The Ted Ginn Sr.

MASTERS PREPARATORY ACADEMY

Executive Summary

August 7, 2013

Founding Members:

Lydia Carter

Ted Ginn Sr.

Jason Jenkins

Robert L. Murphy

Calvin Murray

Christine Staccia

Donald Staccia

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE: PAGE:

MISSION……………………………………...………………………………………………….3

DESCRIPTION……………………………..…………………………………………………...3

STATEMENT OF PHILOSPHY……………………………………………………………….3

BACKGROUND…………………………………..…………………………………………….3

Qualified Effectiveness…………………………………………………………….....3

Recent Studies…………………………………………………………………………4

THE TGSMPA PROGRAM………………………………………...…………...……………..5

Setting the Organizational Habitus…………………………………………………5

Core Area 1 – Student Assessment………………………………………………..6

Core Area 2 – Parent/Family/Community Partnership……...…………………..6

Core Area 3 – Curriculum and Instruction………………………………………..7

Core Area 4 – School Habitus…..…………………………………………………..8

Core Area 5 – School Leadership…………………………………………………..9

Core Area 6 – School Counseling………………………………………………..10

Core Area 7 – School Organization………………….……………………………11

ADMISSIONS………………………………………………………………………………….11

ATTENDANCE POLICY……………………………………………………………………..11

TYPICAL SCHEDULE………………………………………………………………………..12

SCHOOL CALENDAR………………………………………………………………………..12

ORGANIZATIONAL CHART…………………………………………………………………13

MISSION

The Masters Preparatory Academy (TGSMPA) proposes to open in Ohio in the fall of 2014 with 150-200 ninth grade boys, growing to serve 1000 students in seventh through twelfth grades by the end of its fourth year. The mission of the proposed school is to provide a high quality, comprehensive, and relevant education for urban African American males by increasing their educational resilience and forming personalized learning communities that support the social, emotional, and academic development of each student. This will be accomplished through the college prep, real world, and rigorous curriculum required to empower them with the knowledge, skills and academic ability to attend four-year colleges or pursue a chosen career, lead productive lives, and become contributing members of society.

DESCRIPTION

To achieve its mission, the educational design of TGSMPA is based on 1) complying with the common core standards, revised academic content standards,testing and curriculum requirements established by the Ohio Department of Education; 2) boarding urban males year-round from the eight major urban cities in the state of Ohio: Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown; and 3) modeling the Standards and Promising Practices established by the Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color (COSEBOC). Founding members envision TGSMPA to be an elite educational institution utilizing innovative and evidence-based instructional strategies which will increase and enrich the academic and personal success of young,African American, urban males. By setting a high personal and academic standard in a safe habitus full of cultural awareness and relativity, TGSMPA developers believe their students will come to know their purpose, value and worth. Equally important, their students will leave this school with a clear sense of themselves and their talents, an ability to frame and solve problems, and a capacity to work well with a wide range of people.

STATEMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

TGSMPA is the realization of a vision by Mr. Ted Ginn Sr. and Dr. Robert L. Murphy. It was their dream to open an all-male boarding school serving boys from across the state of Ohio and surrounding states. The scholars will embark upon a social, emotional, and academic educational transformation through the process of erudition, which means, to “take the roughness out of; polish; teach.” This process is built on the core values of Scholarship, Leadership, and Service that serve as the foundation of TGSMPA. Students will learn the methods and skills of high academic excellence through a structured, individualized, rigorous curriculum. Students will acquire and apply leadership skills such as, goal-setting, character development, problem-solving, critical thinking, integrity, self-reliance, resiliency, and commitment to helping others. All of the young men will be required to serve their school, community, region, and the nation. Extracurricular activities and opportunities for mentoring and internships will be available for all students.

BACKGROUND

Qualified Effectiveness:

The effectiveness of operating single-gender schools and boarding schools raises controversy among educators just when addressed as individual issues. The founding members of TGSMPA comprehend the educational and social concerns regarding the efficacy of operating an institution combining the two. However, the academic success of single-gender schools like Urban Prep (Chicago), Eagle Academy (The Bronx), and Boys’ Latin (Philadelphia), and boarding schools like Piney Woods (Mississippi), Pine Forge Academy (Pennsylvania), and Christian Redemption Academy (Troy, NY) prove that factors previously believed to be intangible with regards to when and why children of color excel academically can now be qualified and quantified.

