Miriam Rube 2300 Corporate Park Dr Herndon, VA 20171-4838 Document Generated On March 31, 2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Description of the School 2 School's Purpose 4 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement 5 Additional Information 7
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
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? K¹² International Academy is a private, diploma-granting school with a unique student body representing students from almost every state in the United States and over 80 countries around the globe. For the 2014-2015 Fall Semester, there were 3,179 students enrolled with the K¹² International Academy - this does not include Spring 2015 enrollments, as we currently have terms that have yet to begin. Of the 3,179 students, 2,006 were full-time, and 1,173 students were part-time enrollments. Additionally, 1,922 of these students were enrolled in our high school, 652 were enrolled in middle school, and the remaining 605 students were enrolled with our lower school. Finally, 1,115 of students were partner-school students, which exemplify our commitment to grow and maintain our partnership relationships. In comparison, during the 2013-2014 school year, the K¹² International Academy had 4,209 student enrolled with our school. Of those students, 2,079 were enrolled full-time, and 2,136 students were part-time. Also, 2,938 students were enrolled in our high-school classes, 713 were enrolled in our middle school, and 558 students were with our lower school. K¹² International Academy serves many types of students, from premier athletes, to students living abroad, to domestic students seeking an alternate to traditional brick-and-mortar education. Students enrolling in K¹² International Academy may choose to do so over the many online options, as our program may fulfill their needs in various ways. The differentiating factors at our institution include focusing services on college readiness and ensuring students develop necessary skills and coursework to gain admission into colleges outside of their native countries, especially colleges in the U.S. International students may choose our program for college readiness purposes, ensuring they have the necessary skills and coursework to gain admission into colleges outside of their native countries, especially colleges in the U.S. U.S. students living outside of the country may choose K¹² International Academy to continue the type and/or quality of education program they experienced in the U.S. Domestic families, who are seeking a virtual education for their children but are living in states that provide no public virtual-school funding, may choose our school as a private-pay virtual-school option. Another enrollment factor is domestic families living in the United States, who are seeking an alternative to a public-school education for their children - again, K¹² International Academy provides this alternate option to those families. At K¹² International Academy, our students earn a U.S. high-school diploma while using the award-winning K¹² curriculum and our extensive, individualized academic and counseling support keep students on track. Our full-time students socialize with others around the world through online clubs, field trips, and other activities, and our program flexibility allows students to explore their passions. Our strong school culture of embracing personal potential produces an extraordinary group of diverse students, led by a highly-qualified, exceptional, and collaborative leaders, academic personnel, and operations staff. Our students come to us from all over the globe, sharing their lives, experiences, and insights. Our faculty and staff connect with these students in ways that extend beyond walls, borders, and barriers. Our curriculum and learning tools, instructional strategies, support programs, and extracurricular clubs and activities foster both academic and life skills. Our goal, as leaders in our students' journey in learning, is to prepare them with the optimal ability to pursue their paths of choice in life, often into top colleges and universities. Our leaders, teachers, and Academic Coaches share in the devotion to each student's life path and their individual learning process. K¹² International Academy offers a robust catalog of over 350 core and elective courses to meet a diverse range of student-learning needs and interests, preparing them for both college and career options. Using a best-of-breed approach to selecting courses and providers, the Page 2
course offerings promote independent thinking, collaboration, and 21st-Century skills. A variety of course levels are available at the upperschool level, although most students enroll in college-preparatory curriculum over a four-year period. Our courses are delivered over 90-day terms (high school) and 180-day terms (K-8) to ensure a quality education. These courses are synchronous in design, requiring a high degree of interaction between the student and teacher. One aspect that sets our institution apart from other online schools is that each full-time student also has the support of an Academic Coach and College Counselor to ensure personal and academic success. For all student student-support needs, the Homeroom Teachers or Academic Coaches/Liaisons are onpoint to oversee the holistic student experience. These academic advocates collaborate with teachers to ensure we are paving the road to success for the student. We have dedicated the most experienced and qualified team members to provide this extensive support for all of our students and families. Our academic-team members truly share a common passion for educating young people. Likewise, a wide range of clubs, activities, and organizations are available to provide our students with a rich and enjoyable school experience. K¹² International Academy has evolved greatly over the past several years with many areas of strength to recognize. This can be seen in the quality and quantity of curriculum offerings and the planning process to ensure all courses are appropriately staffed. In addition, the connections and relationships developed between students and the academic staff are an area of strength. Our collaborative ability to assimilate available data from various systems to focus on student and staff performance has and will continue to evolve. Page 3
