Since 2017, Charter School Capital has held an annual essay contest celebrating exceptional teachers. We call it the Dewey Awards, in celebration of Mr. Richard Dewey – a teacher who provided exceptional mentorship to our founder and CEO Stuart Ellis. Every year, we get a brilliant selection of stories written by students from charter schools all over the nation. This year’s winners are featured here. But each of these stories is worth sharing.
This week, we bring you a story written by Sejal Darsi that celebrates Ms. Brown of Queen City STEM School.
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Hello, My name is Sejal Darsi and I am in the 3rd grade at Queen City Stem School in Charlotte, North Carolina. I would like to tell about my teacher Ms. Brown.
I love having Ms. Brown as my teacher this year. This is because I can understand her teaching easily. My teacher answers all of my questions and she is patient. She has encouraged me to work hard to achieve my goals. She is very helpful to all the students who may not know something. She explains everything in detail so that I and all other students are motivated to complete all the tasks in the class. Now, I am going to tell how Ms. Brown changed me.
Mrs. Brown with her student, Sejal Darsi
Ms. Brown gave me a hard problem in math. I solved it fast and I checked after I submitted my answer, but it was incorrect. I learned from my teacher that I always have to check back and look over my work before I submit my final answer. We also have this “Fun Friday” concept in my class. Fun Friday is a reward for the students who participate and complete their homework and tasks on time. One Friday I did not complete my assignment and I missed the fun Friday. My teacher explained and asked me to complete the homework first. My teacher encourages me to complete my assignments on time because I am supposed but it is also nice to get rewarded.
From that day I make sure that I am checking daily and trying to complete all assignments on time. One more thing I learned from my teacher is that I have to share my knowledge with other students who need help in the class. I loved to be a leader in the class, so I participate actively.
My teacher’s words always motivate me to help my friends and family.
My family is from India and my parents used to tell me below Shloka (Poetic form used in Sanskrit language) about the teacher.
Guru Brahma (Teacher represents Lord Brahma – Lord Brahma is creator of the universe)
Guru Vishnu (Teacher represents Lord Vishnu – Lord Vishnu is preserver)
Guru Devo Maheswaraha (Teacher represents Lord Shiva – Lord Shiva is evil destroyer)
Guru Sakshaath para Brahma ( We have to see the Lord in our Teacher) Tasmaishri Guravenamaha (I bow to that true teacher)
Sloka Meaning: The Teacher is the living representative of the supreme being. He/she gives me knowledge and destroys ignorance.
I salute such a true teacher. I would like to thank her for teaching me in 3rd grade.
I really want Ms. Brown to be my teacher for upcoming grades and because I want to learn more things from her. I love her so much. I am really happy for getting this opportunity and grateful for submitting my story about my teacher.
We’re proud of the schools we serve. Each one of these schools has a unique mission, and each serves a unique group of students. These schools are led by idealists, dreamers, compassionate optimists who not only believe in a better tomorrow, they believe in rolling up their sleeves and bringing that better tomorrow to their students. It is a privilege for us here at Charter School Capital to support these schools and help them thrive.
At Catalyst, play time is very important to us. We ensure our scholars get PE four days a week! Plus plenty of recess time and movement brain breaks. Why?
We’re very glad you asked.
Play creates a sense of adventure and nurtures imagination. Through play, children of all ages, learn valuable skills like working with others, sharing, problem-solving and more. In turn, play can also help our scholars develop their ability to concentrate.
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
— FRED ROGERS
It’s easy to dismiss the importance of play. We grown-ups sometimes underestimate the significance of play for children. But in actuality, play is hugely profound for growth, critical to creativity, and builds foundational skills that support a lifetime of learning.
And who better to weigh in on the importance of play for our Catalyst Academy scholars, than Morgan Lovely, our founding PE Teacher. Here’s some insight from Morgan:
“As we navigate through these unique and unprecedented times, my intention as an educator of wellness is to not just teach motor, body and mind care skills, but to also equip our students with resilience, growth mindsets and perseverance skills to overcome any obstacle in their path.
I am a Physical Education teacher because I love to motivate and challenge my students through experiential learning, movement and life skills; to inspire a love of lifetime physical activity and self-care. The best part about teaching early elementary students is the contagious exhilaration and curiosity that younger students share to learn new things and make connections to their world.”
And while we recognize that play is hugely important to brain development, we also like to celebrate our scholars efforts as they learn different ways to move their bodies. In their Physical Education classes, scholars earned their Locomotor Licenses for their mastery of specific locomotive movements.
