Success Academy Targets Basic Skills

Come October, students from five Valley schools will have the chance to become detectives, evaluate evidence and investigate unexplained phenomena - all while improving their reading and math skills after school.

The detective curriculum will be part of the Success Academy, a three-year program funded by a $1.6 million federal grant the Central Valley and East Valley school districts received earlier this year.

Twenty-four teachers, principals and administrators from five East and Central Valley schools met on Tuesday to set up preliminary plans for the after-school academy.

Programs will operate at Blake, Keystone and Opportunity elementary schools in Central Valley and at East Farms and Trentwood elementary schools in East Valley.

At the meeting, all five schools decided they would gear their programs toward basic skills development for students who are one to three grade levels behind in reading and math.

“We are really excited about the interdisciplinary approach used in the basic skills program,” said Mary Jo Buckingham, the Success Academy’s new coordinator.

All five schools also decided to form two classes with around 18 students each. Students will be selected based on their need for extra help and their teacher’s recommendation. The districts are aiming to have one certificated teacher and one teacher’s aid in each classroom.

The classes will meet three days a week for 2-1/2 hours for the academic portion of the curriculum, and on the fourth day the kids will be involved in recreation, arts and other programs with community sponsors like Tidyman’s and the Valley YMCA.

“It has to be fun,” said Tere Von Marbod, Central Valley’s director of curriculum. “Even the academic part is fun and project-based. You don’t want the kids working hard all day and then feeling like the after-school program is a drilling program.”

But the Success Academy should be viewed as a more intense counterpart to the programs already in place at the elementary schools, she said, especially since the districts plan to improve test scores, class attendance, behavior and social skills for all the academy’s participants.

“This is an outcome rich program,” said Central Valley’s assessment coordinator Geoff Prager. The district will be monitoring the students and regularly reporting back to officials at the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, the federal group that awarded the grant money.

“This is a fabulous opportunity for the kids and their families in these two districts,” said Von Marbod. “It’s going to get the kids extra help and it’s not going to cost the parents anything.”