SCCS Information Sessions Planned for This Wednesday!
Do you want to learn more about SCCS and the opportunities we offer? Please come to one of our information sessions this Wednesday, January 25th. There will be one session from 8am-9am and another from 6pm-7pm. Both sessions will be held at the school, which is located in the Museum Place Mall between Essex and Church Streets in downtown Salem. Come ask questions, meet staff and students and learn about this terrific new school!
Salem Community Charter School off to a great start
Salem Community Charter School opened its doors on Thursday, September 8th at 10 a.m. sharp, and welcomed 50 high school students to the world of competency-based education.
As states and school districts around the country search for ways to address both the growing disengagement of high school students and the dismal dropout rate, competency-based assessment in a personalized and student-centered curriculum is drawing national attention for its success.
In brief, students who attend SCCS (and a growing number of schools like it) are not 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th graders, nor will they receive a report card with As, Bs, Cs, Ds, or Fs. To be engaged in competency-based education means that students learn the material in a classroom--or a lab, or a museum, or a farm--where they become engaged with the curriculum in depth, and then are asked to demonstrate what they know in an assessment. When a student has "shown what they know", they have met a benchmark in that subject area and move on to the next. All benchmarks are aligned to the state frameworks and the Massachussetts Common Core. Students can receive additional help through tutoring, internships, help with literacy and numeracy, with the goal of graduating having learned about science, math and humanities and not just about how to take a test.
As an example, two students pictured below attended a hearing at the State House in Boston to testify, along with scores of high school students from around the state, parents, legislators and educators, about addressing the state's dropout rate once and for all. These two students volunteered to accompany principal Jesse Yurwitz to the senate chambers and testify about the experiences that led them to SCCS.
There has been lots of media interest in SCCS. Globe correspondent Justin Rice was
present for SCCS’s first day of school, and caught the excitement and
enthusiasm of the day and the anticipation of students and staff.
Other articles in the Salem Patch and the Salem Gazzette
chronicle the evolution of the school from charter application, the hiring of Jess Yurwitz as principal, to
the challenges that face all schools: getting students to show up, keeping them
engaged, and supporting them academically, socially and emotionally during
their journey. Read Justin's article here:
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/salem/2011/09/new_salem_community_charter_sc.html
And finally, four weeks after the first day, teachers, counselors and principal Yurwitz give a hefty "thumbs up" for Salem Community Charter School's first month.
OLDER NEWS...
SCCS is taking shape and constantly growing as we get ready for our September opening! We now have temporary space that is beginning to buzz with activity. You can find our offices on the first floor of the Museum Place Mall in downtown Salem. We are directly under the large, stone staircase and right next door to the haunted house. Come by in the morning when you can find Hadee Benoit, the school's new administrative assistant, hard at work behind the big windows.