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Golden Isles Career Academy

3rdQuarter Report2012

Mission and Goals

The mission of Golden Isles Career Academy (GICA) is to ensure a viable 21st century workforce for Glynn County. The Charter School's performance-based goals were revised in the final phase of the state’s approval of the charter in January 2008 to be the following:

  1. The Charter School will cause Glynn County High Schools to exceed the majority of USDE benchmarks in Perkins’s accountability measures annually during the term of this Agreement. Goal met in 2011
  1. The Charter School will help Glynn County High Schools increase the number of students graduating annually who meet the requirements of the new State Graduation Rule. This improvement will be calculated by comparing the graduation rates of students who attend the Charter School against the average graduation rate of all Glynn County High School students who do not attend the Charter School. Since all students attending the Charter School are receiving diplomas from Glynn County High Schools, if the Charter School graduation rate exceeds the average of both High Schools, and if the Charter School graduation rate increases annually, the Charter School will be assumed to be helping increase Glynn County’s High School graduation rate.Goal met in 2011. The senior class of 2011 had a 94.6% completion rate. Both Feeder schools Brunswick High and Glynn Academy increased their graduation rate from the previous year. We expect this trend to continue.
  1. The Charter School will cause the percentage of Glynn County students dual-enrolled in career and technical post-secondary programs to increase by 2.5% per year during the term of this Agreement. We did not meet our goal this year.
  1. The Charter School will increase the number of Glynn County students in work-based learning programs by 2.5% per year during the term of this Agreement.

We did not meet this goal for the 2011 school year. However, our numbers have improved for the 2011-2012 school year. We will meet this goal this year.

Career & College Focus

We encouraged our students through career fair, college visits, hosting college and military recruiters, community speakers in local industry and the GA 411 website to focus and/or explore a career and prepare for postsecondary education.

Grade Levels

The Golden Isles Career Academy enrolled students in grades 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades. In addition, the partnership has reached down into middle and elementary levels to introduce career and college principles to students at an early age. The Career Academy strongly supports STEM education for all levels. We are hosting a regional STEM Festival in April, Additionally, we will be accepting pilot group from a local middle school and accept 8th graders. These students will take a Career course on the high school level.

Enrollment & Student Focus

Marketing and planning continue for all course offerings including Career Fairs at Glynn Academy and Brunswick High School to share information to students about our course offerings. The offerings include Automotive Collision Repair, Automotive Service Technology, Broadcast Video, Business Education, Construction, Cosmetology, Culinary Arts, Engineering/Computer Aided Design, Graphic Communications, Healthcare Science Technology, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, Horticulture, Hospitality, Introduction to Technology, Law Enforcement/Public Safety, Precision Machining, Transportation, Engineer/Manufacturing, Animal Science, and Welding. Academic classes willbe offered by the district to attract high level students who take advanced courses and have trouble taking classes at the Career Academy.Last year we had approximately 200 students who wanted to attend the Career Academy but were blocked because of the schedule. High school registration is complete, but registration information is still being collated. Enrollment is down approximately 200 students due to the scheduling issues.

2nd Quarter: Over 1100 students have requested to attend the Golden Isles Career Academy in 2012-2013. The schedules have not been finalized and the final numbers are yet to be determined.

3rd Quarter: We have 460 students scheduled for fall semester. In January, we anticipate 465 students attending the Golden Isles Career Academy. We added three academic classes to give students additional opportunities to attend the Career Academy.

Structure

The Career Academy has a culture promoting work ethic and career focus. GICA’s Board of Directors (see Governance below) has been meeting monthly since February 2008. The Directors have adopted policies on work ethic and accountability. The Board of Directors has participated in annual Board training to help them lead the Career Academy. The Georgia Charter School organization has been supportive in this process.

2nd Quarter: Twenty percent of the student’s final grade is based on work ethic/soft skills. Employers continually tell us to make this a priority and we have done this.

3rd Quarter: The Board of Directors received additional Board Governance training and how their role is different now that we are considered a start-up charter school instead of an LEA charter. Elisa Falco of the Georgia Charter Schools Association provided the training.

Student Support

The Career Academy has a counselor, who works very closely with the counselors at Glynn County’s two feeder high schools. The Career Academy is currently using Learning Focused strategies as a part of a system-wide initiative. This should enable the students to transition into our classroom setting at the Career Academy. Further, the Golden Isles Career Academy Foundation which is separate 501(3)(c) to support the students and programs at the Career Academy paid for students to compete in student competitions such as SKILLSUSA and TSA. In addition, the foundation funded service learning projects for the students at the Career Academy. The vision for the fundraising side of the foundation includes four areas:

•Provide financial means for our students to compete on a local, regional and national basis

•Engage in service learning projects to help our community/education partners and build our students’ skills and stewardship

•Provide scholarships to graduating seniors

–College or Post-secondary

•The business community’s involvement in the Career Academy by funding one-third of the CEO salary

–Three Vital Partners of the Career Academy

•Glynn County Board of Education

•Altamaha Technical College

•Glynn County Business Community

Budget

The teachers, staff and building expenses are paid by the BOE with the exception of the CEO where each partner (as explained above) pays a third of the salary. The foundation supports the school and is a United Way Agency.

3rd Quarter: The foundation received a $20,000 contribution from GP Cellulose. GP Cellulose had be a valuable partner through the years and we look forward to continuing our partnership and commitment to providing a viable 21st century workforce! Additional contributions include $2,000 for the Precision Machining program from Valtimet, Inc. and $2,500 AT&T in support of our STEM initiative and activities.

The Career Academy was also chosen by local businesses to be the recipient of the proceeds raised duing a 2nd Sunday concert and festival held monthly at Gascoigne Park on Saint Simons Island. Approximately $3,000 was raised for the Career Academy.

