The Ida B. Wells Community Academy

  An Introduction to Educational Quality 

semper novi quid ex Africa!
"Everything new always comes out of Africa!" — Pliny 

The Ida B. Wells Community Academy's Educational Mission
The Ida B. Wells Community Academy (“the Academy”) opened in August 1999 as an independent, nonsectarian and public Community School. The Academy is currently located at 670 Wooster Avenue, Akron, Ohio  44307-1868  (Call: 330.376.4915 or  FAX: 330.376.4912). Its mission is to educate young people (K to 6; eventually it will enroll students in grades K to 12) in a holistic educational program that is personalized, problem-posing and problem-solving, centered in the humanities, natural sciences, language arts, social studies (civics), the arts and African and world culture studies. This mission emphasizes passing standard proficiency tests and reuniting traditional subject areas and learning activities so that students are better able to understand the relationship of one subject area to another and education to their present and future lives.

Who Will the Ida B. Wells Community Academy Serve?
The Academy was chartered by the Ohio Department of Education and established in Akron, Ohio, in association with the Task Force for Quality Education and a consortium of Akron based community organizations. It is designed to serve low-income and medium income African American, White, Native American, Latin American and Asian students residing within the Akron metropolitan area. Moreover, the Academy addresses its curriculum and educational services also to the needs of under achieving and under represented youths eligible to attend the Akron Public Schools. Recently, the passage of HB 282 affords the Academy the possibility of enrolling students through an "Interdistrict Transfer Program" who reside outside the Akron School District. Admission is FREE. Busing is to be provided by the Akron Public School District. Interdistrict transfer students will NOT be transported. Their parents will have to arrange for their transportion. 

The Academy's decision to maintain a low 15:1 student to teacher ratio will strengthen its efforts to increase these students educational performance while at the same time diversifying educational content. The Academy's intent is to eventually serve students from Kindergarten to High School. In its first year, which began in August 1999, the Academy enrolled only students in kindergarten through the 2nd grade, adding on average one grade per year during its initial five years in operation. In 2000-2001 the Academy will add a 3rd grade. The number of students the Academy can serve is limited to 90 students. When these places are unfilled, students will be selected for admission by lot. Interested parents should, therefore, register the children as soon as possible.

The number of students by year and grade level the Ida B. Wells Community Academy can serve currently is limited. 
 

50	Year One	1999-2000	Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd
90	Year Two	2000-2001	Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd
120	Year Three	2001-2002	Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th
150	Year Four	2002-2003	Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th
180	Year Five	2003-2004	Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th

Enrollment preference will be given to continuing Academy students and their siblings. As stated above, other students will be accepted by lottery, provided space is available.

Why Should Parents Enroll their Children in the Ida B. Wells Community Academy?
The Academy's personalized educational program, curricular structure and delivery system are major program elements. The Academy's emphasis on high academic expectations, moral and social responsibility, and increased proficiency test ratings will help influence parents to enroll their child(ren). Furthermore, the Academy involves parents in meaningful activities throughout the Academy's start-up and operational phases. These activities include teaching, administrative and governance functions, and committee assignments of various sorts, e.g., discipline, curriculum, admission, and faculty hiring.

The Ida B. Wells Community Academy's Educational Program and Goals
The Academy provides an education that is nurturing, intellectually stimulating and intended to imbue in its students a mutual respect for learning proficiency, competence and for the attainment of knowledge of their history, culture, traditions and values. Students will learn to appreciate themselves, their fellow students, their families, and their community. Most importantly, the Academy seeks to establish a learning community and environment that is supported by a curriculum that relies on the learners' experiences at home, in their neighborhood, and in the society. It is structured to produce measurable performance outcomes in reading, writing, mathematics, social studies and the natural sciences. The Academy promotes learning activities based on individual student interests and needs and allows students to grow at their own pace and enhance their own achievement expectations. Frequently the Academy will assess itself and report to parents how the overall curricular program and educational process is progressing as well as how well students are performing based on national, state and city norms. The Academy regularly assesses teacher performance, learning obstacles, student rights and responsibilities, student government and parental and community involvement.

The Ida B. Wells Community Academy's Educational Philosophy and Operational Imperatives
The Academy's educational philosophy emphasizes a program structure and instructional design with these essential ingredients and more:

• A required 6-week Summer Education Program that extends the academic year from 180 to 210 days to   enhance the students’ learning potential;
• Small classes (a 15 to 1 student-teacher ratio) that are interdisciplinary and culturally integrative; these classes are designed to increase at all grade levels the amount students learn;
• Team-teaching emphasis that stresses, where appropriate, using parents, interns, student teachers, retired teachers, and professionals as part-time teachers;
• Individualized instruction, learning through doing (an active vs. passive instructional design);
• Meeting students where they are culturally, socially and academically and then moving them to higher educational levels;
• Self learning projects that are student or teacher initiated and conducted first in-school and later, based on student maturity, assigned as out-of-school projects; 
• A “unidisciplinary” or holistic model that allows students to experience how one set of basic skills directly relates to other basic skills, i.e., reading to mathematics, geography to social sciences, mathematics to science, culture to history, and how all these relate to being educated in general.

"The element of race does not enter here. It is merely a matter of exercising common sense in approaching people through their environment in order to deal with conditions as they are rather than as you would like to see them or imagine that they are. There may be a difference in method of attack, but the principle remains the same. . . . History does not furnish a case of the elevation of a people by ignoring the thought and aspirations of the people thus served."