environments achieve at higher levels than students either in fully online or purely facetoface learning situations (U.S. Department of Education, Evaluation of EvidenceBased Practices in Online Learning, revised September 2010). Recent research on small, specialized high schools documents an 8.6point higher graduation rate than traditional comprehensive high schools serving similar populations (Transforming the High School Experience, MRDC Research, January 2012). A highquality, datadriven high school like Nexus Academy, focused solely on producing students who are ready for college/career, is integral to Michigan's future. Greater Lansing benefits from a demographically diverse population. While more than 75% of the population identified as White in the last U.S. Census ( another 11% are Black or African American, 7% identify as Hispanic or Latino, and just over 5% are Asian. Nexus Academy reflects the diversity of the Greater Lansing community. In Year 2, more than 11% of students identify as Hispanic or Latino and more than 30% as Black, Asian, or Native American. Some 46% of students qualified for federal free and reduced lunch subsidies. In addition, 12% of students had special learning needs, as determined by presence of an Individualized Education Program or 504 Plan. As a school focused on preparing students for college, considers it an asset to be located near several excellent post-secondary options. In addition to Michigan State University, which is just minutes from the school, this higher education presence includes satellite locations of Western Michigan University and Ferris State University; Davenport University, Great Lakes Christian College, Cornerstone University and Lansing Community College. The staff reflects the community's academic depth, with nearly half of the entire team holding advanced degrees and even the Success Coaches possessing teaching certificates. This higher education-rich environment paid off in Nexus Academy's first year of operation: 100% of its graduating seniors were accepted to college. Page 2

5 welcomes any student in Michigan who aspires to college but seeks a different pathway than the traditional high school she or he might otherwise attend. Some of these are students of promise who are underserved in struggling comprehensive high schools or, conversely, find themselves bored or alienated in their otherwise wellperforming schools. Some are young people who are working or pursuing a personal passion such as elite athletics or the arts and yearn for a more flexible yet supportive schedule. Some are students who are eager to get high school out of the way as quickly as possible and take advantage of the flexible day to take college courses. While some students are teens who have not thrived in school up to this point, the school does not target an "atrisk" population in the conventional sense of the term. Nexus Academy is neither a dropout recovery and nor a credit recovery program. It is a collegeprep program for students who are ready to work hard and excel in an environment that is much more like college or the workplace than it is like the traditional high school most of us are familiar with. Page 3

6 School's Purpose Provide the school's purpose statement and ancillary content such as mission, vision, values, and/or beliefs. Describe how the school embodies its purpose through its program offerings and expectations for students. has a focused mission: To maximize academic achievement and college/career readiness for students in grades 9-12 seeking an alternative to the traditional classroom. provides an intentionally intimate, innovative, inspirational, and individualized college-prep learning environment that helps students fulfill their potential, engages their families and community, and prepares them for success in college, in work, and in life. The guiding philosophy for school culture at Nexus Academy is flexibility and individualization in exchange for personal accountability in a high-expectations environment. Our school has the allencompassing values of Honesty, Integrity, Respect, and Responsibility. We find that these four things flow through all that our students do here on a daily basis. It is our expectation that all students, parents, staff, and visitors act in accordance to the creed. Education Week recently spotlighted Nexus Academy schools as a cutting-edge example of blended learning (see Nexus Academy's core values include: --Every student deserves and is capable of both academic and emotional success - in high school and beyond. --Students perform best when they have some control over the time, place, path and/or pace of their learning. --Technology is a tool for personalized learning and constructive engagement with others. The Nexus Academy school culture embodies these values by providing students with everything they need to thrive: top-quality curriculum; specially trained, highly qualified teachers; personal mobile computing tools for every student; a supportive team led by a caring Success Coach; a powerful digital education platform; and real connections linking school, family, and community. Capped at 300 students with no more than 150 students on campus at one time, this small school has large expectations for students and staff. To fulfill its purpose, Nexus Academy applies the latest thinking about educational technology and school design to provide each student with a personalized, flexible, data-driven path to academic success. Nexus Academy is designed around the student from the ground up, with each student's daily routine driven not by lock-step periods and bells but by data about his or her learning and activities designed to maximize both academic performance and social/emotional growth. Each student has an entire technology-facilitated curriculum structured for his or her needs and accessed through a school-provided mobile computer that lets the student learn anywhere, anytime, inside the school facility and beyond. Each student works on-site at the specially designed campus for four hours either in the morning or afternoon, four days a week, and then completes up to 15 hours of work per week off campus. A student also has full-time access to his or her entire comprehensive online curriculum and online teachers via his or her mobile computer to complete work at flexible times, locations, and at an individual pace. The result is a school day and year that exceed required minimums while adapting to individual needs. This innovative small high school was designed following a thorough review of the national research on blended learning, including the Clayton Christensen/Innosight Institute's The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning and related publications. The resulting Nexus Academy model goes beyond the increasingly common "cubicles and pull-outs" approach to blended learning to maximize interaction and a sense of community among students through its open Team Zone design and use of Success Coaches. The Personalized Performance Learning model implemented in a specially designed, one-to-one computing facility creates a school environment that is truly inspirational and individualized. Page 4