The Career Academy will continue their partnership with the Sea Island Club and hold fundraising activities on Sea Island in 2013. An annual dinner in February, golf tournament in September and an event on Rainbow Island are in the planning stages. Everyone at the Career Academy is excited about our continued partnership with Sea Island.

Charter School Law

As stated above, the State Board of Education approved the charter for Golden Isles Career Academy on February 14, 2008, and the school opened for high school students on August 6, 2009.

2nd Quarter: The Career Academy is now classified as a “start-up” charter school.

Faculty & Staff

The high school teachers are employed by the Glynn County BOE. The dual enrollment teachers are employed by Altamaha Technical College.

2nd Quarter: We are adding one additional Healthcare Science teacher due to student requests (over 200 students). We are merging the business and marketing departments.

3rd Quarter: We added a half-time Technology teacher and three academic subjects to meet the student’s needs.

Governance & Leadership

The Board of Directors of Golden Isles Career Academy is comprised of the following community representatives:

  1. At Large Representative - Tony Thaw
  2. Development Authority Representative –Ian Haley
  3. Chamber of Commerce Representative –Dr. Patrick Ebri
  4. College of Coastal Georgia Representative – Kay Hampton
  5. Glynn County Board of Education Representative –Dr. Hank Yeargan
  6. Brunswick High School Representative (Parent) – Carolyn Hamilton
  7. Glynn Academy Representative (Parent) – Daryl Moore
  8. At Large Representative- Randal Morris
  9. AltamahaTechnical College Representative – Dr. June McClain
  10. Ex-Officio- Terry O’Quinn, GICA Construction Teacher

The GICA Board has established a regular schedule for monthly meetings through August, 2012 (every second Thursday at 4pm at the Career Academy).

The Board has adopted initial policies and by-laws, and efforts continue to market the academy and its programs, and build an endowment.

2nd Quarter: The two education members of the Board are leaving the Board. Dr. June McClain from Altamaha Technical College is retiring. Ms. Kay Hampton from College of Coastal Georgia is rolling off the Board after being one of the original Board members of the school. Both Kay and June will be missed!

3rd Quarter: Sandra Bunn from the College of Coastal Georgia was selected to serve on the Board of Directors and replace Kay Hampton.

Standards & Curriculum

The curriculum used by the instructors at the Career Academy is the Georgia Department of Education approved Performance standards for Career and Technical Education in Georgia.

2nd Quarter: Teachers implemented pre and post tests in each area to assess the student’s skills and develop a plan for the student to increase his/her skill level.

3rd Quarter: Teachers are incorporating Learning Focused strategies in the classroom.

Partnerships

The foundation fundraising board is in the planning stages. Mr. Bill Jones and Mr. Jim Bishop have agreed to assist with the organization of the foundation board. The Golden Isles Career Academy Foundation has been approved to be a United Way Agency. We were allotted $5,000 for student competitions involving co-curricular activities.Some of the activities were Skills USA, Vex Robotics competition, FFA Events and DECA events. Also, many of the instructors have developed partnerships with local businesses for their individual programs. The foundation will be awarding over $10,000$9,500 in scholarships for students who attended the Career Academy.

2nd Quarter: The foundation hosted a scholarship luncheon in May and awarded $9,500 in scholarships. Congressman Jack Kingston was able to attend and speak to parents and students. In addition, the Brunswick, Glynn County Development Authority has agreed to sponsor an initiative with the Career Academy and Communities in Schools (CIS). Both organizations will be awarded $5,000 to help support CIS students.

The Career Academy hosted the regional SkillsUSA regional contests and sent 14 students to state. We had one student to win state and qualify for nationals in Collision Repair and he finished 11th in the nation.

The Golden Isles Career Academy also hosted a regional STEM festival with local business partners. We worked with Gulfstream on having an Aeronautics day. Gulfstream sponsored and hosted this for high school students in Glynn County.

Students in the Graphic Arts program created a character figure/mascot for AED Alliance, a national nonprofit with the goal to have an AED in every school and at every ball field in the United States. The nonprofit is based in Camden County. We had one student to win a regional award for her poster on anti-sex trafficking. The construction class built gazebos for some of our business partners including GP Cellulose with the profits going to the Career Academy foundation.

3rd Quarter: Over 75 business partners showed up for our bi-annual advisory committee meetings.

Jeffrey and Phyllis Waters of the Glynn County Revolution, a local nonprofit. painted our Broadcast Video van. The converted ambulance was too large for our paintbooth. We are currently looking for a partner to help us with either wrapping the van or placing magnetic letters on the van.

The foundation received a $1,500 donation from the Brunswick Kiwanis Club. This will be an annual donation.

High Performance Tube a division of Vatimet, Inc donated $2,000 toward program expense for the Precision Machining Department.

Evaluation

We are gathering and reviewing all data on an annual basis to monitor our progress on meeting our goals as outlined in our charter.

2nd Quarter: Teachers are required to keep data notebooks to track student progress.

Cycle of Improvement

We are making continual improvement in our instructional programs as we monitor student performance each semester and with the newly implemented end of pathway assessment data.

Need

The Evaluation Plan referenced above will use the 2006 needs assessment as a baseline from which to measure progress in employer satisfaction and meeting community employment needs. The needs assessment will be repeated after two years of data are available. In spring/summer of 2012a new needs assessment will designed and disbursed to community business to assess their needs. The assessment will provide an outlet for local businesses to evaluate their approval with the Career Academyregarding employer satisfaction and meeting community needs.

A new assessment is being designed in consultation with Altamaha Technical College.

Timelines

Scholarship recipients will be announced May, 2012.

3rd Quarter: Scholarships totaling $9,500 were awarded in May, 2012.

Golden Isles Career Academy