Seasons Greetings!
I can hardly believe that December is upon us. This has been an incredible year of learning and growth, and I want to thank all of our scholars, families, and staff for truly supporting Compass and helping it continue to be the Gold Standard in Virtual Education!
Our school-wide WIG (Wildly Important Goal) this year focuses on scholar engagement – to support our scholars so that 100% of our eligible scholars will graduate by the end of the 2021-22 school year! Our team is here to help! We dedicate each and every day to supporting our scholars to achieve success. In addition to the direct support, scholars receive from their teachers, we offer them a devoted Counseling Services team that helps scholars plan their educational path, succeed in classes, and prepare for life after graduation. In addition, we continue to provide advanced support with our English Learning Support, Scholar Success, and Special Education teams to help guide scholars and families throughout their child’s academic journey.
This month, I want to highlight our excellent AVID program. As you may know, we are an AVID school and utilize AVID strategies in our instructional practices. Our goal with AVID at Compass is to accomplish our mission of closing the achievement gap by preparing all scholars for college readiness and success in a global society. The AVID Program provides partner schools professional development, instructional resources, and ongoing support that ensures program effectiveness. Our AVID Site Team, led by Andrea Lomeli, has finalized our AVID Schoolwide Goals for this year: all teachers will be trained and supported to implement AVID strategies to scaffold instruction. Our AVID strategy focus areas this year are Writing to Learn, with the goal of teachers and scholars striving to routinely spend time writing to clarify and organize experiences (e.g., pre-writing, drafting, revising, polishing or editing, and publishing) in all courses, as well as Inquiry, with the goal of teachers and scholars routinely using Higher Level Thinking by asking higher-level questions, including Costa’s Levels of Thinking, during tutorials, homeroom instruction, learning labs, collaborative study groups, and class discussions.
This month, we highlight the Compass core value of Teamwork. We believe Teamwork to mean:
- Scholars are valued, collaborate, learn new skills alongside classmates, openly exchange ideas, actively contribute, and are connective to like-minded scholars.
- Families are connected, build relationships or friends with other families, work with teachers and specialists, are engaged in conversations about curricula, resources, and strategies, maintain good communication, and share ownership and responsibility for learning with Compass.
- Staff Teams utilize their members’ strengths, share best practices, listen, share resources, have someone to vent to and problem-solve with, foster respect for opinions, maintain consistent communication with each other, and share workloads.
- Colleagues have shared goals, provide personalized communication, understand the directory/work chart, assume positive intentions, and provide targeted, specific support to staff.
- Supervisors assume positive intentions, provide targeted, specific support to staff, prioritize growth over perfection, and trust and respect others.
I strongly encourage all of our Compass community to share what teamwork means to them this month and put teamwork to practice every chance you can.
There are many ways that learning coaches and families can share feedback and help us to grow and thrive as a Compass Family. Please join our bi-monthly Parent Advisory Council meetings and work with our parent leaders to enhance and expand the Compass Experience. Encourage your scholars to attend our monthly Scholar Leadership Council meetings, where our scholar leaders share insights on the Compass Experience and ideate on where we can go next.
I also invite you to share your suggestions through our Virtual Suggestion Box for Parents and Virtual Suggestion Box for Scholars. We also have our quarterly Compass Chronicle newsletter, blog posts every other Wednesday, press releases, and testimonials to celebrate our scholars and staff. These are just a few ways we work to keep communication lines open as we continue to delve into the new year.
As I reflect on 2021, where we concluded our 2020-21 school year and started our 2021-22 school year, I continue to be amazed by the work of our scholars, parents, staff, and community. There is so much to be proud of, thanks to the Compass Experience, that everyone has a role in creating and maintaining. I am also extremely proud of the work we have done over the past ten years, and excited to see what the next 10 have in store for all of us. This was a milestone year, and it feels like every year has reason to celebrate. Onward, Compass!
I hope that you had a relaxing Fall Break! Please remember that our entire team at Compass is just an email or phone call away. Winter Break will soon be upon us – where Compass will be closed from Monday, December 20 through Friday, December 31. This will be another chance to rest, reflect, and recharge as we head into 2022! Thank you again for choosing Compass and being a special part of our Compass Family.
Compass Charter Schools (CCS) is a WASC-accredited virtual charter school that serves families throughout California. Have a question about our Compass Experience? Explore our website, or feel free to visit my webpage at https://www.compasscharters.org/about-us/superintendent-of-schools/.