At Catalyst, we believe play is a critical part of a well-rounded curriculum. Through play, our scholars build socially-resilient, cognitively-flexible brains. Hooray for play!
About Catalyst
Catalyst Academy Charter School’s mission is to prepare all students for college, career, and life. Catalyst Academy Charter School’s core values of Belong. Grow. Achieve. reflect the school’s deep commitment to cultivating an inclusive supportive school community where everyone – children and adults – is focused on learning every day, in order for all students to define and achieve their dreams. Catalyst Academy Charter School’s education model is designed to close both the achievement and opportunity gap. The approach couples rigorous core academics with a broad offering in the arts and sciences. Students will experience STEM learning daily and arts programming four days per week. Enroll your Kinder, first or second grader today!
Since 2017, Charter School Capital has held an annual essay contest celebrating exceptional teachers. We call it the Dewey Awards, in celebration of Mr. Richard Dewey – a teacher who provided exceptional mentorship to our founder and CEO Stuart Ellis. Every year, we get a brilliant selection of stories written by students from charter schools all over the nation. This year’s winners are featured here. But each of these stories is worth sharing.
This week we bring you a story written by Christopher Harley about Ms. Ashleigh Lanzone of Monroe Charter Academy in Monroe, NC.
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Pamela Smith: Hi, my name is Pamela Smith and this is my grandson, Christopher Harley. Christopher, can you give us a little background about you? Christopher Harley: Yeah, so like she said, I’m Christopher Harley. I’m nine years old. I like to be called Chris and I go to Monroe Charter Academy in Monroe, North Carolina.
PS: Well, Christopher goes to Monroe Charter in North Carolina, and there was a teacher that he is smitten with, fond of, takes a lot of liking to. Her name is Ms. Lanzone. And we have decided to break Ms. Lanzone’s name down and give an example for each letter. Ms. Lanzone’s name is spelled L-A-N-Z-O-N-E. The first letter of her name is loving. The second letter is attention. The third letter is nice. The fourth letter is Zelle . The fifth is outgoing. The six is noble and the seventh is excellent. Christopher, I now leave it up to you. CH: Okay. So L is loving. She is loving and loyal because she shows up every day to help teach me, even if she is sick, sad, or has a meeting.
PS: The next letter. CH: A, she shows me attention when I need extra help with my homework.
PS: The next one. CH: The next one is nice. She is nice because she never raises her voice at me.
PS: The next one is Zelle. CH: She encourages me when I need help.
PS: Next one is outgoing. CH: She is friendly. She makes learning fun.
PS: The next one is noble. CH: She is one of a kind.
PS: And last but not least… CH: She listens well to everything.
PS: I say. And that one is excellent. And she is, she is an excellent teacher. Ms. Lanzone could have done anything else, but she chose to teach children. And that says a lot about her. I mean, she is beautiful inside and out. And for her to decide to become an educator and not pursue any other career because it’s very obvious she could have, but we are just so thankful and grateful that she is a teacher. And that she is Christopher’s teacher.
Thank you, Ms. Lanzone, from the bottom of our hearts. May God bless you.
Do you remember why you started your school?
What was the compelling purpose or the unavoidable calling that led you to this work? What did you envision when you started talking about it? When you assembled your team? When you pitched the idea to other educators?
Do you remember yet?
You might remember this vividly. You might have it front-and-center in your mind.
Or maybe too much time has elapsed. Perhaps your school evolved, and your current vision for your school is a much sharper beacon. Maybe a pandemic and a drastic shift in educational format reshaped your vision. Perhaps external factors such as gentrification in the community your school serves forced adjustments or internal factors forced your school to refocus and adapt.
Maybe the current direction of your school, and your school’s current offerings, no longer reflect the original Why.
Often Your Why is Captured in Your Mission Statement
When you drafted your charter, you wrote your school’s mission statement. Many organizations, from small businesses to non-profits, engage in such an exercise at their inception. For some, it’s a profoundly heartfelt ritual. For others, it’s a necessary exercise to appease the gods of bureaucracy. Some see this moment as a time of deep reflection, while some may see it as one more checkbox in their journey.
Some leaders post the mission statement in a prominent place and discuss it with their staff regularly. Other leaders may put it in their charter, and seldom if ever, think about it again. Some leaders give it to their marketing person to put up on their website, then get busy grooving along, and get busy with the mundane details, the weight of responsibility, the logistics, and the day-to-day.
