On August 1, 2011, Phoenix Collegiate Academy started its first day of school for the third year. PCA’s enrollment number has been growing dramatically throughout the years. In 2009, PCA opened its doors to 57 sixth grade students on the first day, eventually growing to over 70. In year two, 141 sixth and seventh grade students came the first day and the school grew to as many as 152. Now in year three, PCA has an enrollment of 257 fifth through eighth grade students.

The first week of school was filled with excitement as our students were greeted by their homeroom teachers and were given white t-shirts to wear over their uniform. This white t-shirt symbolized the orientation process at PCA. Throughout orientation students learned expectations and procedures and were motivated for their future. Students know that at PCA they work hard to get smart with the goal of college in mind. At the end of each day a new grade level was ready to be welcomed into the community, at which point students removed their white t-shirts unveiling their PCA uniforms.

Today, as the final students enter the community, a ribbon cutting ceremony will be held from 1:00p-1:30p. This ceremony will represent the community’s commitment to making PCA’s building special and making PCA successful. Together with community leaders, we’ll mark the beginning of a new year of growth in our newly renovated facility.

Even after only its first year, with just 60 students, Phoenix Collegiate Academy was a Performing Plus school. Going into its third year, teachers and staff members will welcome over 200 dedicated students and families. PCA families attended orientation on one of three Saturdays. They gathered at school, anxious to learn more about expectations and procedures for the school year. Students were immediately greeted and taken to the examination room where they completed a Stanford Achievement Test to diagnose their skills. Meanwhile, parents and guardians participated in workshops tailored to the logistics of PCA, the curriculum, and the culture, to help create a partnership to ensure a successful school year. Parents were also given free uniforms for each child attending PCA, including two polo shirts with the PCA logo, two pairs of pants, a belt, and a voucher for a pair of shoes. This year is one of many that the school experiences rapid expansion.

Phoenix Collegiate Academy’s success thus far – excellent test scores, amazing individual student achievement, and tremendous growth – has not gone unnoticed. An article about PCA was published on the front page of The Arizona Republic this past Sunday, July 24, 2011. Reporters stated that PCA is already becoming a model school, which others eagerly hope to follow. With its passionate teachers, rigorous curriculum, and highly disciplined environment, students become invested in their learning and achieve superior results.
Learn more about Phoenix Collegiate Academy in the article and on our website.

Thanks to a generous donation from Ernst and Young Phoenix employees and help from the Arizona Tree Council, PCA looks greener than ever. The work of volunteers from the different organizations, along with some digging help from a few students who came to school early, the project culminated in 5 new trees around the school grounds. The community of staff and students welcomed our new trees in a drumming-inspired ceremony for accepting new plants.

As part of the ceremony, we learned about leadership, tolerance, and drum-beating. It was an exciting way to connect everyone on campus and draw us closer together. The new trees and our ceremony has been the talk of campus and we’re especially thankful to Matt Collins at Ernst and Young, Heilee O’Quinn at Arizona Tree Council, and Julio Santillan at DLC Resources for their assistance in making this a reality.

Students compete in Tucson for Destination Imagination

A Guest Post from PCA Volunteer, Bradley Lusk!

Destination Imagination is a program that seeks to motivate students to work together and solve complex problems as a team. First, teams must decide which of six team challenges they would like to solve over the course of a semester. In addition, they must prepare for a random Instant Challenge which is a task that is given to the team on the day of the competition and must be solved in less than five minutes.

This year, our team, the “Chicken Nugget Hot Wings” decided to undertake the challenge called: projectOUTREACH – Service Learning: Dynamic Networks. In this challenge, the team was required to address a social issue using at least two social networks. We all brainstormed and decided on the idea of donating clothes to the less fortunate. We then voted on our two social networks: the school and the online community. To address these two social networks we created a video which we uploaded to Youtube (you can see it here) and a sign to hang up around PCA. We were very successful and managed to get of 40 video views, 2 comments on the video, 1 video ‘like’, and over 100 articles of clothing donated. Since we were not allowed to use a video for our performance at the competition, we developed a short, humorous skit to portray our idea to the judges. In addition, our team had to compose a comprehensive album or journal of our work that explained the “who, what, where, when, why, and hows” of our project.

