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DIRECTOR'S Report
Presented to the GPA Board of Directors
Table of Contents 150 students participated in “Summer at School is Cool” GPA Summer Camp. Summer Camp was designed around 3 goals: Summer staff viewed this as a time to continue the training of our students in good character and citizenship, as well as an opportunity for students to remain physically and academically fit during the summer months. Students signed up for various camps that ran for 2 weeks. Some of their options included: Mad Science, Book Club, Scrap booking, Computers, Ballet Folklorico, Ballroom Dancing, Cheerleading, Sports and Fitness, and “the 6” – which included recreation room type activities (ping pong, pool, wii, board games, and arts and crafts). After two weeks, they would rotate to a different themed camp. Each Friday the group went on various field trips to La Jolla Shores, roller skating, bowling, surfing, and Knotts Soak City. “Summer at School is Cool” was a high energy, fun and relationship driven experience for GPA students that they will not soon forget. At Gompers Preparatory Academy, culture influences everything that happens on campus. GPA school culture is the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that characterize the school. 2009-2010 Culture Camp opened in Balboa Park, with the theme “One Mission, One Vision, Your Voice.” There was an opening activity that demonstrated commonalities and celebrated the differences amongst the staff; after which the staff was broken into small groups. Within the small groups individuals were encouraged to look at how their personal history shaped their core beliefs. The history of Gompers was reviewed and how the core beliefs of GPA came to be. The common commitment to order and discipline was established for new staff members, and reestablished for those returning. Open and honest communication was encouraged and there was an abundance of humor and trust. Throughout the week some of the themes covered were the code of conduct, discipline flow and parent engagement. Culture Camp concluded with the “Annual Community Walk.” Staff members remained with their assigned group from the beginning of the week and they were given an assignment to obtain history and information from a community organization. Some of the organizations were the Family Health Center, the Malcolm X Library, Tubman Chavez Center, The Writer’s Block, The Village and Jo and Vi Jacobs Center. At the appointed time the teams gathered in the amphitheatre at Market Creek Plaza and presented what they discovered about the community in their own unique way. The student recruitment team is to be recognized for their efforts in ensuring that GPA surpassed their enrollment goal for the 2009-2010 school year. The team, consisting of parents, teachers, and support staff, was active in distributing school brochures to the community, attending community events, making school visits and conducting site tours throughout the spring and summer. The current enrollment is on track to exceed projected enrollment under Prop 39 for grades 6-10. Updated 9/11/09 The Family Support Center at GPA continues to be actively engaged in enrollment and providing top notch customer service to students and their families Gompers/Millennial Tech Middle Facilities Master Plan (Operation Save Our Campus) During the past several months, GCMS/GPA staff, along with members of the GCMS/GPA Board’s Executive Committee, worked to protect our campus and shed light on the need for a long-range facilities master plan for GCMS/GPA and our neighboring school, Millennial Tech Middle School (MTM). The immediate goal of these efforts was to halt the planned encroachment by San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) onto the Gompers campus, including plans to install 11 bungalows on the Gompers athletic field. GCMS/GPA Staff and Board member activities that supported this cause included a community rally and press conference on July 1, outreach and facilities tours for SDUSD Board members, presentations at multiple SDUSD Board meetings, and several meetings with District leadership. As a result, the SDUSD Board voted 5-0 on July 21 to pause any development on the Gompers and MTM campuses until District Staff could meet with the leadership of both schools and create “win-win” options for their consideration on July 28. In addition, the SDUSD Board directed District Staff to begin developing a Long Range Facilities Master Plan for the Gompers/MTM facilities, which would provide equitable development for both campuses, via Prop S and other funding sources. On July 28, the SDUSD Board approved the District Staff-recommended plan to temporarily install four bungalows on the Gompers Field, with a commitment to relocate the bungalows to an alternate “swing space” location (current Gompers sand volleyball courts) by Summer 2010. Since the July 28 Board meeting, the GCMS/GPA leadership team has been collaborating with MTM leadership to develop a shared use arrangement for the Gompers Field. In addition, GCMS/GPA leaders and Board Chairman Steppe have been collaborating with District Staff to develop a follow-up Memorandum of Understanding that reflects the intent of the July 21 and 28 SDUSD Board decisions. Currently, GCMS/GPA staff members are assisting District Staff in scheduling and promoting a series of community meetings, where students, parents, and community members can share their ideas and opinions regarding the future development of the Gompers/MTM campuses. The first of these meetings will be held on Thursday, September 24 at 6 pm in the Gompers Auditorium. GCMS/GPA staff members are moving forward on the GPA Board directive from the May 23 meeting to pursue a merger of GCMS and GPA in order to operate as Gompers Preparatory Academy, grades 6-12. The next steps in this process include the submission of material modifications to the GPA Charter document to SDUSD for District Staff review and making approval recommendations to the SDUSD Board. Draft modifications have been submitted to the GCMS/GPA Education Committee and will be finalized before the end of the month for an early October submittal to SDUSD. If the SDUSD Board does not approve the material modifications of the GPA Charter document, then GCMS will need to immediately pursue a Charter Renewal in order to renew before the current GCMS Charter expires on March 1, 2010. The San Diego Unified Board of Education gave final approval for GPA, grades 6-10 to leave their SELPA and join the El Dorado SELPA. GPA staff has been busy since June hiring 13 new staff members and setting up the programming and staff training to receive our students. API data for the past two years showed a declining trend in special education students’ performance on the CST. With a 2008-09 demographic of 18% special education population, the decline has significantly impacted the school’s overall progress. As outlined in the GPA charter, the high school students are fully included in general education classrooms with additional special education resource teacher support staff and classes to ensure all students have full access to a standards based curriculum and appropriate supports to help them achieve those standards. A significant amount of training will need to take place in the next two years to fully support effective implementation of the full