I am writing this edition as I am returning to my office after the Director’s Welcome. Wow, we had a great turnout! It was incredible to see the maturation of our students with them being gone for only 3 months. I want to thank the parents for attending this event with their children to learn about and support the new changes at NCA. I am highly excited and confident that we have procured a learning track for our students to support career and college readiness as we implement S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics), Work-Based Learning, and Arts integration.
Parents and students can expect greater and greater integration of S.T.E.A.M. throughout the coming years. Again, the primary benefit of this curricular initiative is the multidisciplinary approach of units and lessons that requires curricular dialogue, collaboration, and relevant problem-solving for a highly technical era.
Our focus this year is MATH Literacy! We simply need to amp-up our instructional and programmatic strategies to improve in this important content area. As a result of improved Math literacy, students will have more success and enjoyment with the sciences. Math literacy becomes the foundation for success.
Parents, educational success requires a partnership! As I discussed at the welcome last evening, we all (school, home, student) have responsibilities to help our students develop the tools they need to be successful. We at NCA accept the responsibility and accountability for learning, but we need your help to on a couple fronts to help your child:
- Attendance and Punctuality – Students that are in school learn more, understand more, and are better prepared for a competitive work-force.
- The new parent-portal is an awesome tool to follow the progress of your child. I strongly encourage you to go to the NCA website and sign up for the attendance and academic alerts to stay up-to-date. This should nearly eliminate “surprises” of academic achievement levels and provide much earlier interventions.
- Cell phone and other electronic devices can be distracting to the learning environment. Please encourage your child to refrain from electronics usage during the school day. The continual vibrations, sounds, alerts, and beeps disrupts the learning of self and others as I demonstrated at the Welcome.J Teachers will be supported with the discretion of warnings, removals or procedures to minimize these distractions. You can help by talking to your student and perhaps even disabling such temptations by calling your service provider.
NCA takes our commitment and responsibility of learning very seriously as the Primary Purpose 124D.10, Subdivision 1(a) of charter schools is to improve ALL pupil learning and ALL student achievement and increase learning opportunities for ALL pupils.
NCA is committed to this partnership and this purpose!
Go Spartans!
