Becoming Collegiate Academy engages all students in a learning experience that requires them to use critical thinking and reasoning to make deep meaning of diverse and complex ideas. Students are assessed on their ability to apply, analyze, and use their knowledge in creative ways across contexts.
All Becoming Collegiate Academy teachers and staff are highly qualified, trained, and focused on preparing each student for success in college and life. All instruction is data-driven and intentionally planned to meet the needs of our diverse learners.
A core component of the Becoming Educational Program is an increased and prioritized focus on literacy instruction in the early grades. We prioritize literacy acquisition within our daily schedule (in K-2, 195 minutes Monday -Thursday and 155 minutes on Friday) per day as compared to 90 minutes per day in a local traditional literacy program for elementary.
All of Becoming Collegiate Academy’s students are motivated to develop a unique positive sense of self and purpose, as well as, a deep appreciation and respect for the identities of others; these diverse identities are celebrated, nurtured, and leveraged to meaningfully support learning.
Becoming’s inclusive environment is relationship rich: students are deeply known and respected by adults and peers, collaborate with each other, and form relationships that nurture empathy, foster belonging, support well-being, and builds social capital.
At Becoming Collegiate Academy, we model, teach, and celebrate the use of our core values of one love, community, identity, excellence, and pride. We celebrate students through our community circle, which is an integral part of creating and developing a strong sense of belonging to the Becoming community.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are a source of accomplishment and great pride, having graduated so many people who are culturally aware and intellectually sound. The HBCU model of high academic rigor in a supportive learning environment has led to HBCU’s holding 9 of the top 10 colleges slots for producing African American Ph.D. earners. In addition, 70% of African American dentists and physicians and 51% of our nation’s African American public-school teachers received their bachelor’s degrees from Historically Black Colleges.
Becoming Collegiate Academy believes there is something incredibly important about the HBCU experience that must be celebrated, protected, and replicated in our students daily K-12 experience.
The Becoming Collegiate Academy House System provides every student with a teacher-led, supportive peer group to function as a unit of encouragement and accountability. We believe that every child in our community has the right to feel seen, feel safe, be celebrated for the value they personally bring to the whole community, and to be further developed to become the best versions of themselves. Students are afforded 60 minutes daily to foster community through creative tasks, community service activities, and school-wide House competitions.