The First School

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Preparatory School for Global Leadership (PSGL) was a middle and high school charter school that operated from 2004-2009. The school’s mission was to empower the urban community by way of engaging students in a learning process that developed global leadership capacity while strengthening basic skills. Specifically designed to utilize learning theories associated with behaviorism, constructivism, and cogntivism, there were three instructional blocks of the day: project block (students engaged in project based learning), service block (students engaged in service learning) and knowledge block (students engaged in teacher directed instruction).

Click play on the video to get a visual of our unique learning platform.

The yearly portfolio assessment allowed the students and staff to showcase the strength of the school’s performance as relating to the different ways students learn. Such learning was intentionally encased within the social world of the learner bringing all three modes of learning together (even behaviorist approach to direct instruction) to support the unique learning strengths of our students.

Some of the outcomes we celebrate are:

• We took a group of students with a track record of making .36 gains (when spending seven years in the traditional school) to making 1.33 annual gains (after spending five years at my school).
• We outperformed the district in all core subject areas in 2009 and out performed schools with similar demographics (racial and poverty levels) in the other years.
• We maintained a safe learning environment where less than .004% of students were suspended for violent weapons compared to the district’s 1-3%.
• We generated a school climate where 100% of students felt safe as reported on the district’s annual survey.
• We engaged 100% of students, even those who were at least 3.5 grade levels behind, in a higher order thinking process of project based learning where students explored global problems and developed solutions.