We come together from many different places to learn, to work, to play.
At Brighten Academy, we are crew.
By modeling the 7 Cs and showing character in word and deed, we will succeed.
We will all succeed because
WE ARE CREW!
|
|
Morning VerseOur morning verse is recited by each student and staff member every morning at Brighten Academy. These words serve as our nourishment for the day and are an important reminder that at Brighten we care about each other, academic excellence, and good work.
|
Our Roots
Mission and Core Beliefs
The mission of Brighten Academy is to nurture habits of scholarship and ethical character in a joyful, engaging, rigorous, and equitable learning environment. Inspired educators, in partnership with parents and the community, will ensure measured growth in every student every year and empower students to create a brighter future for our world.
Brighten Academy was the first charter school in Georgia that was started by a group of teachers. The educators who led the founding of our school aspired to provide a fertile foundation from which we could grow so that we could transform the way students learn and educators teach in our county and beyond. Before the first architectural plan was reviewed, first staff member hired, or first dollar was spent on the school, the Founders invested in developing our mission and core beliefs. The mission and core beliefs were developed in 2005, and we opened our doors to about 275 students in August of 2006.
|
|
|
Still today, at a school of 777 students, the mission, along with our morning verse, are recited and celebrated each morning. These words represent our roots, our hopes, and our commitment to excellence.
7 Cs of Character
Commitment, Critical Thinking, Culture, Curiosity, Community, Creativity, and Craftsmanship
The Founders didn't stop at the mission and core beliefs; they also developed Brighten's instructional framework called the 7 Cs. The 7 Cs serve as the central structure from which we educate the whole child. They believed that with a focus on character, commitment, critical thinking, culture, curiosity, community, and creativity that we could better prepare students to be productive citizens and lifelong learners.
It is within the 7 Cs Framework that we laid the bedrock which eventually created the perfect conditions for EL Core Practices and Design Principles to flourish. As we continued to dig into EL, we realized that we needed an additional focus on craftsmanship, and that all of our Cs fell under the umbrella of character. Thus, our original 7 Cs were modified to the 7 Cs of Character - commitment, critical thinking, culture, curiosity, community, creativity, and craftsmanship.
Commitment, Critical Thinking, Culture, Curiosity, Community, Creativity, and Craftsmanship
The Founders didn't stop at the mission and core beliefs; they also developed Brighten's instructional framework called the 7 Cs. The 7 Cs serve as the central structure from which we educate the whole child. They believed that with a focus on character, commitment, critical thinking, culture, curiosity, community, and creativity that we could better prepare students to be productive citizens and lifelong learners.
It is within the 7 Cs Framework that we laid the bedrock which eventually created the perfect conditions for EL Core Practices and Design Principles to flourish. As we continued to dig into EL, we realized that we needed an additional focus on craftsmanship, and that all of our Cs fell under the umbrella of character. Thus, our original 7 Cs were modified to the 7 Cs of Character - commitment, critical thinking, culture, curiosity, community, creativity, and craftsmanship.
The Green Party celebrates all of our students who complete 7 of their 7 Cs projects by mid-January. These students are well on their way to earning the prestigious 7 Cs Green Shirt for outstanding character! |
|
Watch Us Grow
Over the past 12 years, our school has experienced tremendous growth. We started as a K-6 school with approximately 275 students, and we now have 777 students enrolled in our K-8 classes. Our first classes were held in the classrooms of a local church, and our first campus consisted of a modular building that was less than 20,000 square feet and cost less than $2 million dollars. We are now educating our students in a permanent facility that is over 75,000 square feet with a $10.5 million dollar investment to build. Our staff has grown from less than 25 to over 65 faculty members. On top of the growth in enrollment, we also experienced major shifts in our student demographics. When our school opened in 2006, about 30% of our students were identified as non-white. Today, 70% of our students identify as non-white. Our students eligible for free and reduced lunch services has increased from less than 4% of enrollment to almost 35%.
Click on our "Student Enrollment" link to see highlights of our growth as a school and our changing demographics.
|
|
Burgeoning enrollment and shifting demographics did not slow down Brighten's academic success. Throughout the growth, Brighten was able to meet the Performance Benchmarks for Mastery of Knowledge and Skills by exceeding national growth goals on the MAP assessment and beating the State and County averages on the Georgia Milestone Assessment (the state accountability test). We believe that our sustained focus on the Dimensions of Achievement (through our annual work plans and Implementation Reviews) led us to these remarkable results.
EL Education
Although our mission and core beliefs provided strong roots to anchor our school, we needed a better support system to manage our growing enrollment and staff. We needed consistent practices and approaches to bridge the gap between new and old and to poise us for success. We intentionally decided to evaluate instructional models against our mission and 7 Cs as our goal was to enhance our program and accentuate what was working and aligned with our core values. This led us to EL Education.
Brighten Academy became an EL Education network school in 2014. This change helped move our school from "surviving" to "thriving". The consistent framework provided through the Dimensions of Achievement and Core Practices helped us to flourish in ways we never thought possible. Our students are engaged in work that matters, they are closing achievement gaps, and they are becoming better world citizens.
