Literacy & The Work
What are they learning?
At the very least, all scholars should be able to read and do math at their appropriate grade level. To pursue social justice, scholars have to be able to read and analyze information, compare perspectives, and provide critical assessments on a variety of topics. Scholars must be able to analyze data and statistics to determine whether true equity is being achieved. We can’t just think that scholars know how to do these things, they have to be able to show what they know. To help them achieve this level of academic preparedness we utilize the following curricula:
Reading
We will utilize the EL Education ELA curriculum and Engage NY ELA curriculum that was developed in collaboration with EL Education. Not only have these curricula proven to advance scholar learning but they purposefully incorporate social justice and culturally relevant material.
Science
We will utilize STEMscopes for our science curriculum. STEMscopes has a focus on STEM career applications like engineering, lab technology, and medicine.
“Phenomena are observable events that occur in the world. Serving as the context for both scientists and engineers in their work, phenomena are predicted through scientific knowledge, which is then used to create solutions to real-world problems. Centering STEM education on phenomena pushes students to move from learning about topics to figuring out why and how things happen—using the three dimensions of NGSS, students engage in inquiry, explanation, and application of phenomena to themselves become scientists and engineers in the classroom.”
Social Justice Studies
Being a social justice school, social studies is a key ingredient in achieving our mission. Social studies provides a lens through which to explore historical and current day social justice issues while reinforcing skills from other subject areas on a continuous basis. The curriculum is developed internally and aligns with state standards.
Math
We utilize the Achievement First K-12 math program. This curriculum is aligned with our state assessments and requires scholars to think conceptually and really understand the rationale behind standard algorithms.