7 Family engagement is a centerpiece of the Nexus Academy learning concept. All parents/guardians have the opportunity to be intimately familiar with their students' progress on a day-today basis. The school's unique Connexus technology platform ensures that all parents have access to complete data about their children's learning on a 24x7x365 basis. Parents can communicate with teachers via WebMail at the click of a link, and can participate in LiveLesson sessions on academic or guidance issues at their convenience. The Principal and Success Coaches also play an ongoing role in keeping parents engaged and informed, arranging in-person meetings and open houses on a regular basis. Page 5

8 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement Describe the school's notable achievements and areas of improvement in the last three years. Additionally, describe areas for improvement that the school is striving to achieve in the next three years. is very proud of what it has been able to achieve since launching in Fall and is equally humbled by the continuous improvement work that lies ahead. Our notable achievements include: -- Growing our enrollment during Year 1 from 40 to 90 students through positive word-of-mouth, and then doubling again in size for Year 2. By our third year ( ), we expect to have reached our planned scale of 300 students. -- Graduating 100% of our first-year students eligible for graduation - including one accelerated student who graduated in the equivalent of her junior year - and acceptance of 100% of out graduates into post-secondary education. -- Development of robust relationships with K-8 charter schools throughout the Lansing area which now see Nexus Academy as a high school where their graduates will be engaged, challenged, and supported in the pathway to college success. -- Pilot implementation of ilit, a tablet-based reading intervention program that fits especially well with our blended learning format. -- Student-initiated launch of a cross-country track team, an LGBTQ club, and a senior prom, among other second-year enrichments. -- Acceptance into and early victory in the highly competitive, televised QuizBusters program for Lansing area high schools. Areas of improvement for include the following, for which work is already underway: -- Fine-tuning of the Nexus Academy model as our school nears scale, to ensure that we maintain the close, data-guided attention we were able to provide our students in our early implementation period. -- Continued development of school culture and related processes to minimize impact of occasional behavior issues on the part of students in our open floor-plan campus. While our high-visibility, flexible-seating campus design works well for everyday supervision of students while they exercise increasing self-management, it also makes outlier behavior very visible to all. While such behavior is very rare, it does require our staff to handle with skills that we are continuing to build. -- Improved tracking of college success for our graduates, including metrics such as college enrollment persistence, ability to move into college-level studies without remediation, and college graduation within expected timeframe. On behalf of all of the schools in our network, is piloting a dashboard devoted to this data. Page 6

9 Additional Information Provide any additional information you would like to share with the public and community that were not prompted in the previous sections. No additional information at this time. Page 7