The North Star Difference
North Star Academy has committed to preparing each student to succeed in college and life beyond. Over the past 14 years, North Star has grown from serving 72 students in 1997 to now serving more than 1,600 students in grades K through 12. North Star will eventually serve 5,000 Newark students in 14 campuses across the city. In order to guarantee the same high quality education for every child, North Star supports student achievement with seven pillars of educational excellence.
INSTRUCTION
Without great teaching, nothing else matters. The first four pillars push every North Star teacher to continually improve and excel.
Data-Driven Instruction
If you teach and students do not learn, is it really teaching? You cannot know if students are learning at the highest levels if you don’t assess that learning. Data-driven instruction, then, becomes to road map for rigor: it defines the bar for instruction and gives teachers, leaders and students the tools to learn from their mistakes and improve. Over 1,000 schools have followed North Star’s data-driven instructional model, leading to significant gains in achievement as captured by the recently published book Driven by Data.
Planning
You wouldn’t go on a road trip without first mapping out where you’re headed. Thoughtful lesson and unit planning does the same thing for teaching. Across all grade levels, teachers have regular planning meetings with North Star’s instructional leaders, helping them prepare for upcoming lessons and anticipate problems before they occur.
Observation and Feedback
A tennis player never got better by a semi-annual observation & review of their performance. The best coaching happens on-the-spot in repeated small chunks. North Star follows this model by building schedules for instructional leaders that ensure that all teachers are observed at least weekly and receive prompt feedback that is actionable.
Professional Development
Without data, planning and feedback, professional development becomes a series of isolated workshops that have little impact on instruction. When connected to the other three instructional pillars, however, it becomes an important means of teacher development. North Star conducts intensive summer and school-year professional development, believing that everyone can continue to grow and develop into the leading teachers of our nation. Many of our veteran teachers are highlighted in the recently published book Teach Like a Champion.
|
CULTURE
Without great culture, student learning cannot thrive.
Student Culture
Mornings begin with Community Circle—a school-wide gathering where students are instilled with a love of learning and receive messages of college and core values. This motivational start is coupled with tightly built behavior management systems to ensure all students are fully engaged and on task throughout the day.
Staff Culture
At North Star, we work to ensure our teachers are treated professionally and get the support they need to succeed. Each teacher meets frequently with an instructional leader to ensure his/her own professional growth. In addition, North Star knows this work is incredibly hard. While we will never sacrifice high quality instruction, we are continually seeking ways to make this work more sustainable for our teachers.
Developing Instructional Leaders
Principals do not lead a school on their own. A strong cohort of teachers who also lead instructionally sets up a culture where everyone is growing. North Star intentionally develops this leadership pipeline for our strongest teachers. Selected teachers have the opportunity to get trained all aspects of instructional leadership and to apply their work in the direct supervision of teachers.
|