The day of the competition, we all met around 7AM in the PCA parking lot for a long drive down to Tucson, Arizona; arriving just after 10AM. This year’s Destination Imagination competition took place at Mission Manner Elementary School. Our team challenge presentation was not until 12:40PM so we used to the time in between to finish last tweaks to our album, practice the skit, and take a team photograph. When the time came to give our presentation, we quietly walked into a room with five judges of all different age groups. Our presentation lasted about a minute and a half to two minutes and then the judges stood up to ask the students questions. The judges wanted to know why we chose our challenge and what we learned from it. I, the team manager, was not allowed to participate in the skit production or question answering in any way. Spirits were very high and the judges were extremely impressed with our good behavior and knowledgeable responses.

After the team challenge, we had another hour and a half before our instant challenge. We used this time to practice some random instant challenges provided in the team manager hand book. We also watched some of the other teams perform their challenges during our wait. When the time came for us to complete our instant challenge, we read an oath swearing not to reveal the details of the instant challenge until after global finals. We were then quietly walked into a room that had paper covering all of the windows. The team was then presented with a random challenge and given four minutes to complete it. I can’t give away details, but our team worked swiftly and efficiently to complete 60% of the entire challenge in only four minutes! The judges commented on how well they thought we worked as a team and pointed out that other teams literally didn’t even start because the challenge was so obscure. I, the team manager, was not allowed to help in anyway.

After the challenge we all congratulated each other and ventured back to Phoenix; arriving around 5PM. Way to go PCA!

I want to give a special thanks from the PCA community to Brad for his help managing our Destination Imagination Team two years in a row and being an all-round helpful volunteer. This post and photography are also his work.

Via Raza Development Fund website – see the original press release here

RAZA DEVELOPMENT FUND PROVIDES $1.5 MILLION IN FACILITY FINANCING TO PHOENIX COLLEGIATE ACADEMY

South Phoenix Charter School Serves Low-Income and Hispanic Students

Phoenix, Arizona – Raza Development Fund (RDF) provided a $1.5 million loan to Phoenix Collegiate Academy (PCA) for the acquisition and renovation of the facility located at 5610 S. Central Avenue in South Phoenix.  Prior to the acquisition, PCA had been a tenant in the facility, where 140 sixth and seventh grade students are currently enrolled.  Upon completion of the renovation, the school will more than double its existing educational space and accommodate up to 350 students.

Phoenix Collegiate Academy, in its second year of operations, is a highly successful college-preparatory school serving the South Mountain area of Phoenix.  “We founded PCA so that the students of South Phoenix can be prepared to succeed in college and be leaders in our community,” said Rachel Yanof, Executive Director and Founder of the school.  Ms. Yanof is an alumna of the Building Excellent Schools Fellowship and the Teach For America program.  In fact, all of the school’s leadership and administrators have completed Teach For America, a nationally acclaimed and highly selective teaching program. “We are so grateful to Raza Development Fund for making this purchase and renovation possible, so that even more students can have this opportunity to attain an excellent education,” added Yanof.

PCA’s educational program provides rigorous instruction, character training, and access to enrichment programs that equip students with the tools to excel in colleges and professional careers. Its highly trained teachers and administrators integrate best practices from the highest performing charter schools in the country.  The school utilizes frequent academic performance assessments that inform data-driven decisions and support a focused and purposeful curriculum aligned to state and national standards.  In PCA’s inaugural year, with demographics mirroring the area district schools, students outscored the district average by 8% in Reading and 18% in Mathematics on the state AIMS test.

Over the years, RDF has provided capital to many public charter schools nationwide.  “Our charter school lending is driven by our commitment to serve families and children by being a catalyst for closing the achievement gap in Phoenix and throughout the country,” said Tommy Espinoza, President and CEO of RDF. “We are fully confident that Phoenix Collegiate Academy will become recognized for academic excellence because our underwriting of the school determined that the board, leadership, faculty, parents, and all school stakeholders will accept nothing less.”