Your Why Matters
Your mission statement matters. One key reason is that it informs the public about your school’s focus. It tells parents and other stakeholders what to expect as they choose to send their children to your school. More importantly, it helps parents and other stakeholders decide if they want to send the students to your school, if your school is the right fit, or if your school is an effort they want to support.
But another key reason is that it informs you and your team about your school’s focus. It guides your actions and tells you what you want your school to become.
Time and Changes
This can be a little bit tricky for charter schools because what happens is here you are. You’ve started this great school. You’ve made this great application, and students are pouring in. The staff is really excited to be here working at a charter school with that mission. Parents are excited. Students may or may not be excited because they may or may not even understand it. But the families understand the mission.
Then suddenly, you start noticing that your recruiting might trickle down a little bit or that some of your founding families aren’t as satisfied with the school as they were in the beginning.
I often recommend that schools go back and look at their mission statement and make sure they still provide the same mission. And, if you’re not using the mission as your guide, you can decide whether you want to recommit to that mission or want to pivot away and create a new mission.
Recommit or Pivot?
There are internal and external reasons for a pivot. One external challenge is gentrification. Suppose a school opens in an underprivileged area. They have a mission to serve a particular demographic. Then investments in real estate, new businesses, a new shopping center, or some new development begin to change public sentiment and perception. A different demographic begins to move into the neighborhood, prices go up, and the original population is displaced.
Often schools in gentrifying neighborhoods have written a mission, for example, that says that they will serve a specific population of students. And then they find that because of gentrification, their target students are no longer in that area. At that point, school leaders need to decide if they recommit to the mission, move the school to an adjacent neighborhood closer to their intended demographic, or work on somehow attracting the students located outside their immediate community.
Internal challenges also provide opportunities to pivot.
Several years ago, I became aware of a school where a specific foreign language was a crucial part of its mission and reason for the formation of the school. For the first few years of the school’s existence, it provided a specific foreign language program, and that program made the school attractive to their community.
Then, the school experienced solid testing results, and it was doing a great job with its curriculum. Parents outside its immediate community noticed and enrollment grew. But the language program became less critical to the school’s new population, and so the school gradually decreased its focus on that language. Unfortunately, many of the founding families were disappointed and angered by that shift. The school had to decide if it would recommit to that foreign language program or pivot to something different.
Sadly, for that school, it didn’t do either. They just left the mission statement as it was, with the promise of a language they no longer delivered. Over a few years, the school lost enrollment, went out of business, and became yet another example of why a school’s mission is so critical to the curriculum it leverages and the community it serves.
Altruism and Practicality
There’s another aspect to this. In trying to decide whether you should pivot to a new mission or recommit to your existing mission statement, you should regularly consider the extent to which the mission serves the entire community and yourself.
For example, your mission might be incredibly generous, but it may not serve the population you need to serve. There needs to be some balance to your mission statement to fulfill both the pragmatic and altruistic sides. You must consider the business piece of it because there may be a reason that you need to be in a specific area to serve your mission, but other students might be coming along with those students. Depending on your circumstances, there may be other balances to strike, different tradeoffs to consider. Tradeoffs between the part of your mission that guides your heart and the part of your mission that allows your school to be strong and flourish.
Creating a mission statement, just like determining your why is not always a simple one-direction line. You have to take in all of the competing thoughts and ideas and develop a genuinely powerful, well-rounded mission statement that fully reflects your Why.
What are your thoughts on this? Have you encountered these challenges? Share your comments with us!
Since 2017, Charter School Capital has held an annual essay contest celebrating exceptional teachers. We call it the Dewey Awards, in celebration of Mr. Richard Dewey – a teacher who provided exceptional mentorship to Stuart Ellis, our founder and CEO. Every year we get a brilliant selection of stories written by students from charter schools all over the nation. We chose three stories as winners of this year’s context. But each of these stories is worth sharing.
Growing up, I have always been a student that did not enjoy reading at all because I feel like books have too many words and pages in them. I would often find books I thought I was interested in just by reading the summary on the back, but then I would see that the book had 400 pages in it. I would feel anxious because of the number of words on each page, and I still feel like this as a college student but it does not worry me as much anymore.