Recent Studies:

Between 2006 and 2009 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the Black and Latino Male Schools Intervention Study (BLMSIS),conducted by the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, which framed two theories: 1) Schools need to understand and have a knowledgebase of the social/emotional needs of Black and Latino boys, and 2) schools need to understand how the academic needs of Black and Latino boys have surfaced and target strategies for addressing those needs. The study examined seven boys’ schools whose populations were diverse but predominately Black and Latino; the boys in the study were ages 9 to 18. According to the 75 administrators in this study, all-boys’ schools provide an educational equity intervention for their students. Following is an excerpt from the conclusion of the BLMSIS:

Overall, our investigation of the schools has elicited multiple theories as to why single-sex schooling is a viable intervention model for the educational dilemma facing low-income, Black and Latino boys, or boys of color. Each of the schools in this study consists of a dynamic set of leaders who maintain that creating a nurturing school climate will positively impact the boys’ social, emotional, and academic development. While each of the single-sex schools in this study is distinct in its own right, the schools are all constructed to serve students with “high needs” who are viewed to benefit from the opportunity to be educated in a setting designed exclusively for them…As such, in order for the young men to succeed, the schools’ interventions need to be primarily directed towards creating nurturing environments that provide alternative messages to what Black and Latino boys have received in traditional public schools (Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, 2010).

In 2010, Mia Alexandria-Snow studied the matriculation of four students from Piney Woods, a historically Black boarding school, who attended two traditionally White universities. The full text of this study is published in Urban Education, May 2011 (Alexandria-Snow). Alexandria-Snow published the following synopsis of her findings on the internet (Alexandria-Snow, EDUS 660 Research Methods):

Piney Woods graduates characterized their Piney Woods experience as empowering, whereby they developed healthy cultural esteem and self-concepts. They attributed their success to Piney Woods’ commitment to their success. High expectations for achievement and seeing themselves in the curriculum transcended the negative distortions the graduates may have internalized about themselves. PineyWoodsSchool, steeped in cultural referents, provided its students with tools for developing their self-concepts and collegiate aspirations.

Piney Woods currently reports: “Each year, at least 98% of our graduating seniors enroll in some of the most prestigious colleges and universities in the nation, including Alcorn State, Amherst, Denison, Fisk, Harvard, Howard, Jackson State, Michigan State, Morehouse, Oberlin, Princeton, Smith, Spelman, Tougaloo, Tufts, Tuskegee, UC Santa Barbara, University of Chicago and Vassar” ( The Piney Woods School).

Guarian and Stevens report that coed classrooms make it hard for boys to explore all subjects fully, for fear of being a geek or not looking macho. Single gender classrooms tend to engage boys to create in an environment that says it is cool and safe to be smart. Gender specific schools and classrooms have been utilized in other urban cities across the country; the all-boys Urban Prep in Chicago Classes of 2010, 2011, and 2012 had a 100% college acceptance rate for its students. A 2008 StetsonUniversity study found that 85% of boys in all-boys classes scored proficient on Florida’s Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), compared with 55% of boys in the coed classrooms; same size class, same curriculum and same demographics. The all-boys school in Cleveland, Ted Ginn Academy, graduated 97% of its African American boys in comparison to the 28% that graduated throughout the remainder of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Despite the controversy, single gender schools for urban boys prove to be effective.