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. K¹² International Academy has an established mission statement that reflects the individual characteristics of the school and communicates a special purpose: We are committed to bringing individualized learning to all kinds of minds, and removing barriers that keep children from reaching their true potential. We encourage our students to share in our excitement of learning, achieve mastery of core knowledge, contribute to the community, embrace and respect diversity and change, act with kindness and strength of character, passionately pursue academic and extracurricular interests, and reach their unique, innate personal potential. Additionally, our vision is to create a global community of students, teachers, parents, and mentors who are connected by technology and dedicated to developing the unique character and intellect of each student, thereby laying the foundation for his or her success in life. To meet our mission and vision, students and staff work together to follow specific values and commitments. We believe in creating a school culture: All K¹² International Academy students, parents, faculty, and staff participate in learning as a lifelong process and actively support the learning of others; students are actively engaged in their academic coursework; parents and student advocates utilize K¹² International Academy tools and resources to monitor and motivate student learning; faculty and staff work to design and implement programs and services that improve student achievement; and our faculty engages in ongoing individual professional improvement. We also value that success is achieved by collective and individual engagement in the following ways: Students show activity within their courses in an appropriate amount of time; students complete their courses within the specified amount of time; students have the opportunity to be involved in clubs and organizations; parents, guardians, and school officials are engaged with their students' education; and students have the opportunity to actively communicate with teachers and school community. Additionally, quality instruction is of the utmost commitment to K¹² International Academy. All students are supported by faculty and staff who provide meaningful learning experiences and opportunities for individual academic success, for example: Our faculty and staff are certified and proficient in their content area and use a variety of instructional strategies; students utilize instructional tools designed to promote academic honesty and achievement; faculty creates connections with students through meaningful content, personalized feedback, and individual support; and K¹² International Academy ensures student success by providing continued supervision and support of faculty and analysis of instructional strategies. Finally, we are committed to achievement - our students, parents, faculty, and staff view their role as critical to attaining a common mission, which is empowering students to achieve their academic and personal goals. This is supported in the following ways: Students, parents, faculty, and staff are provided appropriate resources and services to meet the needs of students; our institution conducts regular programmatic evaluations of student performance to inform school improvement; K¹² International Academy works with the parent organization to enhance organizational collaboration in support of student achievement; and our staff leverages opportunities for sharing, communication, and collaboration to develop a broader sense of the K¹² community. Page 4
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. K¹² International Academy is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS CASI). Additionally, K¹² International Academy is recognized as a diploma-granting institution by the Virginia Council for Private Education as authorized by the Virginia State Board of Education. We are proud members of both the National Junior Honor Society and the National Honor Society. Our institution focuses on the success and achievements of our students, first and foremost. From Harvard to Duke, Notre Dame to NYU, our graduates are pursuing their dreams. This is because our school prepares students to be more independent, to learn how to learn, to take responsibility for their studies, and to take charge of their own destiny. K¹² International Academy believes in each student's potential to reach this successful destiny. In fact, we surround students in our Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools with a team of committed teachers, counselors, and Academic Coaches to ensure our students reach their truest potential. An area of notable achievement is the award-winning curriculum from K¹², America's K-12 online education leader, which was developed by cognitive scientists and master educators based on decades of research into how children learn. Every lesson comes alive with interactive content and hands-on materials that keep students engaged. Among the many awards K¹² has been honored with throughout the years, some examples of recognition include: Creative Child Magazine honors, ComputED Gazette EDDIE Awards, "Mom's Choice" Awards for family-friendly media products, as well as Parents' Choice Awards honoring the best material created for children. Beyond our curriculum and technology tools, the success and achievements of our instructional and learning support model can greatly be attributed to a dynamic and dedicated group of certified faculty and professional support staff. Students within all grade levels are supported by a network of advocates including Learning Coaches (often parents), content-specific teachers, Academic Coaches, Academic Liaisons (partner students), an AP Coordinator, Academic Integrity Advisor, content-area Department Chairs, College and Career Counselors, K-8 Deputy Head of School, and Head of School. Our academic leaders work with team members to develop and advance existing skills, recognizing their triumphs with students on weekly basis, and support those who are new or need improvement. Guidelines and practices have been created and refined to provide supportive and authentic learning opportunities for all of our students. Another area of achievement on which K¹² International Academy focuses is the one-to-one synchronous interactions our academic staff provides to all students. Whether through a live Study Hall, an interactive