Snapshots, new school: Teachers working on their own time, a hyperdrive of excitement:
• dust swirling as rooms are finished around them and arranged
• the UPS driver a daily fixture wheeling in multiple deliveries
• recipients opening boxes of books and supplies like it was Christmas morning.
Focusing on academic excellence and leadership, the Traverse City College Preparatory Academy opened yesterday for students in grades 9-12. The launch is the culmination of weeks of frantic preparations, months of hard work and a year of planning.
The newest player in a region teeming with education options, the public charter high school leaped into a highly competitive market with plans to thrive.
"The traditional system is very strong here, parochial system is very strong and there's an established charter system,” said Cameron Owens, school leader. "We have two unique factors: one, we are small and relational, having strong connectivity to our kids and families and, two, the curriculum.”
The College Preparatory Academy is housed in a former church building that has been extensively renovated this summer. The Leona Group LLC — a privately held company that manages charter schools in the Midwest and Arizona — operates the school, which is chartered by Bay Mills Community College. The company purchased the 25-acre property last fall and received the green light for a use change from East Bay Township in January; renovations began in April.
A staff of ten teachers will serve between 50-100 students this first year in the 26,000-square-foot facility, which has a capacity of up to 350 students.
"Our plan is to grow into it, add kids every year,” said Jessie Kutsch, curriculum coach at the College Preparatory Academy, noting that enthusiasm extends to students too young to sign up: "We have students enrolled already for next year, eighth grade students.”
After a decade in charge of a Detroit charter school, the Charlotte Forten Academy, Owens is stepping into an academic atmosphere where parents are involved, students are focused and driven and expectations for success are high.
"This is a whole new ballgame here, take a continuum and it's the polar opposite,” compared Owens to his previous job, adding of the Leona Group: "They've done very well in urban situations, in that socio-economic demographic.”
"The opportunity here is huge,” he enthused.
The foundation of the school is twofold: rigorous academics coupled with a mandatory leadership curriculum. The school will use the MKJ Educational Consulting Curriculum Framework developed by Dr. Ellen Vorenkamp to meet state academic requirements. Small student-to-teacher ratios, honors options, parent involvement and a modified block schedule are other hallmarks of the academy.
One niche the College Preparatory Academy has mined is the region's large homeschooling community.
"We ultimately really have begun to tacitly kind of promulgate being a homeschool academy for the area,” Owens said.
Veteran homeschoolers exploring high school options this summer, Russ and Sheri Wallace of Lake Ann enrolled their son, Geoffrey, in the College Preparatory Academy. With Geoffrey starting his freshman year, another son entering seventh grade and a toddler at home, the couple was ready for a more structured environment to promote future college success.
Uninterested in the public schools, they liked what they saw when they visited the academy — leaving the meeting amazed at the passion of the staff.
"The energy and enthusiasm that generated from these teachers was just unbelievable,” said Sheri Wallace. "With what we do with homeschooling, it seemed like a very good fit.”
The family willingly took on a 30-minute, one-way daily commute when they added up the positive aspects of the school. The leadership training particularly intrigued them.
"That was another twist that I just really, really liked, Russ and I really thought that was a selling point of the school,” added Wallace, noting that they enrolled their younger son at the Woodland School, another public charter school. "That's something that we really strive to teach in our children: to believe in what their beliefs are and to stand firm in them.”
For more information on the College Preparatory Academy, call 929-4539 or see their web site www.leonagroup.com/tcprep.