Aida Reynoso
My 5th-6th grade English, writing, and history teacher, Ms. Harpal, changed the way I felt about reading long books by using audiobooks in her class, making it easier for me to be able to read and enjoy books without feeling overwhelmed because the book had 400 pages. Ms. Harpal was one of my favorite teachers growing up and the first English teacher I had that really had such a positive impact on me. She would often reward her students with food for their great work, and one time I remember writing a parody to Oh Captain, My Captain by Walt Whitman and renaming it Oh Cookie, My Cookie. It was a poem about me eating a cookie and it traveling down my digestive system.
From that point on, Ms. Harpal noticed that there was something special about the way I wrote, and she never let my hard work go unnoticed. She was the first teacher who really noticed my writing abilities, and I am thankful for her commitment and hard work. I know she may have had more downs than ups in her role as a teacher, but if she hadn’t stuck with it, I would have never had the opportunity to be her student and receive significant enjoyment and knowledge from everything that she has educated me on.
The experience in HER classroom became one of the key reasons I really enjoyed going to school. She would make learning fun with music every day, and she always had an interesting story to tell in class. Ms. Harpal has been there for me and other students in a way that parents, family, and friends could not have been, and she has encouraged me to become the best student I can be, even now. I still use audiobooks till this day, and without them, I would never be able to read a 400-page book.
Ms. Harpal showed me not only how to become a better writer, but also how to succeed in life. Not only did she give me the right guidance to do well in the classes she has taught, but she prepared me to learn about Phillis Wheatley, Nikki Giovanni, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, and all of these other famous poets I remember learning about in her class when I was 10-12 years old, that I am now relearning as a college student in my English classes. She has had such a significant impact on my entire life, and I could not have been more appreciative of knowing her. I hope I can also have the same effect on my students one day when I am an English teacher myself.
Since 2017, Charter School Capital has held an annual essay contest celebrating exceptional teachers. We call it the Dewey Awards, in celebration of Mr. Richard Dewey – a teacher who provided exceptional mentorship to Stuart Ellis, our founder and CEO. Every year we get a brilliant selection of stories written by students from charter schools all over the nation. We chose three stories as winners of this year’s context. But each of these stories is worth sharing.
This week we bring you a story sent in by Kimberly Aguilar, celebrating Mrs. Grimes of Compass Charter Schools.
I nominate my son’s fifth-grade teacher Monique Grimes for the 2020 Dewey Award. She is an excellent teacher. She is warm, accessible, enthusiastic, and caring. Mrs. Grimes possesses great listening skills and takes time out of her busy schedule for anyone who needs her. She is an effective teacher, demonstrating a deep understanding of the curriculum. She plans, teaches, and assesses to promote mastery for all scholars. She provides high-quality instruction and increases student achievement by delivering researched-based instruction with technology integrated.
Mrs. Grimes has not only been a teacher for my son; she also has provided additional time and support for his special needs. He has autism, along with being below his grade level. He has a hard time adapting to new people, changes, and does not like being in loud places. She has been very understanding and patient. Mrs. Grimes has helped instill my child’s desire to learn and achieve. She has gone beyond her duties to help Jacob to be successful in a general education class. She has taken the time to understand his individual needs. She encourages him as a scholar, encouraging his unique talents.
Whenever I have a question, she immediately responds to my emails and phone calls with the answers I need regarding my son’s services, support, accommodations, and modification. Her organizational skills are excellent. I strongly believe that all of her efforts should be rewarded and appreciated. Teachers like her don’t come along very often, in my opinion. Compass Charter Schools is very blessed to have such an incredible teacher, and all the scholars who go through her classroom will only benefit from the love and learning that she provides.
She is a shining star.
We’re proud of the schools we serve. Each one of these schools has a unique mission, and each serves a unique group of students. These schools are led by idealists, dreamers, compassionate optimists who not only believe in a better tomorrow, they believe in rolling up their sleeves and bringing that better tomorrow to their students. It is a privilege for us here at Charter School Capital to support these schools and help them thrive.
Here is a blog post from Catalyst Academy, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Why is Play Important?
At Catalyst, play time is very important to us. We ensure our scholars get PE four days a week! Plus plenty of recess time and movement brain breaks. Why?
We’re very glad you asked.
Play creates a sense of adventure and nurtures imagination. Through play, children of all ages, learn valuable skills like working with others, sharing, problem-solving and more. In turn, play can also help our scholars develop their ability to concentrate.
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
— FRED ROGERS
It’s easy to dismiss the importance of play. We grown-ups sometimes underestimate the significance of play for children. But in actuality, play is hugely profound for growth, critical to creativity, and builds foundational skills that support a lifetime of learning.