ClassConnect session, or a phone call to walk a student through a difficult concept, our staff is always going above and beyond to make those synchronous connections with their students. We believe that synchronous communications are not just connections; they are the forming of relationships. We are proud that our delivery is data-based and student-focused. A notable area of strength we have developed over several years is the ability to extrapolate data from several systems and assimilate it in a usable and digestible format for staff to identify student-learning needs and to guide our continuous improvement planning. Weekly collection, evaluation, review, analysis, and communication of assessment and progress metrics are shared in a collaborative environment to design strategies to reach all students, assess their needs, and teach lessons in a dynamic, engaging environment. We consistently have refined our continuous-improvement-planning process over the past three years. One aspect of this process is Page 5
including the staff-driven successes each school year, which emphasize our overall goals through focused improvement strategies and activities. For example, during the 13-14 school year, many staff noted one of our many strengths included our data-based analysis of student progress and success. Other areas of accomplishments, which are noted continuously by faculty, are the team support and collaboration felt by the entire staff. Additionally, our exceptional Advanced-Placement program/support and International Trip Abroad are continuous achievements that are reflected upon each school year. We continue to analyze and reflect upon areas for improvement across the entire institution. One of the areas we seek to improve is to continue a close connection with the K¹² Inc. Product Development team to evaluate our current pilots and projects. We are in the process of testing a new learning platform, and we are most interested in analyzing the level of improvement on the effectiveness of delivery to the students and the faculty's ability to better manage the data, the platform itself, and content delivery resulting in improved student achievement. Another area we are working to improve is distinguishing the spectrum of needs of our Full-time, Part-time, and Partner students. To this end, we are currently working with the Admissions team to transition services of our Part-time students to the Admissions Advisors for ancillary services beyond instruction. We have also refined, and will continue to refine, our Partner Services team to ensure the entities that partner with us continue to have excellent customer service and an individualized experience. We continue to work toward engaging our stakeholders more effectively in our mission and school purpose - we have established a Mission Week, finalized formal plans for continued professional development, and taken part in a new annual-review process. Another area of continued focus is our professional development and training practices. Our goal for the 2014-2015 school year is to participate in 100% of the offerings through the K¹² Virtual Training Department. We are also in the process of developing a new comprehensive plan for overall professional growth for all staff, and our school is diving deeper into the Professional Learning Communities developed by K¹² to ensure they match the needs of our private-school staff. In result, we will share information collaboratively during weekly All-Staff meetings to encourage participation and/or develop opportunities for more formalized collaborative communities amongst our internal staff. Page 6
Additional Information Provide any additional information you would like to share with the public and community that were not prompted in the previous sections. K¹² International Academy helps students around the world learn in the ways that are right for them, nurturing a joy for learning and a passion to pursue their interests. The key is our individualized approach, which frees children to reach their personal potential. Our students are liberated from rigid schedules, classes that move too fast or too slow, bullying, overcrowded classrooms, teaching to the test, and many other factors that can stand in the way of success. K¹² International Academy surrounds students and Learning Coaches with an amazing support team, including online teachers who have a true gift for inspiring young learners. Working with our academic leadership, college counselors, and other education specialists, our highlyqualified academic staff is with our students every step of the way. Students, Learning Coaches, and families reap the advantages of our energetic school community--an international network of friends who assist, encourage, and learn from each other through online student clubs, virtual field trips, and much more. We also take much pride in the guidance we provide to our parents/learning Coaches. As a parent with a student in the Lower, Middle or Upper School, we are pleased to provide ongoing support. We embrace our Learning Coaches along their K¹² International Academy academic journey with a wide range of online events. We have pulled together other parents, teachers and K¹² curriculum experts, at various times throughout the year, to provide insight and support for Learning Coaches whether they are a new or returning family. Some examples of these exemplary modes of support are Learning Coach-to-Learning Coach sessions, parent roundtables, and comprehensive tutorials/videos that help the Learning Coaches aid in the student-learning process. At K¹² International Academy, we look at the world as a narrow bridge and the most crucial decision is to venture forward. We teach students to focus on reaching their goals - to cross that bridge with courage and arrive with humility. Our academic staff is devoted to helping our students build the bridge. Our students are charged with reaching a goal beyond obstacles, beyond the trespass. Our students learn with no walls and no bells, and they establish relationships with no borders. K¹² International Academy is always here to welcome the new traveler - our students are on their way to imagine a new path. These individuals hold both the privilege and responsibility as the promise of our future. We do not take lightly being a part of that promise, and every day we do our part to make all of our futures a better place. Page 7