North Star Academy Charter School of Newark
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North Star Academy Charter School of Newark 10 Washington Place, Newark, NJ 07102 2015 Charter Renewal Application October 15, 2015 Transmitted to: Christopher Cerf, State District Superintendent, Newark Public Schools 1 Table of Contents Section 1: Basic Information ....................................................................................................................... 3 Part 1.1 – Basic Information ............................................................................................................... 3 Part 1.2 – School Demographics ........................................................................................................ 3 Section 2: Organizational Performance Areas ........................................................................................... 4 EDUCATION PROGRAM AND CAPACITY ................................................................................................... 4 Part 1.1 – Mission and Key Design Elements .................................................................................... 4 Part 1.2 – Curriculum .......................................................................................................................... 6 Part 1.3 – Instruction ......................................................................................................................... 10 Part 1.4 – Assessment ...................................................................................................................... 10 Part 1.5 – Organizational Capacity ................................................................................................... 13 SCHOOL CULTURE AND CLIMATE .......................................................................................................... 17 Part 2.1 – School Culture and Climate ............................................................................................. 17 Part 2.2 – Family and Community Engagement .............................................................................. 18 BOARD GOVERNANCE ............................................................................................................................ 18 Part 3.1 – Board Capacity ................................................................................................................. 18 ACCESS AND EQUITY .............................................................................................................................. 21 Part 4.1 – Access and Equity ............................................................................................................ 21 Part 4.2 – Special Education............................................................................................................. 22 Part 4.3 – English Language Learners ............................................................................................. 24 COMPLIANCE .......................................................................................................................................... 25 Part 5.1 – NJSMART Compliance ...................................................................................................... 25 Part 5.2 – EpiCenter Compliance ..................................................................................................... 25 Section 3: Fiscal Viability .......................................................................................................................... 25 Part 1.1 – Financial Framework ........................................................................................................ 25 Part 1.2 – Financial Audit .................................................................................................................. 26 Part 1.3 – Budget Information .......................................................................................................... 27 Section 4: Five-Year Planning ................................................................................................................... 30 Part 1.1 – Maximum Enrollment ....................................................................................................... 30 Part 1.2 – Five-Year Planning ............................................................................................................ 30 Appendix A Description of Instructional Practices Template ................................................................. 34 2 Section 1: Basic Information Part 1.1 – Basic Information BASIC INFORMATION Name of School North Star Academy Charter School of Newark Year School Opened 1997 Grade Level(s) in 2015-2016 K-12 Current Enrollment 3998* Maximum Enrollment 4950 Current Waiting List 2535 School Address(es) 10 Washington Place, Newark, NJ 07102 District(s) / Region of Newark Residence Website Address http://northstar.uncommonschools.org Name of Board President Rick Rieder Board President email [email protected] address Board President phone 212-810-5105 number Name of School Leader Michael Ambriz School Leader email [email protected] address School Leader phone 973-642-0101 number Name of SBA Olugbenga Olabintan SBA email address [email protected] SBA phone number 201-230-7518 Part 1.2 – School Demographics SCHOOL DEMOGRAPHICS* # Total Students 3998 # and % Free or Reduced 3417 and 85.5% Price Lunch Students # and % Special Ed Students 336 and 8.4% # and % LEP Students 17 and 0.4% # and % Asian Students 14 and 0.4% # and % Black Students 3384 and 84.6% # and % Hispanic Students 346 and 8.7% # and % White Students 79 and 2.0% # and % Other ethnic groups 175 and 4.4% *Note: Data from 10/09/15 3 Section 2: Organizational Performance Areas EDUCATION PROGRAM AND CAPACITY Part 1.1 – Mission and Key Design Elements The mission of North Star Academy is to prepare each student to enter, succeed in and ultimately graduate from a four-year college. The education model consists of two core pillars: a highly rigorous academic curriculum paired with a focus on strong character development. This model is supported by an internationally recognized instructional leadership model (Leverage Leadership) designed by North Star instructional leaders. Instructional leaders drive quality from seven levers: Data-driven instruction Observation & feedback Planning (curriculum, unit and lesson planning) Professional Development Student Culture Adult Culture Managing leadership teams This instructional leadership model has been ground-breaking nationally and internationally. Three books have been published by North Star leaders (Leverage Leadership, Driven by Data, and Great Habits, Great Readers) and a fourth is set to be published in June (Get Better Faster: A Guide to Developing Rookie Teachers in the First 90 Days). These have resulted in over a quarter-million copies sold, 15,000+ participants in international workshops, and schools in fifteen different cities becoming the highest-achieving or highest gaining schools in their cities while using this leadership model in thirteen major urban districts across the country: Baltimore, Chicago, D.C., Memphis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Newark, New Orleans, Oakland, Ogden, Rochester, Salt Lake City, and Sacramento. What follows are maps of the U.S. and world: each state or country in blue has schools that have been trained by North Star leaders and are intentionally replicating North Star’s instructional leadership model: 4 Each of these leadership levers will be detailed in various sections of this application. 5 North Star has built itself around consistently identifying innovative best practices and then codifying them to replicate across all schools and classrooms. In addition to the overall leadership model, North Star’s recent innovations include: K-4 Reading & Math models: North Star elementary schools are the highest achieving in the state of New Jersey, largely because of the new models built around Math and Reading instruction. Heavily detailed in the book Great Habits, Great Readers, the reading model is built on small group reading instruction built around rigorous texts and adept teaching questioning to get students to do the thinking. Math heavily focuses on conceptual understanding via guided discourse by the teacher. High School Instructional Lesson Types: North Star’s High School has the highest SAT scores that we can find from an urban high school in the country. A large factor in this success is the creation of HS instructional lesson types to bridge the gap from K-8 instruction to college. These lesson types prepare students for a college-like environment while also learning college-level material. The lesson types are: o College Lecture: training students how to take notes during a lecture, ask the “professor” (their teacher) critical questions, and study together from their notes o Guided & Student-led Seminar: preparing students for the small class college seminars by teaching them how to argue effectively, cite evidence and write quality essays o Inquiry lessons: learning History/Science through lab experiments, analysis of primary/secondary source documents, etc. o Guided Practice: a continuation of the basic lesson model that is used K-12 as a bridge from their K-8 experience Student Advisories: small groups of students who gather to support each other and push each other to even greater heights. These advisories grow in importance at each grade range and become a critical component of the High School University Science partnership: North Star has created a ground-breaking