Our Curriculum
Upon enrollment in W.O.K.E. Academy, each student will receive an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), as well as an assigned academic and psychological counselor. This course of action speaks to our school’s acknowledgement of individual difference. Appropriate accommodations and modifications are built into our small class sizes, making the curriculum relevant to each individual student. Each student’s specific learning needs and objectives will be addressed and mapped. We believe that each student has the ability to succeed, but that the path to success might look different for each student. Students will be given individualized attention in order to promote individual achievement. Our curriculum also offers specific paths to accommodate student’s skills, interests, and needs.
Because our school is started and run by teachers, these decisions are made democratically. Issues like class sizes, classes taught, curriculum matters are brought before smaller committees of discipline based teachers. They are then shared between departments and confirmed with administration.
Decisions, committees, faculty, staff, students, and teachers share their communications in a transparent matter. This is especially important because each student has an IEP, so the student check-ins would reveal information vital to their progress and the curriculum and classes necessary for them to succeed.
Part of our rationale behind our individualized curriculum comes from examining the federal education moves made in the past thirty to forty years. If we look back at "A Nation at Risk," we see that it called for a core academic curriculum for all students but did not gain further momentum until the introduction of the No Child Left Behind Act in the early 2000s, which was the most “powerful accomplishment of the school standards movement." We acknowledge that the Common Core State Standards are a crucial basis for a comprehensive and rigorous curriculum, and our teachers continuously pull from the standards, as we believe they provide an equitable base upon which our students should be able to land. Of course, some of these standards do not take specific educational needs or learning disabilities into consideration, so applying the stakes and guidelines from the Universal Design for Learning allows the teachers to teach students, not curriculum.
Part of our rationale behind our individualized curriculum comes from examining the federal education moves made in the past thirty to forty years. If we look back at "A Nation at Risk," we see that it called for a core academic curriculum for all students but did not gain further momentum until the introduction of the No Child Left Behind Act in the early 2000s, which was the most “powerful accomplishment of the school standards movement." We acknowledge that the Common Core State Standards are a crucial basis for a comprehensive and rigorous curriculum, and our teachers continuously pull from the standards, as we believe they provide an equitable base upon which our students should be able to land. Of course, some of these standards do not take specific educational needs or learning disabilities into consideration, so applying the stakes and guidelines from the Universal Design for Learning allows the teachers to teach students, not curriculum.
We echo the choice movement in our autonomy in administration, teaching, and curriculum, which has been made dependent on market-based governance, which motivates the educational consumer, not the state. The market comes before politics. The individual has a place in capitalism, which seems paradoxical, but the ability to choose what you’d like to do is truly capitalistic. We want our students to be able to get an equitable education along with recognizing the economic climate in which we live and have the chance to thrive within it.
W.O.K.E. Academy strongly believes in limiting government testing, regulation, and interference. We hope to present an effective and bold example of what schools could be. Part of the curriculum that goes beyond government testing and regulation is our desire to tie our curriculum to the environment in which we are built. We give back to the community by providing adult classes and vocational workshops, like resume builders and counseling for finding jobs. We like the model of the Ron Finley Project, which empowers the community to take back the space and recognize accountability for where they are and what it looks like and what it produces, and having the literal image of a self produced garden leads the community to see themselves as able to grow and become strong and self sufficient.
W.O.K.E. Academy strongly believes in limiting government testing, regulation, and interference. We hope to present an effective and bold example of what schools could be. Part of the curriculum that goes beyond government testing and regulation is our desire to tie our curriculum to the environment in which we are built. We give back to the community by providing adult classes and vocational workshops, like resume builders and counseling for finding jobs. We like the model of the Ron Finley Project, which empowers the community to take back the space and recognize accountability for where they are and what it looks like and what it produces, and having the literal image of a self produced garden leads the community to see themselves as able to grow and become strong and self sufficient.
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