AIMSupt. Monthly
August 2020 | Issue 8
Greetings,
Welcome to a new school year that’s unlike any back to school season we’ve experienced before. Back to school is often a time filled with excitement to return to our school homes and to reconnect with our school community after a long summer break. Although this time we will be participating from our individual homes, our heads of school are committed to creating a sense of community and home for our students and families in this new environment.
When we first shifted to distance learning in the spring, the resilient spirit of our school community made it possible to adapt to meet the new needs of our families, and together we learned to thrive through new challenges. We are excited to kick off another year of serving our students and families with the same high-quality learning and remain committed to making the best of any situation. We cannot wait to see what the year has in store as we all share this experience together.
Welcoming Our Students Back to School Virtually
To prepare for a successful start to the year, our teachers received two weeks of training and preparation for the new school year. For our families, we held drive-thru pick up days for students to receive laptops, books, musical instruments, and other learning materials. To date we’ve given out over 1,000 computers for student use. Additionally, 75% of our families qualify for free and reduced lunch and depend on school meals for their students. To support our families, we launched our weekly drive-thru lunch distribution days where we distributed 100 lunches just on our first day.
Now that school is officially back in session, our students have a full weekly learning schedule with over 5+ hours of daily live instruction and small group study, along with an hour of daily individual tutoring. Our parents and guardians will receive training on how to use the online system that students will be using this year and have already received this year’s curriculum. Our additional support programs like ELD and Special Education have also begun. We are also looking to set up in-person small group support for our high needs families who cannot successfully participate in distance learning from home.
Although our students won’t be on campus this semester, we spent the summer preparing for multiple scenarios, including making sure that our campuses exceed new safety guidelines and protocols. You can watch media coverage of our redesigned campus tour with Skylink TV here.
AIMS Best of 2019-2020
As we embark on this new school year, we will have two of our schools up for renewal. In that spirit, I want to take a moment to reflect on where AIMS has been in the past year. Although these have been incredibly challenging times, it is important to remember where we’ve been, what we are capable of, and how resilient our AIMS community is.
Golden Eagles Named Back to Back Champions
Last winter season, our High School Boys basketball team came back from a tough start to the season. In the true AIMStrong spirit, our boys preserved and came back to win it all. In the short two year history of AIMS Boys Basketball, we have brought home the championship title every year. When it is safe to resume sports again in the future, we cannot wait to come back even stronger.
“It’s a New Day” Open House & Facilities Dedication Event
To celebrate and commemorate our newly upgraded facilities at our 12th street campus, we held a special Open House & Facilities Dedication event this past February. We were excited to host community partners from organizations such as the NAACP, California Bank, Oakland Chinatown Chamber, Port of Oakland, Unity Council, and much more. We celebrated with amazing student performances and inspiring words from our AIMS leadership. Although we will continue the journey to securing a permanent single-site campus we can call our forever home, we were grateful to have the opportunity to invite our community into our current home.
AIMS is the 2020 Hart Vision School of the Year in Northern California
Out of the 1,306 charter schools operating across California, we were so humbled to receive the honor of being named the 2020 Hart Vision School of the Year in Northern California. Myrna Castrejon, President & CEO of CCSA had this to say about us, “Our school of the year in Northern California is a diverse and consistently high performing school. Their high standards have allowed them to maintain an impressively high graduation rate. AIMS is a terrific example of a school that rose from the roots of the community to serve the people.” You can watch our special video presentation here.
AIMS Named a Top Bay Area School for Underserved Students
Out of 1,280 Bay Area schools, AIMS was one of three schools recognized for making strides for African-American students by Innovate Public Schools. For low-income African-American students, AIMS was the only Elementary school recognized for closing the achievement gap in English and Math proficiency. We were the only Middle school in the category of Math proficiency for low-income African-American students. Additionally, our Middle school was one of two schools recognized in English proficiency for low-income African-American students. We are proud to know that AIMS continues to be at the forefront of breaking academic barriers for traditionally underserved student populations. You can access the full report here.
AIMS Named an A-G Quality School
For the 2018-2019 academic year only 39.5% of African-American students in OUSD graduated meeting A-G requirements. Every year brilliant students from underserved populations graduate ineligible to attend a 4-year university due to not meeting A-G requirements. AIMS High School, Head of School Maurice Williams stated, “We graduate students as A-G plus. We create a culture of high expectations where all Freshmen take AP classes and college applications are paid for. 100% of our graduates are accepted into 4-year universities.” You can watch a recap of the virtual awards ceremony here.
Successfully Navigating Distance Learning
This past spring, we have all had to adapt to adjust to a new learning environment. Distance learning was uncharted territory for all of us. We are happy to report that we had a 90% daily attendance rate with students operating on a full weekly bell schedule from 9am-3pm. Our heads of schools shared some of their insights on the transition to distance learning with Great School Voices, “How Oakland charters kept serving students during distance learning”.
As a district, we learned to balance providing a sense of normalcy for our students and families while also adjusting to meet the new needs of an unprecedented time in our history. Our Head of AIMS Middle School, Mr. Holmquist stated, “Many students actually flourished in this setting. I spent some time with some teachers the last couple days, and they said it was surprising that some students actually changed and performed better.”
AIMS High School College Signing Day
Although we could not gather in person to celebrate the college acceptances of our high school seniors, our staff had the wonderful idea to honor 75 of our graduating seniors in a unique NBA/NFL Draft day inspired event leading up to graduation. Each student was shown on screen alongside their families and had their college plans announced. It was a joyous occasion for our students and families to participate in during a difficult time. You can watch a short recap here.
Our Historic AIMS High School Drive-In Graduation
We closed out the 2019-2020 year in a historic and big way. We knew how hard our students worked to reach this special milestone. They had to miss out on the big events all seniors look forward to such as prom and their senior trip. To give them the proper send-off they deserved, we had a first-ever in AIMS history, Drive-In graduation.
Before graduation day, our students received a special shout out on the radio by Wild 94.9 Host Gabby Diaz. On graduation day we heard some inspiring words from our featured guest speaker Armand Carr, our first African-American Valedictorian Zewdi Herring, and many others. You can check our graduation media coverage featured in KPIX CBS 5, Oakland Post, Sky Link TV, the World Journal.
The Covid-19 pandemic alongside so many other challenges this year has brought to the surface, has made it an unprecedented year. Through these difficult times we have all had to learn to make the best of it. Our AIMS community has continued to show up despite it all. While we cannot know for sure what to expect as the year unfolds, it is our hope that by continuing to stand alongside one another in community we can make it out of this stronger than ever.
We might be in separate homes, however we are not isolated. Our hope and resiliency will keep us going. I am optimistic about being back in school, knowing that as a family, we remain AIMSTRONG!
With joy and hope,
Maya Woods-Cadiz
Superintendent
AIMS K-12 College Prep Charter District
