Howard Road Academy

Howard Road Academy, a charter school in Washington, D.C., still has room available and would like to invite parents to enroll their children in the school for the 2010-2011 school year.

Enrollment is now open to all students residing in the respective school district. Howard Road Academy can accommodate students entering into kindergarten to 8th grade. It is imperative that parents submit enrollment applications for each student planning to enroll, as early as possible.

Howard Road Academy implements a thematic, interactive program that incorporates multiple learning styles. Mornings are dedicated to building solid skills in the core subject areas of reading, writing, math and science. While the afternoons are reserved for foreign language, music, physical education and a daily 90-minute block of Howard Road Academy’s Paragon curriculum.

The Paragon curriculum is interdisciplinary, engaging, discovery-based and multi-cultural. The hands-on approach of Paragon addresses the multiple intelligences and individual learning styles. This enhances students’ communication skills, analysis and self-expression.

Howard Road Academy also offers an emotionally and physically safe learning environment, access to computers and technology, committed and qualified teachers and staff and encourage parental involvement. Teachers will conduct regular goal setting conferences with individual children and their parents, to ensure the student’s success.

To pre-enroll click here.

From the Desk of Stiles X. Simmons, Chief Academic Officer

As your new Chief Academic Officer for Howard Road Academy (HRA), it is my privilege and the highlight of my career to be given the opportunity to lead and learn from a group of educators who care immensely about the academic and social emotional development of children. I am honored to be in a position to contribute to the betterment of my community and society as a whole. As the great Dr. King stated, “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity, importance and must be taken up with painstaking excellence.” In my mind, we should all strive to make a positive difference in the lives of others, especially our children. This is a responsibility that I have taken seriously throughout my professional career.

I began my career in education in 1997 as an elementary teacher at Mann Learning Community (MLC) with Detroit Public Schools. I worked with students at different grade levels and from culturally diverse backgrounds. During my tenure at (MLC), we were recognized as a “Golden Apple” school as well as a grade “A” school for three consecutive years. In 2007, I left the classroom to serve as a Reading First Literacy Coach at MAAT Academy located on the far eastside of Detroit. During my time as a literacy coach, I provided ongoing job-embedded professional development for K-3 teachers and instructional assistants. As a result of our efforts, students at MAAT Academy achieved tremendous gains in the area of reading. In fact, we were recognized by our Superintendent as one of the “top ten most improved” schools in the district. I then decided to broaden my horizons, so I sought and earned a position as principal of Baldwin Elementary School located in Baldwin, Michigan. During my tenure as principal, I successfully led several school-wide reform initiatives—differentiated reading instruction, response to intervention (RtI), and writer’s workshop. The successful implementation of these initiatives resulted in significant student achievement gains. In fact, we were recognized by the Michigan Department of Education as a grade “B” school, after being a grade “C” school for the previous three years.

I fully intend to marshal my talents, knowledge, and skills to help bring about the change necessary to ensure that our students, at HRA, receive the high-quality education that they need and deserve. But, as you know, meaningful change in education occurs when every stakeholder is energized, mobilized, and working towards increased student achievement and performance. I am confident that together, we will accomplish the task at hand.

Stiles X. Simmons

Chief Academic Officer

A group of teachers, curriculum specialists and Mosaica executives gathered for the Mosaica Math Summit on May 4 and 5. The summit focused on ways to increase math achievement at Mosaica schools around the world. Dawn Linden, Mosaica’s Director of Education explained the purpose of bringing these educators together: “Mathematics achievement is high on our list of priorities and we’re looking for innovative, effective strategies to increase conceptual understanding, and to ensure that we’re reaching each student every day.”

Referencing the Final Report of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Mathematics Advisory Panel (2008), summit attendees reviewed various math programs’ strengths and weaknesses and explored successful methods used in the United States and by countries that performed well on TIMMS, with the goal of adopting best practices from around the globe, raising math interest, and making math an integral part of school culture. Michael J. Connelly, Mosaica’s Chief Executive Officer, announced the rationale at the beginning of the summit: “Literacy and numeracy are the twin tools for international success on the global stage of the 21st century. Our schools are committed to high levels of student achievement and the development of life-long learners who are comfortable participating on that stage. Following our Literacy Summit, which launched our highly successful Literacy Initiative two years ago, this Math Summit is the both the culmination of years of research and planning and the beginning of the implementation phase.”

As a result of the decisions taken at the summit, Mosaica Education will implement a system-wide Math Initiative beginning in the fall of 2009. This initiative focuses on placing Math Coaches in every school, increasing the number of high-quality math teachers at every grade, exploring ways to offer alternative certifications to math teachers coming from science and industry, and bringing math specialists to upper elementary grades. The initiative will also adjust the daily schedule to allow for 90 minutes of uninterrupted math in all grades; provide additional professional development for teachers to cultivate confident implementation of the new program; develop math clubs and competitions in all schools; and – perhaps most importantly – ensure that learning math will be FUN!

Dr. Dawn Eidelman, Mosaica’s Co-Founder and President of its Paragon Division commented, “The beauty of our new initiative is that it will augment project-based learning by linking mathematics more integrally to the history of great ideas and great people in world culture through our Paragon curriculum. To innovate purposefully and to design the future, we must build upon the lessons from our past.”