When students arrive at the Maya Angelou Academy, they are greeted at the Welcome Center, where they are introduced to See Forever and Maya Angelou Academy. The staff member who designed and manages the Welcome Center was once at Maya Angelou Academy herself, and was one of the first graduates of the Maya Angelou Public Charter School!
In their time at the Welcome Center, students learn about See Forever, our philosophy and our expectations, and their rights and responsibilities as students.
Students are also asked to introduce themselves in a number of ways: they write a “Student Resume,” introducing themselves as students and as people, they create an “I Am” poem, and they complete a survey about their lives, school experience, and hopes for the future.
Students’ skills and deficits are formally assessed so that we can set goals for them. We establish how many credits they have and how many they need; they take Math and English assessments to determine their skill levels; they complete a writing sample; and they complete an interest survey. During this time they also meet their student advocate—the staff member who will work with them throughout their stay at the Academy and upon transition. Advocates help students set academic, career, and behavior goals at the beginning, and keep close track of their progress in school and in other aspects of their progress.
All students take career institute classes in which they learn marketable skills, get real work experience, and earn money. all students also take part in workforce development training modules that are taught through career institutes, and that are aligned with the District’s Work Readiness Credential Program.
The career institutes provide eight-week rotations in four career fields—carpentry and craftmanship, advocacy, and art. Through these classes, students are introduced to a range of career possibilities where they learn a range of transferable skills.
In the Craftsmanship Institute students learn woodworking craftsmanship of all kinds while collaborating with other institutes. Over the last several years, scholars have learned to build benches, frames, planter boxes, birdhouses, and even boats. They have also participated in metalworking workshops and produced large-scale sculptures as part of our Guns to Roses Project with the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.
As a part of the Advocacy Program, students learn the skills that they need to serve as empowered advocates—for themselves and their communities. Through the program, scholars produce short slide/video biographies. This work helps them in gaining multi-media and presentation skills and helps them to gain self-advocacy skills.
In the Art Corps students learn the elements of art and media, the principles of design, and they explore ideas for arts-based entrepreneurship opportunities. For example, last summer—in partnership with the Craftsmanship Institute—the Art Corps designed, hand-cut, painted, and installed 34 directional and information signs, along with a large-scale painted wooded cutout mural featuring images from their imaginations and referencing contemporary artists, like our school’s Dr. Maya Angelou!
A student’s transition out of New Beginnings is a critical process, so we help each student plan his transition from the moment he arrives at New Beginnings. We work with our scholars to establish goals and help them plan the steps to achieve these goals. A team of staff, including: the student advocate, the career institute instructors, the transition center members, our guidance counselor, our director of special education, and our partners at DYRS, work together to find an appropriate placement for each scholar. We are working with organizations in the city to establish a “continuum of care” for our young men—finding them promising placements and giving them the support they need to be successful.
We organize a range of other activities to support student transition, many of which are unusual for schools located in secure facilities – including mock interviews, school and site visits, and even college tours.
For example, as a part of our transition programming, students who are nearing departure participate in mock interviews. Each month we invite professionals from a range of organizations to come and replicate an employment interview with students who are preparing for transition. Students work in advance of the interviews with their advocates to prepare resumes, build portfolios of their school work, and practice interview techniques. On “Mock Interview Day,” scholars dress in shirts and ties and do their best to get a hypothetical job. Our professional interviewers rate our students on the communication, their presentations, and their resumes.
We also sponsor college trips and do intensive pre-college planning with students. Select students participate in college trips, with support from the Academy and DYRS staff. In addition, we support students while they are at New Beginnings by helping them complete FAFSA forms, college applications, and SAT prep classes. In addition, we work with DYRS to ensure that select students can take the SAT in the community (with supervision).
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