THE TGSMPA PROGRAM

Simply placing males in one place for an extended period of time does not create positive outcomes and conditions. School officers, administrators, teachers and support staff must have appropriate training and professional development to foster student success. (Dr. Leonard Sax 2005). This task will require a new paradigm for education policy – one that shifts policy makers’ efforts from designing controls to developing capacity among schools and teachers to be responsible for student learning and to be responsive to student and community needs and concerns. This means (1) redesigning schools so they focus on learning, foster strong relationships, and support in-depth intellectual work; and (2) creating a profession of teaching to ensure that all teachers have the knowledge and commitments they need to teach diverse learners well (Darling-Hammond, 1997). TGSMPA will identify a successful student as one who 1) scores proficient or better on stateand national standardized tests; 2) graduates from high school; 3) either thrives after in college or flourishes in a chosen profession; and 4) consistently displays behavior that is productive and contributes in a positive way to the community.The TGSMPA founding members believe the following components of the TGSMPA program will produce successful students.

Setting the Organizational Habitus:

The primary goal of TGSMPA is to create a safe and positive school habitus. The Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago (May 2011) reported “the best predictor of whether students and teachers feel safe is the quality of relationships inside the school building.” TGSMPA will incubate practices to create the right conditions by first exhibiting, then expecting students to exhibit characteristics of the eight Urban Prep Academy modeled core values: Resiliency, Integrity, Selflessness, Exceptionality, Solidarity, Faith, Accountability, and Relentlessness. These core values are characterized as follows: Resiliency – summonsing the drive to continue to move forward regardless of how often one is knocked down; Integrity – doing the right thing when no one is looking; Selflessness – being more concerned with the needs of others than one’s own; Exceptionality - performing at the highest level, then setting a higher standard; Solidarity – standing together as family; Faith – never giving up on oneself; Accountability – owning responsibility for one’s actions and decisions; and Relentlessness – staying focused amid distractions. As all TGSMPA employees embody these core values, they will create an organizational habitus that is safe for students to take risks. This habitus, in turn, will build positive mentoring relationships, provide one school voice, and set high student expectations.

Seven Essential Core Areas for Developing and Sustaining Effective Schools:

TGSMPA will utilize the seven essential core areas for developing and sustaining effective schools and/or school programs for boys of color developed by COSEBOC[1]. The following is an excerpt from COSEBOC’s executive summary:

We have created this tool to begin merging what is known about promising practices for boys ofcolor with the research on effective schools. Throughout this document we identify research-based “best practices” in curriculum, instruction, school design, and out-of-school supportprograms. While we do not claim that these are the only methods that work, we do contend thatunlike other strategies that may be in use in some schools or programs, there is empirical research documenting the efficacy of these approaches, particularly in relation to boys of color…The Standards may not be specific to boys of color, but describe good schools regardless of who they serve. The guidelines of promising practices describe an approach aimed specifically at boys of color implemented by schools and/or organizations focused on enhancing the educational and social outcomes of this population.

Core Area 1 – Student Assessment:

Student Assessment: Students will be assessed upon enrollment, utilizing the Measurement of Academic Progress (MAP) and the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), to determine a baseline level for math, science, and reading. These assessments will also be utilized throughout the year to chart student progress in each area. They will also take a small battery of personality and learning style assessments. Combined, these assessments will assist the student and teacher in the development of an individualized Student Education Map (SEM). The SEM is in no way related to the Individual Education Plan (IEP) nor the Written Education Plan (WEP); the SEM will serve more as a road map for the student to take charge of his own study habits and to assist the teacher in constructing comprehensive and differentiated lesson plans. Both student and teacher can fortify academic weaknesses through the most affective learning style. Every student will have an SEM, whereas IEPs and WEPs will be administered only as warranted.

Students will also participate in periodic practice Ohio Graduation Tests (OGT), ACT, and SAT exams throughout the school year to benchmark progress toward meeting the goal of passing these exams. TGSMPA will measure its achievement by the goal of attaining a 100% graduation rate for its fourth year seniors.