And who better to weigh in on the importance of play for our Catalyst Academy scholars, than Morgan Lovely, our founding PE Teacher. Here’s some insight from Morgan:
“As we navigate through these unique and unprecedented times, my intention as an educator of wellness is to not just teach motor, body and mind care skills, but to also equip our students with resilience, growth mindsets and perseverance skills to overcome any obstacle in their path.
I am a Physical Education teacher because I love to motivate and challenge my students through experiential learning, movement and life skills; to inspire a love of lifetime physical activity and self-care. The best part about teaching early elementary students is the contagious exhilaration and curiosity that younger students share to learn new things and make connections to their world.”
And while we recognize that play is hugely important to brain development, we also like to celebrate our scholars efforts as they learn different ways to move their bodies. In their Physical Education classes, scholars earned their Locomotor Licenses for their mastery of specific locomotive movements.
At Catalyst, we believe play is a critical part of a well-rounded curriculum. Through play, our scholars build socially-resilient, cognitively-flexible brains. Hooray for play!
About Catalyst
Catalyst Academy Charter School’s mission is to prepare all students for college, career, and life. Catalyst Academy Charter School’s core values of Belong. Grow. Achieve. reflect the school’s deep commitment to cultivating an inclusive supportive school community where everyone – children and adults – is focused on learning every day, in order for all students to define and achieve their dreams. Catalyst Academy Charter School’s education model is designed to close both the achievement and opportunity gap. The approach couples rigorous core academics with a broad offering in the arts and sciences. Students will experience STEM learning daily and arts programming four days per week. Enroll your Kinder, first or second grader today!
Since 2017, Charter School Capital has held an annual essay contest celebrating exceptional teachers. We call it the Dewey Awards, in celebration of Mr. Richard Dewey – a teacher who provided exceptional mentorship to our founder and CEO Stuart Ellis. Every year, we get a brilliant selection of stories written by students from charter schools all over the nation. This year’s winners are featured here. But each of these stories is worth sharing.
Aloha my name is Teani Beverly Kieleliʻi Marquez. I was born and raised on the island of Oʻahu in a place known as Maunalua (Hawaiʻi Kai) on the eastside of Oʻahu. I am sixteen years old and a Junior at Hālau Kū Māna Public Charter School.
I have attended HKM from the fourth grade. We are the first fourth-grade class at HKM. I was born prematurely with a condition called TEF. This stands for Trachea Esophageal Fistula. TEF is a condition resulting from abnormal development before birth of the tube that carries food from mouth to stomach. This condition carries many correlations such as asthma, severe acid reflux and a weakened immune system. I was always known as “the sick kid” because I was absent a lot due to my illness. From newborn to three years old. I was helped by the Easter Seals program for my developmental delays. At age three I was in a special education preschool and from kindergarten to third grade I was in the Special Education program with the Department of Education. In the fourth grade I was accepted into Hālau Kū Māna Public Charter School.
My Kumu (teacher) was Consuelo Gouveia. She was my teacher from fourth through sixth grade. She set my foundation at HKM. I was a nervous, timid, fragile and introverted kid. I did not like speaking up in class and I stayed in my own quiet bubble. I observed everything around me. Kumu Consuelo helped me to blossom and come out of my shell. She encouraged me to go at my own pace socially and academically.
I’ve always struggled with math and I’ve had an IEP since preschool. Hālau Kū Māna is a smaller school with approximately 120 students. I find this smaller setting helpful since I don’t thrive well in a bigger environment. It provides many learning opportunities outside of the classroom. We are definitely a hands-on type of school which I appreciate and adapt better in this smaller school setting. Kumu Consuelo is from the island of Lanaʻi. Our class got to visit her island and learn about Lanaʻi. It was a great opportunity for kids who do not have any traveling experience.
Kumu Consuelo goes above and beyond an expectation of a teacher. She treats all of her students as if they were her own children. Through this type of family-oriented teaching/learning I, along with others give her and other teachers the respect they deserve. During these difficult online learning times, Kumu Consuelo is the backbone to the online technology that we are all learning to get used to.
They say it takes a village to raise a child our school is definitely my village. Kumu Consuelo is the foundation of who I am today. My teachers have mentioned that I have “blossomed”. Now that I am older, I am definitely more comfortable with my class. I have tried to help my classmates as much as possible and although I am still the observer I definitely speak my mind. These qualities could not have been achieved on my own without Kumu Consuelo. Because of her, believing in me, I truly believe all things are possible.
