News Article

​By any measure, South Arbor Charter Academy is a recipe for a School of Excellence. Since opening in the fall of 1999, the educational community has progressively increased their academic performance and set a lofty standard for the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti metropolitan area. The 2011 State of Michigan Top to Bottom list placed the school at the 94th percentile – 3rd among all NHA schools in Michigan. NHA School of the Year in 2008, South Arbor has consistently been at the top of the charts for student rate of growth and the percentage of students meeting or exceeding established annual growth measures on the Northwest Evaluation Associations Measure of Academic Progress. So what’s the secret sauce, you say?

 

South Arbor began its life as a school with Miriam Snyder at the helm. With a background in international schools, private schools, and as an executive at Bank of America, Mrs. Snyder defined immediately for the community the standard for a School of Excellence. Her requirements were simple – no nonsense, urgency, and a student focus that had a moral focus. High behavioral and academic expectations quickly became the norm for everyone; no excuses.

 

When Tim DiLaura assumed the Principal’s chair in 2003, he brought with him an engineer’s mind for detail and an insatiable thirst for data. Even as NHA was still in its infancy with assessments and data, Mr. DiLaura was dissecting the MEAP to understand gaps in the educational program. He would eventually create his MAP Tracker spreadsheet that has since become the model across all of NHA. Teachers and administrators use the tool to track student growth and gain insight on their learning needs. This work, combined with a dedication to best practices and process helped Tim move the school’s level of proficiency from around 50% to almost 90%!

 

Kim Bondy is now South Arbor’s Principal, but she is not new to the team. Here since the beginning and most recently the Dean of Curriculum for the Intermediate Hall, she was asked about the amazing success of the school and what, in her opinion, were the key drivers of that success. The passion of her commitment flowed in the excitement of her words. Mrs. Bondy immediately cited a dedication to the use of student data and evidence of student learning, and spoke of empowering their teachers to use it creatively to meet the needs of their students. Focusing on areas where students were in need of support or simply scaffolding, teachers created mini-units, provided for extra practice, planned additional focus into lessons, planned for small group instruction, experimented with different approaches and were encouraged to share their results in staff meetings. These activities and conversations helped to foster a reflective environment with teachers self-identifying and engaging in a more personalized approach to their own professional development. The intense focus on student performance allowed for a similarly realistic assessment of teacher performance and needs.

 

Kim augmented this approach this past year with the addition of interim assessments in mathematics and providing time for teacher collaboration around the results to create classroom action plans. Armed with a balanced portfolio of assessments, South Arbor is very detailed about the processes and time allocated to their Professional Learning Communities. Collaboration is not just an idea; it is their way of doing business. Planning is precise. Instruction is clear.

 

Parent support for the school and the culture of high expectations is extraordinary. Mrs. Bondy says that her parents are “educated and informed” and “part of the life of the school every day.”

Of course, none of this gets done without building relationships with kids. Five years ago knowing that things needed to change, Kim instituted the FISH philosophy and program into the middle school. High academic standards were not enough. She wanted for her students a place they wanted to come to everyday – a place where it was, as Mr. DiLaura said, “Cool to be smart.” This has since been replaced by the STRIVE program which they developed:

 

Success
Truth
Respect
Integrity
Values
Encourage

 

So what’s the recipe? At South Arbor, it’s an eye for the detail; an intense focus on student performance and progress; a disciplined, reflective, and highly skilled team of professional educators who embrace process; well-informed and supportive parents; and hard-working kids who believe that “It’s cool to be smart.” Any way you measure South Arbor, it measures up to success.