Core Area 2 – Parent/Family/Community Partnership

Parents will have an active role in the success of TGSMPA by serving as members of various advisory boards, decision-making committees, and the school parent-teacher organization (PTO). TGSMPA expects parents to model and reinforce the academic and social excellence demanded of its students. TGSMPA will designate specific responsibilities and duties to staff for communication with parents via phone calls, flyers, newsletters and electronic correspondence. Parents are expected to attend Academic Commitment Expectations (ACE) workshops throughout the year. The ACE workshops will be a joint effort with the Ohio Parent Information and Resource Center (Ohio PIRC) to assure Title I compliance and indoctrinate parents with TGSMPA’s adopted eight core values. ACE workshops will also allow TGSMPA to clearly articulate the responsibilities parents have at home to help insure their child’s academic success. Parents will be contacted initially through planned marketing and recruiting strategies. Parents will be informed of how to access the Ohio PIRC website and will also be informed of all TGSMPA commitment guidelines and expectations during recruitment.

Core Area 3 – Curriculum and Instruction:

Curriculum:

TGSMPA will provide a rigorous, college preparatory curriculum which meets and exceeds the state requirements:

  • 4 units of English language arts (with emphasis on speaking, listening, reading, and writing)
  • ½ unit of Health
  • 4 units of Mathematics
  • ½ unit of Physical Education
  • 4 units of Science
  • 3 units of Social Studies
  • 5 units of Electives (including 2 years of foreign language)
  • 1 unit of Fine Arts
  • ½ unit of Economics
  • ½ unit of Financial Literacy

Additional recommended classes include:

  • Calculus
  • Trigonometry
  • Chemistry II
  • Public Speaking
  • Additional Foreign Language
  • Dual enrollment and Post-Secondary Education Option (PSEO) classes

In addition to honors and Advance Placement (AP) classes, TGSMPA will offer classes and electives which focus on the urban experience. These classes may include but not be limited to Ancient African History, Law and the Criminal Justice System, The Latin Experience in the 21st Century, Athletics as an Industry, and Media Literacy.

Instruction:

TGSMPA teachers will be required to:

  • Encourage students to be responsible citizens
  • Create an environment that is physically, culturally, and emotionally safe for all students
  • Believe that our students can achieve at very high levels
  • Encourage school community and pride
  • Consider students’ outside-of-school lives and teach to the whole child
  • Allow opportunities for students to demonstrate personal growth (i.e. rites of passage ceremonies, and public recognition)
  • Utilize project-based and inquiry learning teaching strategies
  • Attended scheduled professional development throughout the year which will:

a)provide support for new teachers that involves mentoring

b)encourage teacher collaborations within and across grade levels

c)is researched based

d)addresses teachers’ immediate academic concerns and allows their needs to dictate PD opportunities

e)allows for teacher feedback regarding school leadership, organization, curriculum, and instruction

f)provides/develops common definitions of important curricular concepts, especially those that inform legislation (No Child Left Behind, IDEA, ELL)

g)requires reading of research/articles/briefs relevant to the culture of the student population and encourages debate/discussion

  • Maintain a self-awareness checklist which will allow teachers to be mindful that they are:

a)willing to work on building positive relationships with their students

b)aware of their own cultural heritage and values

c)accepting and respecting of others’ cultures

d)aware of potential biases toward other cultures stemming from her/his own culture

e)comfortable with racial differences that may exist between themselves and others

f)understand the sociopolitical systems of operation in the U.S. with respect to the treatment of minorities

g)possess specific knowledge and information about the racial/ethnic group(s) with whom they work

h)aware of institutional barriers than hinder racial/ethnic mobility

Core Area 4 – School Habitus

New teachers and teachers who possess a strong academic background are more likely to abandon the profession. It is not uncommon for teacher turnover in charter schools to reach 40%; TGSMPA executives have witnessed turnover as high as 75% in Columbus. Replacing teachers not only accounts for approximately 25% of their salaries and benefits, it also “…affects many of the organizational conditions important to effective schooling, such as instructional cohesion and staff trust” (Stuit and Smith, 2009). TGSMPA believes it will meet the challenge of maintaining low attrition rates by creating an organizational habitus conducive to learning for both students and teachers, Teachers will be provided the resources they need to be successful. Teachers will have ample time to address the needs of individual students, receive ongoing and meaningful professional development, and earn competitive monetary compensation. The pay scale for TGSMPA teachers will be based on the Columbus Education Association salary schedule, and will provide a performance bonus when merited.