One of the many ways Phoenix Collegiate Academy prepares students for college life is university campus visits. Every year all grades take trips to universities in and out of the state. This  year the 6th grade visited Northern Arizona University. They gazed at the mountainous view at Sunset Point. They looked at the snow with wonder. They were in awe that in college, they are allowed to make their own schedule.

The tour of the campus was thrilling. Excitement filled the room as they went toe-to-toe with the fraternity brothers, quizzing them on the ways of ancient Greece. You could feel the silence when our six graders stumped a doctoral student by asking if he knew the definition ethics. The pizza chef was in a frenzy as he saw a swarm of 6th graders targeting his station when they learned it was all you can eat. The trip’s success was evident when one student exclaimed, “My mom is never going to believe this. I can’t wait to go to college!”

Volunteers from Desert Schools Federal Credit Union left their mark on Phoenix Collegiate Academy and the South Mountain Community recently. Their hard work and creativity produced some beautiful work – a new mural on the east wall of PCA’s building. And not only did they pick an exceptionally appropriate theme for the mural – graduation caps painted on a college-preparatory school – they involved students in the design. After volunteers designed the mural on paper, PCA students calculated the ratios for scaling the design from paper to the large wall.

The project was accomplished in large part thanks to the organizing efforts of Franciso Avalos, Community Development Specialist at Desert Schools. A product of the South Mountain community, Avalos went to great lengths to make the mural happen. He says, “Completing this mural was one of the most challenging projects I have undertaken. However, like many of the students at Phoenix Collegiate Academy we overcame obstacles with pride and optimism. We completed the work thanks to Eric Torres of Specimen Design and Leanne Shepel of Design Frolic, who  designed the mural, as well as the Desert School  Employee Volunteer Program, the Communi-Team, who put paint to the wall.”

His work, and the work of all the volunteers, left more than just a mark on the building. The mural and students’ pride and ownership in their space will leave a permanent impression on them and the community.

To find out more about what Desert Schools does to help its neighbors, read here. To learn about how PCA prepares students for college visit our website.

Part of the Phoenix Collegiate Academy mission is to cultivate leaders in our community. One way we achieve this goal is by fostering community service efforts among students.

Last Saturday, 15 PCA students and parents joined friends and staff at the The Rio Salado Audubon Center to plant milkweeds as part of the Pollinator Garden Plan. We planted three species of plants designed to attract monarch butterflies, who will soon return from Mexico and other parts of California and Arizona to pollinate the Rio Salado area’s plants, along with another species that grows near a water source. In the process, we learned the importance of the butterflies work, the necessity of our own, and practical skills on how to plant. Students enjoyed learning as they worked, making connections to a recent Rio Salado Audubon Center field trip, and giving back to the community.

Cathy Wise, Education Director at The Rio Salado Audubon Center, discussed her optimism about how enlisting students to help with this project while young would “give them a sense of ownership over this place when they reach older grades.” At least for now, we know students already enjoy helping. “It was really fun,” described one 6th grader, Teresa, after the event.

To learn more about the Center, check out their website. To learn more about Monarch preservation in Phoenix, read here.

With so many well-connected ASU alumni on staff at PCA, and with such a close proximity to a world-class university, it’s no wonder that a college preparatory charter school like Phoenix Collegiate Academy would have such a great relationship with Arizona State University.

One amazing program that we partner on is The Talent Match. Students in ASU’s Talent Match club volunteer to teach a skill to one of their matched students and develop as mentors in their relationship with the student. PCA students get exposure to the ASU campus, firsthand experience interacting with a scholar who’s chosen to go to college, and an opportunity to learn a specific skill that they’re energized about.

In only one semester of partnership, it’s already clear that through Talent Match, PCA and universities can come together inside and outside the classroom.

Learn more about the Talent Match, from the Barrett (ASU’s honors college) website. Learn more about PCA at our website.