Mahalo to Hālau Ku Mana for being that “village” and Mahalo to Kumu Consuelo for helping me to build confidence and believing in me, IEP and all!
Since 2017, Charter School Capital has held an annual essay contest celebrating exceptional teachers. We call it the Dewey Awards, in celebration of Mr. Richard Dewey – a teacher who provided exceptional mentorship to our founder and CEO Stuart Ellis. Every year, we get a brilliant selection of stories written by students from charter schools all over the nation. This year’s winners are featured here. But each of these stories is worth sharing.
This week, we bring you a story written by Acacia Wilson about Mrs. Gatz of Freeman Elementary. in Woodland, California.
Honestly, I could write about several different teachers but of course, I’m not going to. The teacher I chose to write about is my old 6th-grade teacher Mrs. Gatz.
The year before 6th grade I was a very difficult child to deal with. I was very stubborn and very hard-headed. All of that ended once I was a part of Mrs. Gatz’s class.
Whenever I called myself catching an attitude or trying to be disrespectful to my teachers Mrs. Gatz would always stop me, she would sometimes even raise her voice at me. When I was younger, I hated her for it I thought she was just picking at me because she didn’t like me. After getting yelled at a couple of times and being talked to instead of talked at I realized she was just trying to help me.
After 6th grade whenever I would get in trouble or almost get in trouble, I would think about what my 6th-grade teacher would say. We did rotate classes but the only teacher that I think actually tried to help me or make sure I stayed on task was Mrs. Gatz.
When I became a 6th grader in Mrs. Gatz’s homeroom I was no longer a little kid I then became a young leader and a role model for the younger kids in the school So, for my entire 6th-grade year I don’t have 1 referral thanks to Mrs. Gatz. My senior year is the year that she will retire and I feel like I should pay her a visit to thank her for helping to mold me into the young woman that I am today. Anyone who has had her as a teacher is a very lucky person.
Mrs. Gatz is the teacher who made the biggest difference in my life.
We’re proud of the schools we serve. Each one of these schools has a unique mission, and each serves a unique group of students. These schools are led by idealists, dreamers, compassionate optimists who not only believe in a better tomorrow, they believe in rolling up their sleeves and bringing that better tomorrow to their students. It is a privilege for us here at Charter School Capital to support these schools and help them thrive.
High school is a time of lengthy projects, multi-step tasks and lots of planning to get it all done on time. How can you possibly figure out what to tackle on a daily basis given how many things are due?
It starts small. Breaking down the larger tasks into small, doable chunks. In order to do that…we recommend starting at step one.
Begin with the end…in mind.
When you understand what it is you’re assigned to do — you can create a plan — and get it done. If you don’t understand the assignment — find that classroom teacher or teacher aides and get more detail. Then head to step 1 below.
Big picture time — what is this task/project/assignment supposed to be What is the end result???
It’s not Magic — devise a step-by-step plan. It’s not as daunting as you might think when you weed out what it takes to get it done.
Follow the Roadmap — what needs to happen first, second, third…
Deadline Approaching — any task is easier when you know it’s got a hard stop. Make a timeline that’s doable for you.
See it Through — set aside time for this project. Include it in your iCalendar, write down what you need to do on a calendar or your notes for the day ahead, schedule the time as part of your day — be specific! And stay on task.
Final Review — be sure to give yourself time to check your work.
Celebrate and Reflect — smile as you successfully saw your plan through from start to finish! Congratulate yourself. Reflect on what you learned in the process and be ready to apply it to the next task you will conquer!
Gateway College and Career Academy graduate in cap and gown with friends holding sign
Staying organized and tackling big projects is one way to show the world you’re ready for that high school diploma AND college credits. We have so much confidence in your abilities. You belong here! If you need anything from us, your Gateway support system, you know where to find us. Let’s talk it over, together!
About Gateway
Gateway College and Career Academy (formerly Gateway to College) is an early college public high school launched in 2004, as an answer to the growing number of students who were disconnected from their education and not on track to obtain their high school diplomas. Our highly qualified teaching and counseling staff supports and guides our students on their educational pathways, establishing a bond of trust and the motivation to make it to the finish line.
Riverside City College is an ideal partner, helping our students transition to college education via concurrent enrollment in GCCA and RCC, and giving access to all of the college’s resources and supports. You belong here!
PS: The next letter.
Do you remember why you started your school?