inclusion model. Although the transition is going better than anticipated in many areas, some obstacles still exist with JPA schools being denied access to the San Diego Unified Encore system to upload their returning students IEP’s and previous staff destroying site hard copies. GPA staff is working with the JPA Director, Cindy Atlas, to rectify the situation. Gompers Preparatory Special Education Student Population GPA staff engaged in a week of Academic Camp prior to the start of the school year. After reviewing CST proficiency bands across content areas, staff viewed a speech by Jonathan McElroy, a powerful 11-year-old student who has made it a goal to eradicate the “N” word from the human vocabulary. Before the viewing, staff was challenged with the question “What will you have to do this year to become Jonathan’s teacher?” Each staff member was tasked with assisting our students in becoming powerful with their words. The four school wide foci were established based on what we knew to be true about our students in 2008: This in combination with current CST achievement data led to the following 2009-10 academic goals: Teachers then participated in three days of professional learning with academic consultant Katherine Casey in the areas of Academic Vocabulary and Accessing Reading Strategies Across the Curriculum. Teachers spent the afternoons in department meetings to specifically address how they would implement the learning with Katherine Casey in their content areas. GPA staff will continue their learning with Katherine Casey throughout the year, in addition to site based training (ELL, Data Director, Student Engagement) and additional outside consultants in the areas of co-teaching, full inclusion, behavior training in Special Education and writing instruction to prepare students for CAHSEE and CST writing exams this Spring. GPA staff was tasked with maintaining a master schedule that effectively met students’ needs, but also considered the high cost the previous master schedule required. The master schedule was taken back to the drawing board and we believe a powerful vehicle to deliver instruction to students has been developed at a lower cost than previous schedules. The biggest change at the middle school level was to allow other core content areas (social studies and science) to be taught in the morning. The previous master schedule only had English and Math classes taught in the morning, which was critical in the initial stages of the charter. English Language Learners and Special Education students still have the Math and English in the morning only model but some other students not in either of those programs were allowed to take Math and English in the afternoon. This allowed GPA to accomplish 3 things: Like previous years, ENS and Electives are only taught in the afternoon. As a result, this group of 11 teachers does not report to school until 9:15 a.m. At this time, they are given 30 minutes of additional daily preparation time to develop the Advisory, Encore and University Prep programs (support programs for school wide goals and college preparation). It also allows for additional after school courses for credit to be taught by these individuals and will become additional support programming after the first progress report for students who may be struggling in their classes. This course is called Selected Electives and is held from 4:10-5:20. Current class offerings include credit offerings for Spanish 5/6, Advanced Computers, Drawing and Painting I, Performance Band and Orchestra, Performance Choir and Drama. Classes coming on line shortly will include Ballroom Dancing and ESL support classes as well as CAHSEE Prep and additional academic support programs. In addition, the current schedule has additional resource periods for ESL teachers to case manage beginning language learners in mainstream content classes, as well as providing teacher coaching support in the areas of Math, Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and ENS. This year’s Commitment Days exceeded those of previous years in terms of attendance by families. The events each opened with the now-double-in-size GPA Cheerleading Squad serving a heavy dose of school spirit with a “Welcome” dance routine, which was followed by a brief welcome by the Director. In true college fashion, families were then led on student-run tours of the campus. GPA students had practiced for weeks over the summer, planning how best to convey the unique aspects of GPA’s college prep environment. The tours were hugely successful in that the tour guides commanded great respect from their audiences and prospective students were excited to get their year of learning started. GPA teachers placed a great deal of effort into preparing to meet our students and their families on this year’s Commitment Days. With many spending weeks setting up their classrooms, all teachers inspired awe as families witnessed the display of commitment on the part of GPS staff. While some staff assisted with uniform sales, others assisted with enrollment, PTSC recruitment, and even providing tours for disabled students or families via golf cart. As a result, a greater number of families than ever have committed to being a part of the great work at GPA. GPA has started the 2009-2010 school year fully staffed. Having left the district’s special education services for a charter school SELPA, GPA had the opportunity to hire 13 new Special Ed. staff members. Additionally, the expansion of GPA’s charter to include tenth grade created eight openings, five of which were filled internally. The subsequent middle school openings were filled by promising new teachers, who are already demonstrating, in the first weeks, that teaching and learning will reach new heights this year. Another hiring opportunity arose out of the decision not to renew GPA’s contract with Pacific Building Maintenance, the outside agency that had previously provided maintenance services for the organization. Proudly, the GPA family now boasts a staff of four committed custodians, all of whom are members of the community. As GPA employees, our custodians are receiving competitive wages with benefits, and they are demonstrating a new level of commitment to improving public education for kids. In response to our growing staff size and the demands on our Human Resources Department, in July the Board of Directors approved the hiring of an HR Assistant. This employee will assist with the increasing demands of a large staff, which now stands at 108 GPA Facilities are better than ever, thanks to the recent hiring of four committed, ambitious individuals for our new GPA custodial team. Repairs that had been on the district’s Maintenance and Operations docket for months or even years are now being addressed and the campus is now safer and cleaner than ever before. The new team is ready to take on projects that will go beyond routine maintenance and take GPA facilities to visibly higher levels of quality. Some campus painting upgrades are already underway. The new High School Quad is in full use. Students, families, and staff turned out in high numbers for Campus Beautification Day, a summer event in which all pitched in to plant flowers, shovel dirt, place two-story palm trees, and assemble new lunch tables. Ninth and tenth grade students are relishing in their high school.
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