Setting The Learning Choice Academy The Mission Statement of the Learning Choice Academy is: To empower students

to reach their full potential by providing choice in education within collaborative triads of parents, students, and school. The Learning Choice Academy (TLC) is a K-12 charter school through San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD). Our charter is written as an independent study school/homeschool. A group of our founding teachers broke off from another similar charter school nine years ago. We now have four sites around San Diego County: Chula Vista, La Mesa, Scripps Ranch, and Temecula. Each of our sites has a different student population with different needs. This year, I was transferred from the La Mesa site to the Scripps Ranch site. Below is a comparison of our school demographics vs. our parent district SDUSD. Due to the different communities that our sites are located in, the overarching numbers do not tell the full story of our school. The individual site dynamics are explained in more detail below.
Demographics of The Learning Choice Academy (TLC) compared to San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD)

The Learning Choice Academy

Ethnic diversity (students): Hispanic: 44.4% White: 57.8% African-American: 7.7% Filipino: 4.9% Chinese: 1.1% Japanese: 0.9% American Indian/Alaska Native: 11.2% Middle Eastern: 0.8% Other: 3.6% Socioeconomic make up:: 20% English learners 45% qualify for free or reduced meals

San Diego Unified School District

Ethnic diversity (students): Hispanic: 46.4% White: 23.5% African-American: 10.3% Filipino: 5.4% Chinese: 4.9% Asian: 3.3% Native American: .3% Pacific Islander: .6% Multi Racial/Eth.: 5.3% Socioeconomic make up:: 28% English learners 64.9% qualify for free or reduced meals

Due to the vast difference of each community our school sites are located in, our school demographics differ accordingly. The Chula Vista site: This site has a majority of our Hispanic population and our military families. This is the 2nd largest site of TLC. All TLC options are offered at this site. La Mesa: This site has primarily attracted the more traditional homeschooling families who want to use our services but want to educate their students in their own way with some of their own curriculum. This site has seen a change in the last 2 years. We now have our traditional homeschooling families with a mix of parents who are unhappy with the public school setting. This is the largest site of TLC. All TLC options are offered at this site. Scripps Ranch: This site has primarily middle to upper middle class households who are homeschooling because they are unhappy with the public school setting. Minimal middle/high school classes offered. All other options offered. Temecula: This site has primarily high school students who are not making decent grades in public school. This is our smallest site. Very minimal onsite classes are offered due to lack of interest. In the past, our school operated from a traditional home school model, where the parent served as the teacher of record, school staff served as educational partners (credentialed teachers that helped the parents with their educational needs), and there were no academic onsite classes. Last year, we implemented academic programs to ensure more student accountability and success. These programs include 2 day middle school and high school classes where the onsite teacher gives and grades assignments. We also added a 2 day elementary (K-5) program called AIM (Achieve, Inspire, Motivate), where students are onsite for 2 days with a teacher and at home 3 days with a parent (Program options: Appendix A). The AIM Program I teach 2nd/3rd grade in the AIM program in Scripps Ranch. It is a kindergarten through fifth grade program where students come onsite two days a week for instruction by a credentialed teacher. Parents teach their students at home the other three days. Parents are responsible for grading the at home school work and the EPs grade the onsite school work. The parent is the teacher of record. The student, parent, and teacher (educational partner or EP) meet every 6th week for a Student Centered Conference (SCC). The meetings are student led. This is their time to present what they have learned at home to the EP and present what they learned in class to their parent. The parent is responsible for teaching all of the social studies and physical education at home. The EP is responsible for teaching the science onsite. The parent and the teacher share the responsibility of teaching language arts and mathematics.

There are three classrooms at three different sites that serve the AIM program. The classrooms are combination classes (K-1, 2-3, 4-5). This in and of itself is challenging. However, other challenges occur as well. When do we fit in our baseline assessments? How do we make on-site classes beneficial to all learners without a ton of time to do it? How do we give our students a quality social setting? In addition, part of our model is that parents are responsible for teaching key concepts related to the different academic subjects. For this reason, we strive to connect the learning onsite with the learning taking place at home. Since the AIM teachers are spread across three sites, we try to meet regularly to reflect and plan. However, since each community is unique, our classrooms often look quite different. At our Chula Vista location, the higher populations of English Language Learners need more EL support. The La Mesa sites higher population of families who have been homeschooling for a long time are more seasoned. At our Scripps Ranch location, the families are primarily new to homeschooling. Due to these differences, the planning for each sites teaching team varies. Enrollment & Family-School Connection When a parent wants to enroll their student in our school we require them to first attend an orientation. This orientation consists of one of our leads (who act as a head of their site) introducing our programs through an orientation video that highlights the benefits of our school. These include a credentialed teacher partnering with parents to ensure academic success for their student and elective units which equate to dollars each month that parents can use toward sports, music, tutoring. Once the video has ended the lead is open for any questions parents might have. If a parent chooses the homeschool with no onsite class option for their child they will have a curriculum catalog to choose from. The fact that parents get to pick the curriculum they use to teach their child is a bonus for them. They can choose a religious based curriculum, however we cannot purchase it for them. Each month, students receive an allotment of elective units (1 unit=1 dollar funding to the parent) to use for extracurricular activities related to education, such as music lessons, physical activity, tutoring, etc. We also have school events that families can participate in including assemblies at Balboa Park, field trips, plays, etc. An Educational Partner (EP), who is a credentialed teacher, will meet with a student and their parent once every month to look over all of the work completed for that month and make sure the student is progressing and work is being completed. (Is this the case for all the programs or just the totally off-site option?) When a student is not progressing as expected or work is not getting completed, strategies are given and the EP will ask that the parent and student come in to meet more frequently (maybe once every 2 weeks). The EP will discuss the months work with the student and the parent, look through all work completed or discuss any projects, field trips, or other school related events that occurred in that month, collect all of the work samples, and then pick one sample of the work they have completed for the month for each subject to create the months lesson plan packet.

If parents pick specific curriculum from our catalog an EP will be able to give them a lesson plan for the month. Many parents use this as a guide for how far they should be in a specific curriculum when they meet with their EP. If they pick their own curriculum, an EP can help them with planning. Many times, parents come in knowing what to do and how they want to teach their student. Historically, our registered families were homeschooling their students throughout all grades beginning with kindergarten. However, we have recently seen an influx of families registering who are frustrated with budget cuts and higher class sizes in traditional public schools. This new crop of families usually loves more guidance as far as curriculum and instruction are concerned. There is quite a lot of paperwork that is required of the EPs. Each EP will need to complete 7-10 monthly lesson packets for each student they have on their roster, and EPs usually have 20-28 students depending on if they are teaching onsite classes or not. At the end of the year these packets create a portfolio of the students work for the year. TLC is audited by the state and by San Diego Unified yearly, where they randomly pull portfolios to make sure we are adequately documenting student learning. If a parent and/or student are not living up to their potential in our program we will begin documentation of this. The EP will give them strategies, tools, and try and problem solve ways to improve student academic progress. If a students progress in learning does not improve and it is clearly due to lack of instruction, the EP will encourage the parent to place their student in a school program that will be more beneficial for the student.