Executive Summary. Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy

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1 State-sponsored Charter Schools Dwight Sanders, Administrator 1201 W Lake Mead Blvd Las Vegas, NV Document Generated On November 18, 2013

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Description of the School 2 School's Purpose 4 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement 5 Additional Information 6

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. 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? The (Agassi Prep) was founded by Andre Agassi and opened in 2001 with grades 3-5. The college prep school has expanded each year and is now a K-12 school with the inaugural graduating class commencing in June Agassi Prep was conceived from Andre's belief that nothing has a greater impact on children's lives than the education they receive. Agassi Prep is located in West Las Vegas, one of the most economically challenged areas of the city. The students attending AACPA are selected based on a lottery system with preference given to children living in a two-mile radius from the school, which is a low-income neighborhood. There are no entrance exams or tuition fees required, in order for students to attend. Students and parents are required to sign a Code of Excellence pledging a commitment to fulfill school requirements, including community service hours. Agassi Prep has grown from approximately 630 students during the academic year to 1,163 students for the academic year. Over the next three years, we expect to grow to serve roughly 1,300 students in grades K-12 with approximately 480 in the elementary, 390 in the middle school, and 400 in the high school. In 2005, a law was passed mandating that students living within two miles of Agassi Prep be given preference in the lottery. This has had a significant impact on the demographics of our student body. We have gone from 48% of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch in to 75% in ; and from 3% Latino students to 15% in just two years. Consequently, Agassi Prep is currently comprised of approximately 82% African-American students, and less than 3% Caucasian and Asian. The design of Agassi Prep is to offer a school day and school year longer than is normally offered in Nevada Public Schools. Thus, Agassi Prep commits to provide an extended number of hours past the state required minimum allocation in a school day as well as number of days in a school year. Agassi Prep has a 184-day school calendar for students exclusive of school holidays and an approximately 194-day calendar for teachers including professional development Curriculum and course descriptions are based on information provided by the Nevada Department of Education and the Clark County School District. In addition, all required courses are aligned withthe Common Core Standards and Nevada State Standards. Model curriculum is used as a guide by teachers and administrators in developing class lesson plans to ensure compliance with the academic standards adopted for English language arts, mathematics and all other areas of instruction. Students are able to enroll at Agassi Prep based on the outcome of a student application lottery. While the lottery is open to all students, a tiered format provides those students that live within a two mile radius of the school and or who qualify for free or reduced price meals a greater preference for the opportunity for enrollment at the school. As a result, Agassi Prep's student population is comprised primarily of students living in one of the most socio-economically challenged areas of Las Vegas. Historically, there is a strong correlation between lowincome and low academic performance as well as fewer academic related opportunities. The Agassi Prep community has worked diligently to change this relationship and provide equal or greater opportunities to the students than they would otherwise have access. Examples include: - A school year that is 10 days longer and a school day that is approximately 1.5 hours longer than a traditional public school. Page 2

5 - After-school programs available at no charge or at a greatly reduced price for students. - Waived fees for college entrance exam test preparation, AP exams, and college entrance exams. - Reduced price summer programs at top universities both nationally (Stanford, Cornell, Georgetown) and internationally (Oxford.) - 2 full-time college counselors for students in 9th -12th grade - Post-secondary support and guidance for Agassi students. 24 of 33 graduates from the first graduating class (Class of 2009) are still enrolled in a post secondary institution. 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. Our school mission statement is as follows: The will prepare students from underserved communities to excel and graduate from the top 100 colleges and universities in the nation. We continually strive to realize this ambitious goal through high expectations for students' academic progress and achievement, and through a wide variety of academic and extra curricular opportunities we provide for our students. Our teachers set high academic expectations for our students by offering a rigorous course of instruction, vertically aligned to Advanced Placement courses, and therefore tied to National Common Core Standards. Student progress is tracked through benchmark assessments on Data Wise and through teacher coaching by our Administrators and Learning Strategists. Additionally, a school-wide writing model is a focal point of that instruction, and so accountability for developing strong literacy skills is incorporated into content areas outside of just English / Language Arts. This is because as a school, we have decided that to adequately prepare our students for college, every student must be able to read and write extremely well. We hold teachers accountable for teaching students how to write a college level essay by mandating that the Toulmin writing model be taught across the curriculum in English, history, mathematics, and the sciences. Student learning is tracked and accounted for through a writing portfolio system, which we began implementing in January These portfolios are maintained in every classroom, and filed in an easily accessible location for periodic checks. Teachers are required to meet particular expectations for writing within their course and content area, which will be a part of their professional performance evaluations beginning in the academic year. Finally, the aspires to accomplish its goals and its mission by discovering and developing each scholar's individual gifts and talents. To channel and develop our students, we offer a broad range of art, music, athletic, and leadership opportunities: o orchestra, jazz, choral, dance, and drama classes o visual art classes, including drawing and painting o service learning opportunities and programs o Varsity Football o Boys & Girls JV and Varsity Basketball o Boys & Girls Varsity Track & Field o Girls JV and Varsity Volleyball o Boys Varsity Baseball Page 4

7 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. Our AP course offerings have expanded from one course in 2009 to six courses in 2013 and we increased the number of AP exams being taken at Agassi Prep in the last two years from twenty-one exams to seventy-four. As a result, we have increased the percentage of seniors who take an AP class prior to graduation from 28% (Class of 2011) to 58% (Class of 2012) - a 107% increase. The work we have done to develop expectations, guidelines, and alignment in writing instruction across all content areas, we believe, is a notable achievement, which has produced results. Having this school-wide focus on writing has resulted in a marked improvement in our performance on the Nevada High School Writing Proficiency exam. In 2011, of the thirty-five students who took the test for the first time as juniors, 17 passed, exhibiting only a 49% passage rate. We are very proud that this year, of the thirty-seven students who took the exam for the first time as juniors, twenty-five students passed, a 71% passage rate. This demonstrates a noteworthy improvement in our students and their success rate on the state proficiency exam. Finally, the scholarship dollars our students have been awarded has increased from $1,040,790 in the Class of 2011 to $1,960,096 in the Class of Amongst those scholarship awards is the inclusion of the first Agassi Prep student to win a Gates Millennium Scholarship, of whom we are very proud. In the next three years, we hope to improve in several areas in order to lead us to our aim that all of our students are accepted into a fouryear college. To improve the likelihood of such as acceptance, our first goal is that we will see similar improvements to passage rates on the HSPE as we have already seen in the writing test. Also to attract four-year colleges, we aim for at least 70% of our students to take at least one AP course before graduation by the Class of Page 5

8 Additional Information Provide any additional information you would like to share with the public and community that were not prompted in the previous sections. In the spring of 2011, we started the SOAL Program (Summer Of A Lifetime) to inspire our students to believe in themselves as collegeminded scholars and to strive to be the best person they can be. In the first year nineteen students participated. However, in the second year of the program, growth was tremendous - a 157% increase in participation - with forty-nine students taking part. Partnering with universities, colleges, Junior Statesman of America, American Field Service, and other institutions, Agassi Prep has sent students to study at Stanford University, Georgetown, Cornell, Princeton, Loyola Chicago, Oxford University, UCLA, Air Force Academy, West Point, UNLV, and GB Henderson Science Camp. One of our scholars even spent five weeks in Costa Rica on a community service exchange program. We typically ask each student to raise $1,000 and we provide the rest through fundraising. This is, we believe, a notable achievement, in line with our mission, and a program that offers students opportunities, which they might never have been able to access elsewhere. Page 6