Notable Achievements

Over the past three years the school has actively focused on ensuring that the school had in place a guaranteed and viable curriculum for all subjects and in every grade level. School wide curriculum action teams were formed around subject areas. These teams drew teachers from all grade levels to adopt N-12 standards that were research based and internationally benchmarked. Over the course of three years the school has transformed its curriculum to a standards-based model that utilizes the Common Core State Standards and NGSS to drive its core subjects. The other seven subject areas have adopted international standard sets that provide our students with opportunities for assessment and feedback focused on student growth.

As we prepare for full Standards-based alignment and reporting in the 2019-2020 school year, there has been a focus on developing high quality units with common assessment. At ASFM, we have adopted the Understanding by Design process and house our planning process on Atlas Rubicon. Significant professional development time has been dedicated to exploring each stage of this backwards planning process in order to ensure fidelity and a common understanding of the related expectations.

One of the key areas of our strategic plan revolved around the areas Diversity and Inclusion and this initiative has been one of the school’s greatest highlights in recent years. The school has metamorphosed from an institution that extolled its high standards yet where students struggled to a school that has fully embraced the inclusion model. A robust infrastructure of learning specialists and resource teachers and coordinators has been put in place to ensure that students’ learning needs are identified and adequately supported. Comprehensive data analysis is utilized to drive our Responsive to Intervention model which is recognized internationally as the most avant-garde and research based student support system. Response to Intervention (RTI) is a multi-tier approach to the early identification and support of students with learning and behavior needs. The RTI process begins with high-quality instruction and universal screening of all children in the general education classroom.

ASFM believes that all students can be engaged in an educational experience that compels them to "Live Curious and Go Beyond" as they discover their own “Moonshots”. To bring this vision to life the school’s Innovation Department has focused on Blended Learning, Inspiring Spaces, and STEM. The annual Live Curious, Go Beyond Tech and Innovation Conference has become the largest and most successful innovation conference in Latin America. In 2018 a total of 12 learning spaces were purposefully re-designed at ASFM and plans are underway to ensure that by 2020 there will be a representative sample of redesigned classrooms N-12 in order to make scalable re-designs. Recognizing the importance of STEM, ASFM has implemented STEM Play for Preschool, a HS Near Space Program, Grades 1-12 First Inspires Robotics Program and Maker Space training and development. To fully support these programs ASFM has successfully designed and built a elementary science lab and a state of the art high school STEM lab.

Coaching has become an important part of the culture at ASFM in recent years. The school has moved to a much more intentionally driven model with teachers actively seeking out coaches to support their goals, to provide feedback and to engage in planning for learning. Two coaching positions for Mathematics and Science were added in the Elementary School to help assist our teachers in adopting the new standards and curriculum. Coaches have also become an integral part of the PD program at ASFM, both in delivering PD and in supporting the sustainability of initiatives.

This year marks the third year of our Eagle Parent University (EPU) Program. The EPU was created out of the Values Strategic pillar to enhance the parent/school relationship through offering courses, seminars, speakers, and workshops on topics pivotal towards building a healthy school community. The EPU has been enormously successful in attracting world class speakers on a wide spectrum of topics and concerns. Our EPU program has been absolutely instrumental in engaging parents as we have successfully rolled out our strategic plan. The EPU has established and fortified external alliances and relationships that have anchored ASFM as a leader of the educational community within Nuevo Leon. The EPU has also found itself serving as a model in the Latin American region for schools who are looking to replicate our method of success in parent engagement.

This was the third year of ASFM's “Edge of Excellence” annual giving campaign. Over the course of three years the campaign has raised over 32 million Mexican Pesos (approximately USD $1.6mm) that has enabled the school to provide our students with innovative educational experiences that support our vision and mission. These projects include a STEM Lab , a Maker Pod area, a Creative Playspace, an Outdoor Amphitheater, a Flexible Learning Space in the Elementary School, a Business Incubator and Eco-Patios in the MSHS and a Sensory Motor Gym. Funds for next year have already been raised for the construction of an Audio-Visual Production Studio and an Adventure Challenge Course. We are proud to announce that ASFM won the first ever international school "CASE Latin America Platinum Award" in the Fundraising Category for its Edge of Excellence campaign and initiative. During the 2nd semester of this school year, the London Consulting Group provided the school with a 20 week, pro-bono consultancy that allowed the school to review and improve the campaign. The Edge of Excellence campaign allows our school to remain avante-garde in its facilities while simultaneously ensuring that the school’s revenue streams are still focused on anchor budgetary priorities.

This was the final year of a 3 year roll out of a banded, mission-based salary, compensation and benefits program used with all full time teachers and educational personnel.

This system impacts the entire community in a very positive manner by giving much of the earning power and control over to each and every teacher. With this system, ASFM’s hopes and desires are to attract and retain the very best educators from around the world!

Compensation and benefits Task Forces (Phase I), made up of teachers, board members, and administrators, as well as the ASFM School Board, were created during the 2015-2016 school year to develop a new compensation and benefits system that will help ASFM recruit, attract, and retain top educators from Monterrey, from Mexico and from around the world. The process was guided by Dr. Michael W. Adams, the ASFM Superintendent, with the outside support and consulting of Mr. John Littleford.

A Compensation Task Force Phase II, also made up of teachers and administrators, was created to work on revisions to this system during the 2016-2017 school year in hope to further improve the structure, the rubric, timelines, flowcharts, and the alignment with the supervision and evaluation process from Nursery to 12th grade. As of August of 2017, this new and restructured system has been in place for all ASFM full time educators.

The ASFM banded salary scale is mission and vision based and recognizes and rewards teacher proficiency, excellence, results and commitment to student achievement and to the school. Partial recognition is also given to educational degrees and teaching experience, but the majority of a teacher’s salary and compensation will depend on their day-to-day work as an educator and on their students’ overall achievement and success. ASFM uses the following salary and compensation bands:

o Entry

o Professional (Includes an area for “Developing”) o Accomplished

o Distinguished

o Master Teacher