Augsburg Fairview Academy

The Four Goals:

Goal 1 – Lifelong Wellness

Dr. Susan Hageness of the College of St. Catherine developed the Academy’s wellness model because, in her words, “students with knowledge and skills in promoting wellness will be better able to maintain and advance life-long health for themselves as well as for their future health care clients.” The Academy is committed to continuing the development of this model and to putting it into daily practice.

Specifically:

• Wellness is a theme that runs through lessons in every course.
• Students take a course in lifetime wellness during each of their four years at the Academy.
• To foster lifetime fitness habits, the Academy provides its students with a subsidized membership in the metro-area YMCA and gives them time during the school day to use it.
• Community service activities promote good health and wellness in culturally appropriate ways.

Goal 2 – Successful Habits

Build Habits for Academic & Vocational Success
It is well known that certain learning, work, and social behaviors are important to students’ success in college, career, and life after high school. The Academy focuses on learning behaviors in three categories: attendance, diligence, and deportment. Each of these is necessary to ensure success but no one of them, alone, is sufficient. High school students who develop strong habits in all three areas do much better in college, in the workplace, and as citizens than do students (with similar grade point averages) who have weak habits.

Attendance measures a student’s physical presence in the classroom during regular class hours. Instruction at the Academy begins in its classrooms. Students need to be in attendance in order to interact with the teachers who are guiding and supporting their studies. While an absence may be excused in terms of a student’s legal obligation to attend school, the Academy requires all missed class time to be made up if a student wishes to earn credit for attendance.

Diligence is an assessment of a student’s efficient effort to learn, shown by staying on task, working consistently, and completing assigned work in a timely manner. Diligence is assessed daily based on four indicators:

1. Does the student arrive fully prepared for class: i.e., with needed materials (pencil, pen, paper, etc.) in hand and assigned homework completed and ready for review?
2. Does the student focus intently on lectures and discussions: i.e, does the student “SLANT” — sit up, lean forward, ask questions, nod in response to what is being said, track the speaker?
3. Does the student spend his/her individual study time in class working diligently on assigned work, completing it fully and carefully by the time it is due, and using resources (including computers) for academic purposes only?
4. Does the student turn in complete assignments when due?

Deportment is an assessment of a student’s socialization as a member of a learning team, shown by setting a good example and fostering a happy and productive environment both for the student and those working with the student. Deportment in class is assessed daily using four indicators:

1. Does the student refrain from: a) talking out of turn; b) using profanity; c) using personal electronic technologies (e.g., headphones/MP3 player, cellular phone); d) sleeping; or e) engaging in distracting actions?
2. Is the student honest and does the student treat the teacher and other students with kindness, politeness and consideration?
3. Does the student interact positively with fellow students and encourage them to stay on task, so as to promote a productive learning environment?
4. Does the student enter the class unobtrusively if he/she arrives after the class is already engaged in a learning activity and leave the room only when truly necessary and, then, only when leaving will not interrupt the class activity?

The Academy’s teachers know that they can help students become better learners, better workers, and better citizens by turning these behaviors into life-long habits. The best way to do this is for teachers, themselves, to model these behaviors; to monitor them in their students; and to give frequent feedback to students about where they can make improvements.

The Academy’s teachers believe so strongly in the importance of these habits that they make them the foundation on which students earn credit toward graduation. Through a unique approach called Credit Scoring, students can earn course credit just for demonstrating these habits on a regular basis. A student who maintains good attendance, makes a serious effort to learn, and helps to create a productive school environment cannot fail a course. On the other hand, a student who does not meet the Academy’s minimum standard for these habits in a given course will not earn graduation credit in that course.

Goal 3 – Academic Mastery

Achieve Academy Mastery Before Graduating
The Academy’s curriculum covers three levels of academic achievement. The first level calls for students simply to meet state graduation standards. Students meeting these first level criteria earn a Basic Diploma. At the second level, students must meet the Academy’s own, rigorous college readiness standard. Those attaining the second level are awarded a Mastery Diploma. At the third, and highest, level, students earn early college credit while still at the Academy.

State Graduation Standards (Basic Diploma)
The Academy’s curriculum meets or exceeds all content standards established for high school students in Minnesota. Meeting the state graduation standards involves the following:

• Completing 24 credits of coursework in required areas (full-time students earn 6 credits per year).
• Obtaining passing scores on the Minnesota GRAD exams in writing (9th grade), reading (10th grade), and math (11th grade).

The Academy does not offer a “certificate of attendance” to students who have earned enough credits to graduate but who not passed the GRAD tests.

Students who meet the state graduation standards are eligible to receive a Basic Diploma and may elect to graduate at this point. The Academy encourages them, however, to continue with their studies until they can enter college or other post-secondary learning with no academic deficiencies that would require them to take remedial courses.

College Readiness (Mastery Diploma)
The Academy expects its graduates to be able to enter college or other post-secondary education well prepared in reading, writing, English (language usage and literature), mathematics, science, social studies, and a world language. All Academy courses use a grading system designed to provide meaningful feedback about a student’s college readiness. The assessment of a student’s achievement is on the appropriate college readiness standard at the end each rotation in each course taken at the Academy, from 9th through 12th grade. Students earning a C or better in a course are considered by their teachers to be on track to be ready to handle college-level coursework after their graduation.

Early College Credit
Students may earn college credit by:

• Taking courses are one of the Academy’s partner colleges, such as the program at Augsburg College;
• Enrolling in career-oriented courses at collaborating colleges and universities: e.g., the Nursing Assistant, Registered course given by the Minneapolis Community & Technical College and subsidized by the Academy (6 college credits plus state certification as a nursing assistant or nurse’s aide); or
• Attaining a college-accepted score on a nationally-administered test, such as the College Board’s College Level Examination Program (CLEP).

Goal 4 – Health Careers

Explore and Experience a Health Care Career
The Academy offers a wide variety of opportunities for its students to explore and experience careers in the field of health care that may be of interest to them. Among them:

• Career workshops led by practicing professionals
• Career mentors
• Field trips to health-related facilities
• Training courses – taught by professionals with extensive, practical experience – through which students can earn certification in: first Aid/CPR, First Responder, Nursing Assistant-Registered, and Emergency Medical Technician
• Training in ambulance maintenance (on the Academy’s own ambulance);
• Internships and work-based learning opportunities
• Neighborhood health care clinics – staffed by students under the supervision of volunteer health professionals
• Health information presentations to local elementary and middle schools
• Other community service opportunities