Start with Pre-K?

I've been agonizing about how I'm going to get to the position to be able to open a school like this (I know, I'm still in college, I have a few more years to worry about that!), and I think maybe the best way to go would be to start with pre-K classes. Kids learn sooooo much in their first five years (hey, not a bad name) of life, and there are so many parents without the basic skills to help their children grow. I know I'm passionate about the first five years, and I've known since I started dreaming about this school that I eventually wanted to go into pre-K work. So why not start there?

The First Five Years:
Parenting classes for expecting parents
Parenting classes for new parents
Classes for child development and parental development
Day care and learning
Play-based learning
Montessori-based learning
Classes for parents - mothers can "have it all" - family and successful careers

Faculty Training

The Texas Private School Accreditation Commission requires schools to train their faculty frequently. I think it'd be great to have an online system set up that has continuous materials to train faculty. That way, teachers could take the courses whenever they want (as long as it's by a certain date), and it would be part of their personal schedules. This would include regular teacher training as well as current materials in their subject and some of what students are learning in all of their classes, particularly in culture class.

Current Events/Life Skills Class

I'd love to have interesting and exciting ways for students to get involved with current events and history. Here are some sites that have games I found interesting:

Education World has an interesting activity about creating historical newspapers.

Free Current Events lessons

Lesson Planet lesson plans

10-Period Schedule

My focus schools will each have a 10-period schedule. Here are possible times based on my 8-period schedule:

8:30-9:45 – 1^st

9:50-11:05 – 2^nd

11:10-12:15 – 3^rd

12:30-1:05 – lunch

1:10-2:35 – 4^th

2:40-3:55 – 5^th

4:00-5:00 – study hall

I'd simply have to add an extra class on Fridays to make the Friday schedule comparable to my 8-period schedule. 

During Breaks

Like I say in my trips for students post, I want to have plenty of school-sponsored opportunities for students to travel during breaks. I also want day programs (half day?) for students during breaks. There should be advanced, enrichment, and remedial classes as well as SAT and PSAT prep classes. There should also be day camp-like programs. This way students aren't just staying home all day without their parents. I'd like these programs to be free.

Flipped Classroom

After Khan Academy came to be, some teachers started using "flipped classrooms." A flipped classroom is one in which the teacher assigns videos for homework (in many cases, Khan lectures) then students work on problems (traditionally homework) in class, where the teacher is available to help. This is supposed to personalize teaching. I love the idea! I don't think it would work for every subject, but I think especially for the maths and sciences, this could work at most levels. 

Independent School vs. Private School

From the looks of it, I may be thinking of an Independent school instead of a private school, like I thought. Wiki Link

I'd have to get accredited either way. Wiki Link

Trips for Students

I know it would make tuition steep, but I want trips added in to students' tuition so they go on "free" trips throughout the year. We have four big breaks, so I think one week trips should be offered in fall break (only two weeks long) and winter break (don't really want to go over Christmas) and two week and one week trips should be offered over spring and summer breaks (both three week breaks). This gives students time to relax at home and the opportunity to see the world.

I want to offer two "free" trips to every student each year: one 2-week and one 1-week or two 1-weeks. That would be eight trips by the time they graduate high school. I'd also encourage every student to plan the trips so they go to every continent (besides Antarctica) at least once.

With so many students going on so many trips, it would be great if we could get a partnership with an airline and with other companies like the Ron Clark Academy has with Delta. Of course, at least at first, because this is a for-profit school, my kids aren't going to be mostly low-income students, but maybe I can at least get some deals.

Number of Students and Teachers

I think I want to have about 300 students in each academy. (This is completely just initial thoughts.) That would be 75 students in each year.

We could admit 65 students their freshman year. I'm guessing 60-65 of those will accept. Then we could work our way up to 75 by letting students in their sophomore, junior, and senior year.

Classes could be about 25 students each. That would be three classes of each year for each subject (so three Culture I, three Culture II, three Culture III, and three Culture IV each year). That would be 12 classes total for most of the subjects. Two teachers could be 6 classes each, perhaps underclassmen for one and upperclassmen for the other.

That leaves two periods open for the teacher. One of those periods could be an open period, a planning period, and the other could be used for teaching a further studies or other class. Maybe some of the teachers could be hired to analyze data within the school during that last period.

2 English teachers - f/s and j/s
2 History teachers - f/s and j/s
2 Culture teachers - f/s and j/s
3 Math teachers - students come to high school at different levels of math


Arts
PE
Further Studies
Science - One science teacher for each of the three sciences?
Foreign Language - One teacher for each foreign language offered?
Friday Classes:
Arts
PE
Change Class 
World Class

School Mascot

Here is a list of mascots that I think would be acceptable for my academies: Athena, eagle, dog, owl, presidents, (name) poet, Pegasus, Lord (name), knights, phoenix, lion, hawk, stag. There are plenty more, I'm sure, but these ones are just my initial list. I think because I want all of my schools to have the same colors that they should all have the same mascot, too. It would be more unified. Maybe I should have the first school vote on what the mascot should be. I'd like to have veto power, though! Oooooor I do like the sound of the Murray Academy Lions. MAL.

School Colors

In the midst of educational policy and logistics, I can't forget that opening a school requires the thought of things like mascots and school colors! I haven't gotten anywhere with the mascot problem, but I'm thinking the school colors could be emerald and platinum. I love that both are precious and rich materials and especially that platinum is the best of normal jewelry metals. The green and silver colors would also be beautiful, if done right.

Ron Clark

Understand from the beginning that I am a full fledged fan girl of Ron Clark. I went to a talk by Ron Clark at my university a few months ago, and at the end, when he was signing his latest book for me, he told me I had been a very good listener during his presentation. It floored me because the talk was to a room of 50 or so people, but he had still noticed and was able to compliment me. I think for a very long time, that is going to be the best and most remembered compliment I'll get. Moral of this story: at a younger age, praise like that is even more important for the self esteem and work ethic of students.

Calligraphy

I recently learned how to write using basic (and rather rough calligraphy). It is not going to be terribly useful to me ever (except the times I just feel like writing something more nicely, like on photo albums or journals I know I'm going to keep for a long time), but it was fun and possibly made my regular handwriting a bit neater.

The point is, I think it would be nice to just have one lesson on some sort of calligraphy (oh yes, there are MANY different types) in culture class. Perhaps each student could pick from a handout and/or video showing and explaining how to write using calligraphy, and the teacher could wander around the room helping and learning with them.

Culture Class

Let's introduce some democracy and allow the students in each class to vote off of a list of countries to study. For example, the class would be getting ready to study a new country, and out of a list of all of the countries they hadn't studied that year, they would get to have a few rounds of voting to pick which to study next.

This could also work with the other topics in the class, at least with the order of learning it, like whether to study business attire, formal place settings, or other topics next, though each topic would have to be covered in the year.

Moonwalking With Einstein

I recently read a book called Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer. It is about his experience training for and winning a national memory competition, mostly using a technique involving "memory palaces," where interesting and outrageous information is stored in a familiar buildling (like your childhood house) in your head to remember things.

One thing he mentioned, which I think is INCREDIBLY important to include in my school, is that "Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perceptions of our lives." Basically, it feels like we've really accomplished something and had a great life if we do exciting and interesting things, like trips, work, and other activities.

I highly recommend the book to everyone. It is easy to read and very interesting.