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At SPARK Academy, we believe that STEM education should be available to all students, regardless of background.

SPARK Academy at Cowart Elementary has been a school of choice since its pilot during the 2016-2017 school year. Our school is open for any student in the Athens City School District to attend. Each spring, as parents enroll or reenroll their child for school, families are given the option of attending the school they are zoned for or enter a lottery for their school of choice within the school district. Students who are selected to attend SPARK Academy are chosen strategically to assure that the student population demographics at the school level reflect the demographics of the district as a whole.

Prior to our 2016-2017 pilot school year, we developed a variety of recruitment strategies for attracting a diverse student body for SPARK. We created informational flyers in both English and Spanish and distributed them at each elementary school’s end of the year award ceremony, which always has very high parent attendance. We also shared flyers with local daycares with students that would enter the Athens City Schools system the following fall. As STEM was a new concept for our school system, parents were also invited to attend one of two informational meetings held at our central office on June 10, 2016, where parents and children able to participate in cross-curricular STEM-related activities and ask questions regarding the new school.

The success of SPARK Academy, coupled with the increased growth of the school district led to each of the elementary schools in our district to become themed academies: STEM, computer science, fine arts, and health and wellness. For the past two school years, the district has hosted an elementary school showcase, where each school is allowed to share information about their schools’ programs. This continues to help our school attract students who are not already zoned to attend SPARK Academy.

Within our school, there are a variety of outreach strategies to assure that we support participation in STEM activities and learning by underrepresented student groups. First and foremost, all students at SPARK Academy participate in integrated, STEM-focused and Project Based units within their self-contained classrooms. Students also work in both the SPARK Lab and Learning Lab Media Center weekly.

In the SPARK Lab, students participate in extended units of study in STEM areas that go beyond what students are able to do in the classroom. The SPARK Lab is an additional weekly class that all students attend, led by STEM Specialist. The amount of time for each grade level varies, due to the developmental and curricular needs of the students. Kindergarten students come for forty-five minutes; first grade students come for fifty minutes; second grade students come for one hour and ten minutes; and third grade students come for one hour and fifteen minutes each week. The units of study are developed to coincide with the science curriculum being taught in the classroom each nine weeks. All students in the school have access to this direct instruction in science, engineering, robotics, hydroponics, and 3D printing. Included here as evidence are the documents outlining the year’s study in SPARK Lab, by month and by topic.

In our Learning Lab Media Center, the media specialist has designed a schedule that allows all classrooms the opportunity to both use the print resources and the digital tools available to teachers and students as resources for project enhancement and enrichment. She provides direct instruction to all students on the use of green screen recording, stop-motion animation, coding, and creating in Seesaw. She also facilitates Breakout Edu games and research, based on teacher requests and needs. To that end, our media specialist created a website that outlines the offerings for each grade level, as well as a request form for teacher needs.

Since our enrollment in families that identify as American Indian is lower than the district average, this year, we chose to focus our outreach to our Spanish speaking families. Our faculty held a school-level informational meeting for Spanish-speaking families this fall. Community members were present at the meeting to provide translation services, allowing parents to ask questions specifically about our programs at SPARK. We plan on doing another parent informational night for Spanish-speaking families during the spring semester, with the hope of also providing STEM-focused activities for families to participate in together, to help continue to raise awareness of STEM education and the opportunities we have at SPARK Academy.

We pride ourselves in the fact that SPARK Academy provides STEM learning opportunities for all students. We will continue to participate in the district-wide kindergarten informational night each spring to highlight the opportunities we provide at our school. Based on the success of our Spanish Language Information Meeting this past fall, we plan on having a second meeting this spring, as well as one much earlier in the 2020-2021 school year.

Our goal for enrollment is to have four classrooms of each grade level in grades K-3 with twenty students in each classroom. With that level of enrollment, our school receives full funding from the state for a full-time principal, counselor, and media specialist. Before the pilot year in 2016-2017, Cowart Elementary School was at risk of losing those positions and funding. Because of the popularity of the STEM focus of SPARK Academy, we have increased enrollment to our desired levels, and have provided the catalyst for the other three elementary schools in our district to transition into themed academies.