Case Study And Analysis : Aurora Academy Charter School

From Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Valparaiso, Indiana all the way to Dunedin, New Zealand Back to the United States to Tucson, Arizona where she stayed just for a few months. Then off she went back to the Midwest to Hugo, Minnesota to be closer to her family and now finally settled in Denver, Colorado with her husband Jeff and daughter Freya because of an outstanding job offer that was just too hard to resist. Never has Annika Pittman been one not to take risks. “Regret is meaningless. I don’t like to dwell on what I could change because I can’t.” Being a teacher of ten years, a wife, a mom, a friend, a daughter, and a sister she has made outstanding accomplishments. Knowing she wanted to be a teacher since kindergarten she had her whole life to strive for

Deborah Perkins-Gough the author of this interview is the senior editor at ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development). Ms. Perkins Gough attended William and Mary majored in Education Management and she lives in the Washington D.C. Metro Area.

Pursuing something new is fun and exciting, especially if the pursuit positively impacts someone else. I am grateful for the opportunity to re-enter grad school, this time at the doctorate level, to realize a dream that I’ve had since the

Disturbingly, “nearly one-fifth of high school students and over 50 percent of middle school students are enrolled in math classes whose teachers neither majored or minored in math” (Drew, 2011, p.9). In 2000, 31 percent of high

Van de Walle, J, Karp, K. S. & Bay-Williams, J. M. (2015). Elementary and Middle School Mathematics Teaching Developmentally. (9th ed.). England: Pearson Education Limited.

Earlier this month, we were very excited to have the opportunity to meet with Sonia Galaviz when she visited our main office. As a 5th grade teacher at Garfield Elementary School here in Boise, Idaho, she’s been steadily making a name for herself in the education world. In 2009, she was named Idaho Woman of the Year by the Idaho Business Review, and in 2011 she was one of five educators nationally chosen to receive Teaching Tolerance’s award of Excellence in Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, and this year, Galaviz’s devotion to her students has once again been recognized.

Walker-Davidson announced, “I am thrilled to serve the district and the community in this new capacity. For the past four years I have served as the ABC district middle school principal and I feel that has provided me with a great foundation for moving forward. I am excited to work with the administrative team and staff in order to continue the academic growth within our school district. It is my personal goal to increase the graduation rate, test scores, and the availability of career readiness programs, as well as obtaining and training expert staff members.” Dr. Walker-Davidson went on to explain her mission for the school district to be: success driven, education focused, and student centered. I plan on carrying out this mission with expert educators, dedicated staff members, and community involvement.”

Students at Amherst County High who say teachers lack personality have yet to meet Dr. McFaden. Dr. McFaden is the supervisor for equity assurance and online learning at Amherst County High. Dr. McFaden has a doctorate in Concentration and in MultiCultural Education. She earned her Master's degree from Lynchburg College, two bachelor's degrees from CVCC and her doctorate from UVA. Out of all the colleges she attended, which total twenty four years, Dr. McFaden only paid for one. She said her secret was earning the best grades possible and applying for many scholarships. In fact, Dr. McFaden said that throughout her time at college she only earned one B, and the rest of her grades were A’s.

This interview was conducted with Wes Jensen the current principal of Mountain View Middle School. He has been the principal at his current school for two years, and was vice principal of the Blackfoot High School for two years. Before he became an administrator he was a classroom teacher for seven years, giving him 11 years of experience in education. The school has a very diverse population comprised of many different ethnicities including Native American, Hispanic, and Caucasian. The economic situations range from wealthy to highly impoverished. As the principal of this school he is a very professional man who holds high expectations for his staff.

Fortunately and unfortunately, I am a product of charter schools. I attended Achieve Charter Academy from fifth grade to eighth grade. I joined the first year that it opened, leaving all my elementary friends right before graduation. Over the course of the four years I was in multiple advanced courses and performing well. By eighth grade I was in geometry that counted towards high school credit, and feeling good about my academic path. I am grateful of this, but it did not prepare me well for the future years to come. The way we learned was very basic. There was not as much rigor as there would be in a class of that extent. I was never really challenged during the course of the year. I entered high school with high hopes. Unfortunately the

The new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics bring a new opportunity to the classrooms of the United States that many people view as a controversial. According to the NCTM (2013) “The Common Core State Standards offer a foundation for the development of more rigorous, focused, and coherent mathematics curricula, instruction, and assessments that promote conceptual understanding and reasoning as well as skill fluency” (par. 1). While some people believe that the Common Core State Standards may hinder progress in the classroom for many reasons including too much government control, teaching to the test, an excessive focus on language arts and math, and wasted resources, others agree with the NCTM statement about that claims the standards help increase conceptual understanding, reasoning, and skill fluency.

As an experienced and energetic teacher at Picadome Elementary for the past 17 years, I am committed to high quality education for all children despite gender, socio-economic levels, race, ethnicities, and learning capabilities. I have sought leadership opportunities including serving on the SBDM and being chairperson of both the Budget and Needs Assessment committees. I worked closely with the Picadome leadership team and other SBDM members to ensure that budget decisions were based on achievement data and would increase student learning.

As a high school mathematics teacher, I can relate the issues surround low performances in mathematics. This has been a major concern because students enter high school with huge vacuums and teachers have difficulties filling that void because they must follow the guidelines of the curriculum. From your experience, do community college students have gaps in their mathematical skills? It seems students may be entering college with gaps in their mathematical ability that results in many of them placed into developmental or remedial math coursework. According to Basitere and Ivala (2015) “The knowledge gap includes: a serious lack of essential technical facility – the ability to undertake numerical and algebraic calculations with efficiency

A Year in the Life of an Elementary School: One School's Experiences in Meeting New Mathematics Standards

Mathematics is a type of reasoning. Thinking mathematically includes thinking in a rational way, developing and checking conjectures, understanding things, and forming and validating judgments, reasoning, and conclusions. We show mathematical habits when we acknowledge and explain patterns, build physical and theoretical models of sensations, develop sign systems to assist us stand for, control, and review concepts, and create treatments to address issues (Battista, 1999).