As we welcome our new and returning students, I want to share some of the highlights from our first school year. It has been so exciting to see the New American Academy vision come to life, and to experience the creation of a true learning community. The input and support of you, The New American Academy community, has been a critical part of our success, and we hope that together we can truly transform an education system desperately in need of change.

Educationally Yours,
Shimon Waronker

Our First Year

We were continually impressed by the hard work and progress from both students and teachers in our Kindergarten and First Grade classrooms. It was both inspiring and informative to see the hallmarks of the TNAA model in action, including our team-based approach, daily ninety minute team meetings, weekly reflection time, instant support for new teachers, and a Master Teacher in each classroom.

Over the course of our six thematic units (Communications, Transportation, Medicine, Energy, Engineering, and Agriculture/Husbandry), we explored language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and art by asking questions about the world around us. Students took ownership of their learning by asking questions about the world around them, including everything from "How do bananas arrive at my home through land, sea, and air?" to "How does a flashlight work?" 

As a means of gauging the efficacy of our model, we have been conducting various short-term and long-term studies of student progress. While it will be some time before we can measure the full effect of a TNAA education on our students, the first results have been very promising. According the Fountas & Pinnell measures of literacy, by year's end, 70% of Kindergartners and 60% of First Graders were reading at or above grade level by year's end. It's difficult to compare these scores to other Kindergartners and First Graders, as most schools do not do standardized tests in these grades. However, on average, only about 40% of New York City public school students from grades three to eight read at grade level. Even in our first year, our students have demonstrated above average progress.

We are beyond pleased with our test scores, especially as the first year of any new school is expected to be a tumultuous one. The New American Academy is no exception to this rule-- while we saw great success in both grades, we also faced our share of difficulties, especially in the first grade. It became apparent that while the Kindergarten's team was finding great success in running the model, our first grade team was not producing the same results in creating a classroom culture and moving our students academically.

This eventually resulted in an intervention by administration, personnel changes, and the hiring of a new, more suitable, Master Teacher. During these changes, we gave our first grade parents the option to withdraw from the school as we addressed the problems in the classroom. We were heartened by the fact that the majority of our students remained in the school, and by the end of the year, we saw a great turnaround in the classroom. We are confident that this success will continue to build into the next school year.

Lessons Learned

The New American Academy is a learning organization that puts the utmost emphasis on reflection. We do not claim (as no organization honestly can) that we do not make mistakes; rather, we take great effort to identify our mistakes and use them to inform our future planning.

Our experiences led us to completely revamp our hiring process. We learned that the model works best with the team coming into the classroom with a solid foundation in teaching in early childhood, and that the entire model hinges on the ability of our Master Teachers to lead and inspire. We therefore remodeled our six step hiring process to seek candidates with the pedagogic, leadership, and collaborative abilities to bring results in our classroom.

Our hiring process was not the only part of our year that underwent an overhaul thanks to our lessons learned. While we had overwhelmingly positive reviews of our first summer training, when planning our second one, we listened to our teachers' feedback about what they needed to best succeed in the classroom. Changes included more time spent learning how to reflect constantly and consistently, and more time synthesizing classroom systems and structures.

Scaling

Due to the changes in leadership at the Department of Education, our plans for scale have been adjusted. We believe that this is actually a benefit to the model in the long run, and we are excited for the opportunity to spend some time polishing the model.

Moreover, our experiences in our first year have shown us that for the model to succeed in expansion, we need exemplary leaders well versed in the model to take positions as Master Teachers and Headmasters at new schools. As we grow, we are confident in our ability to develop this leadership, but it will take time. With our flagship school acting as our main hub, we look forward to expansion in New York City and beyond in the coming years.

Summer Training

As we did last year, we began our five week summer training program with a week outside the city. This year, we brought new and returning teachers from our Second Grade, First Grade, and new Kindergarten class to the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, MA. Teachers discussed transformative thinking in education with Professor Richard Elmore, refined our reflective practice model with Professor Eileen McGowan, and took part in an intensive seminar covering teamwork and communication with Professor Barry Jentz. We also took time for team building activities, including taking to the Charles River on a crew boat as an exercise in teamwork and synchronicity. 