As a school, we leveraged our partnership with EL Education to set school goals aligned with the Dimensions of Achievement. For four years, we strategically implemented and monitored annual work plans so that we could meet our Performance Benchmarks. Our Performance Benchmarks helped us to set goals related to each Dimension of Achievement, set implementation priorities for the Core Practices, and evaluate our progress using the Implementation Review (IR) Rubric designed by EL Education.
In 2014-15 we focused on implementing Core Practices related to character and culture. We focused on Creating a Positive School Culture (Core Practice 35), Crew (Core Practice 27), Fostering Character (Core Practice 26), and Building a Community of Learning (Core Practice 25). We worked on laying the foundation for improving the quality of work by engaging in Professional Learning (Core Practice 36) and Projects (Core Practice 5). At the end of this first year we earned a score of 87 on our Implementation Review (IR). We exceeded our target score of 47 by 40 points.
In 2014-15 we focused on implementing Core Practices related to character and culture. We focused on Creating a Positive School Culture (Core Practice 35), Crew (Core Practice 27), Fostering Character (Core Practice 26), and Building a Community of Learning (Core Practice 25). We worked on laying the foundation for improving the quality of work by engaging in Professional Learning (Core Practice 36) and Projects (Core Practice 5). At the end of this first year we earned a score of 87 on our Implementation Review (IR). We exceeded our target score of 47 by 40 points.
|
|
The next school year, 2015-16, led to more intense work in project based learning and creating work of high quality. We focused on Case Studies (Core Practice 2), Creating a Culture of Reading (Core Practice 13), and Creating a Culture of Writing (Core Practice 14). By the end of this year, we had increased our IR score to 97.
|
|
|
We continued to engage in project based instruction and creating high quality work the next two school years (2016-17 and 2017-18). We explored Designing Projects and Products (Core Practice 8) and Expeditions (Core Practice 9) and incorporated the practices found in Management in the Active Classroom. We became better at teaching and assessing character in the classroom and revisited Fostering Habits of Character (Core Practice 22) and Creating a Community of Learning (Core Practice 21) to refine Brighten's Habits of Scholarship. By the end of 2017, our IR score increased to 110. We completed the end of our four year cycle in 2018 with an IR score of 109.
|
|
|
Our Remarkable Growth With EL
Just as our students set goals, our school does as well. We model goal-setting using our Performance Benchmarks as our guide to do more than we think possible.
|
As you review our goals, you'll see that our consistent focus on growth and achievement under Mastery of Knowledge and Skills (MKS) led to strong academic performance as a school. Our claims related to outperforming and subgroup performance (MKS Claim 1 and MKS Claim 2) help to highlight our remarkable growth. We feel that our focus on deeper learning (MKS Claim 3) helped to make sure that achievement remained high for our top achieving students while we worked to better scaffold instruction and student supports to focus on measured growth for our students who were performing below the 20% percentile on standardized tests.
|
|
|
|
Our goals related to character helped us to continue our focus on the whole student while implementing structures and systems that support our students to be more effective learners and responsible, ethical, and active citizens. Our first goal (Character Claim 1) was to focus on developing the Habits of Scholarship (HOS) that we felt would elevate achievement and prepare students for lifelong success. Once the HOS standards were in place, we shifted our focus to developing ethical students (Character Claim 2) who do work that matters for the community (Character Claim 3). We now have students who not only know they can impact the world; they feel compelled and better equipped to be change agents!
|
|
The performance benchmarks related to High Quality Work (HQW) helped to keep us focused on meaningful, challenging, and active learning. This is what sets us apart from other schools and permeates our school's culture. We used our Quality Work Protocols (QWPs) to analyze the work our students and teachers were doing so that we could guide and equip our students to create work that is complex, authentic, and exhibits characteristics of craftsmanship. We began our journey with diving into what quality work looks like (HQW Claim 1). Our focus on craftsmanship and complexity led to remarkable growth in our students who receive academic intervention (HQW Claim 2). Multiple drafts and incorporation of peer feedback/critique helped these students do more than they thought possible. As students continued to engage in provocative topics and produce work that models the real world, we noted marked improvement in our students' abilities to demonstrate complexity in their writing (HQW Claim 3).
|
|
Visitors frequently tell us the culture of our school is something you feel as soon as you walk through the doors.
"Whenever I am asked for a model school for potential charters to visit, I always think of Brighten. Their culture is palpable from the minute you walk in. You feel like you belong. You want to learn. A visit to Brighten makes you want to be a better educator."
-Rena Youngblood, Director of Charter School Services, AAE
-Rena Youngblood, Director of Charter School Services, AAE
Our credential data sheet helps to tell our story in a different way. This spreadsheet helps to highlight our achievement compared to the State and County as well as how our subgroups are performing. Detailed information about our achievement can be found in MKS Claim 1 and MKS Claim 2. The credential data sheet also highlights our progress in the area of character; this is further explained in Character Claim 1. Finally, the data sheet summarizes what we see in students' abilities to consistently practice craftsmanship and do work of high quality each year. Each claim under the HQW section helps to contextualize the data on this spreadsheet and shows our remarkable growth!
We know that EL Education has provided the strength necessary for our school to blossom.
We plan to continue to nurture our roots by celebrating our history, strengthening our structure by deepening our implementation of Core Practices, and pruning our practices to produce beautiful blooms in the future.
Recognitions & Awards