We returned to Brooklyn for the rest of training, which included a deeper exploration of the shared values of The New American Academy: Humility, Empowerment, Aspiration, Responsibility, and Teamwork (HEART). The school fosters these values both in students and adults. Teachers were not only introduced to these ideas, but invited to define them in greater detail in ways that will dictate the future of the school. Discussion of our school's purpose and mission then dovetailed into planning of classroom management and curriculum between teams.

For more information about our summer training, please see our blog!

The Intrepid Museum

We are pleased to announced a partnership with the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space museum in Manhattan, a military and maritime history museum based out of the World War II aircraft carrier the USS Intrepid. Our teachers spent three days at the Intrepid planning the year's curriculum and working with museum educators this June, and our students will be visiting the museum six times throughout the school year, each time focusing on one of our thematic units.

Visitors to The New American Academy

The New American Academy has had a number of distinguished visitors since opening in September. Notable visitors have included:

• Professors and grad students from Harvard University, Columbia University, the University of Washington, and the University of Seoul
• Members of the press including reporters from the Daily News and the New York Times 
• Members of the NYCDOE Innovation Zone staff, and educators from other innovative iZone schools across the city
• Executive members of the United Federation of Teachers
• Joel Klein, former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education
• Shael Polakow-Suransky, chief academic officer of the NYCDOE
• Caroline Kennedy and directors from the Robin Hood Foundation
• Tom Hassan, Principal of Phillips Exeter Academy
• Catherine Petillon, Attaché for Educational Affairs at the French Embassy
• Dr Pilar Fernandez Gonzalez, Education Attaché for the Spanish Consulate
• Rabbi Chaim Brovender, prominent educational scholar and founder of the Academy for Torah Initiatives and Directions in Jewish Education
• Jenna Bush Hager, author and correspondent for NBC's Today show

We already are looking forward to prominent visitors this fall, including United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew. Regular visits to The New American Academy will resume in October. Please contact Nick Ackerman (nackerman@schools.nyc.gov) for more information about visiting

Supporting The New American Academy

The New American Academy wants to send a big Thank You!  to everyone who has donated to us over this past year! Without your support there’s no way we could have accomplished all we did, nor given our students half as many opportunities. We'd like to give special thanks to our founding supporters:

• Joseph and Catherine Liberatore
• Joseph Kazarnovsky
• The Edward John & Patricia Rosenwald Foundation
• Northrup Grumman Corp.
• Tim Winter
• Mark and Laurie Orman
• Paul Nelson
• Max Duckworth
• Andrew Kiss
• Nina Jezic

The New American Academy model is a normal public school that operates cheaper than the normal model. All of the programs that service our school are funded by the NYC DOE-- notably, we suffered a 17% budget cut this year without suffering any layoff thanks to the economy of our model.  However, we need outside financial support to continue refining the model and work towards scale. The only way we can continue to improve The New American Academy at PS 770 and establish more schools in our model, is through future donations from gracious contributors such as yourself. As we begin our second year with three grades and one hundred and forty students, please consider making a donation to The New American Academy! Donation information is available on our website.

Monetary donations are not the only way you can give to our school community! We are always on the lookout for those willing to volunteer their time and services for our students, teachers, and administration. If you are interested in volunteering in any way, please contact Director of Operations Nick Ackerman at nackerman@schools.nyc.gov.

Finally, the most important way you can support The New American Academy is by spreading our vision of education. Please take a moment to review our new brochure, found here, which was created with the generous pro bono support of an incredibly talented marketing team at MetLife. Please feel free to spread it to friends, family, and anyone you think may be interested.

MetLife is currently supporting us with a large overhaul of our website that should be up by the Winter. In the meantime, our summer intern Michael Wolf produced a wonderful interim website with much more information than our previous site. Find it at www.thenewamericanacademy.wordpress.com!

We hope you are as excited as we are for the upcoming year at The New American Academy. Please reply to this e-mail with any questions or suggestions, and we look forward to our next update!