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Parent Presentation 2021

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This is the parent presentation for enrollment in the 2021-2022 school year. Please watch to the end to fill out a form to get more information about receiving an application.

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Alright, thank you everybody for coming and attending this virtual presentation. In exercising an abundance of caution for all parent meetings will be virtual this year. We encourage you to watch the parent presentation in its entirety to gain access to a student application form at the end. The form will allow you to be able to set up a time slot to be able to come and get an application in a safe environment. Thank you so much! WCA is a charter school we are a dependent charter school of the Hemet Unified School District. We are a publicly-funded school and we are exempt from some state and local rules and regulations that give us flexibility both in how we operate and how we function as a school. We're still required to meet several different accountability standards including both state and national exams. Families that choose the Western Center Academy are choosing a unique model of education. We are renowned for our STEM programs and our unique curriculum. We may not offer everything in our school site, but for the things that we do are done exceptionally well. Families are also encouraged to be able to understand that we do have a Compact in order to be able to lay out the expectations both for students and for staff within our community. The Western Center Academy is a STEM school. While we do have additional offerings, our primary focus is on science, technology, engineering, and math. We do provide a very rigorous and challenging curriculum and we do have a focus at both middle and high school level and opportunities for what is called Museum Discovery Learning. We have an expansive array of college courses available to our high school students to help supplement the already rigorous courses that they take as part of their normal school day. We recently have been ranked as high as number one in the entire State of California for charter middle schools and the 77th highest performing high school in the entire country. The family compact is the opportunity to be able to understand that attending the Western Center Academy is considered a privilege for our students and we have a level of expectations for those students and we have an expectation for our staff members to our students and we want to make sure that everybody understands what it takes to be able to be successful at the Western Center Academy and that is all laid out in our Family Compact which is part of our application process. The mission of the Western Center Academy is providing accelerated advanced STEM curriculum within a creative and collaborative learning community that uniquely prepares students for successful college experiences, fosters excellence in all endeavors and nurtures a spirit of perseverance. What to expect at the Western Center Academy... homework and projects, lots of different opportunities for students to be able to demonstrate a high level of mastering content that they are learning. In a normal year we also have a lot of college visits and opportunities to see what the students have the opportunity to be able to do in a post-secondary environment. It is a highly active and engaging school campus where students are actively involved both in their class work and in the outside activities. There's also a huge array of different academic and community service clubs available that are run by students and staff on campus. Some big changes to our environment compared to a traditional school site: we do not have bus transportation to the school site, so it is all self transport only and we do require uniforms for all of our students. This is due to the fact that we like to be able to create a sense of culture here and being on a museum campus there are obviously safety pieces that we want to put in play and having all the students in uniform helps with that greatly. At our middle school program we do run an honors curriculum. It is honors paced and focused on depth of knowledge with an advanced path for mathematics and for English.  Our middle school daily schedule in a normal year is drop off around 7:40 a.m., start time is at 8:10, and ending at 2:16. Our under of supervision is it 2:45. We do have almost daily afternoon clubs and activities and those can range after 3:00 depending on the type of club or activity. High School is a little bit longer, they have a 6 period day. Middle School does have a 5 period day although they are extended periods. That high school daily schedule for start times at 7:50 in the morning with end of the core day is at 2:51 and then the supervision ends at 3:30. Middle school athletics: we have an array of different sports depending on the league that we are participating in and what's available. But in a normal year will have girls' volleyball, girls' and boys' cross-country, basketball, soccer, and track and field. High school athletics: all of our high school students have the opportunity to be to participate and to be able to work at their home schools within Hemet Unified. If you are not from a Hemet Unified School District, if you do not live within the boundaries there's a lottery process in order to allow you to play at a Hemet Unified school. So all of our students at the high school level have the opportunity to participate in CIF athletics. Middle school: STEM integration is a huge part of all 4 of our core classes in addition to our lab science course. We have engineering days in addition that are done generally school-wide and by grade level. WCA middle school students follow a modified schedule so they have their 4 core classes of English, Science, Math, and Social Studies in addition to the extended lab period. 6th grade: these can vary year-to-year but in general 6th grade the students go through a 9-week extended lab science course and they spend nine weeks in engineering 9 weeks in computer coding, 9 weeks in robotics, and 9 weeks in archaeology. In 7th grade they move on to a different set of courses. In 7th grade we have project-based engineering, aquatic biology, paleontology, and advanced robotics. In eighth grade, we have a mindfulness lab, a Stan Lee Marvel Comics lab, physics, and advanced coding. As the students move on to the high school, we have an array of different courses. Most of our students will graduate with 6 years of A - G approved science courses, an accelerated math pathway, 16 AP course offerings that they can take part in, in addition to on average 20-plus units of college coursework completed while they are still in high school. We also have a CTE pathway in theater. Part of our high school goals are to make sure that our students have a high level of mastery in math skills, strong science foundation, college-level writing skills, and then all of our students are informed and empathetic citizens. I'd like to introduce Mr. Horton to talk a little bit about our most recent PSAT and general standardized testing results. Perfect, we are very proud of the results that our students accomplish and as a unique environment we like to compare ourselves to District, State, and National levels and we use the PSAT to do that. So you can see in this 2019 was the last time we were able to give the PSAT and in 2019 ourare 9th graders averaged a 1023 out of a total 1440 possible points compared to the district at 773 the state at 812 and nationally at 862. The College Board also tells you what percentage of your students are on track to be prepared for college and they do that in both Language Arts and Mathematics and in 2019 79% of our 9th graders ere on track in both Language Arts and Mathematics to be prepared for college compared to 18% in the district, 24% of the state, and 35% in the nation. You can see similar results for 10th grade where 84% met both benchmarks and in 11th grade where 83% met both of those benchmarks. Mr. Bailey mentioned earlier that we offer a variety of college courses. We offer advanced placement courses which if you pass that test at the end of the class to get college credit. We offer in-person college classes during a regular year where sometimes we have MSJC professors come teach it and sometimes we have our own teachers with master's degrees who are authorized by MSJC to teach them and we also offer online dual enrollment courses as well. Here are some examples of the courses that we offer everything from psychology to conceptual physics to foreign languages, computer programming, advanced math, extra sciences, sociology, psychology each world religions ... a wide variety and this is just a portion of the variety of college classes that our students have taken. This is a summary of the credits earned by our students in those college courses. This is not counting the advanced placement test that they pass, these are just the credits that they earn by taking college classes and we also use the estimate that MSJC provides for how much money the students can save with those credits if they go to a community college, a Cal State School UC school or a private school. You can see in the 2019-2020 school year our students earned 1978 college credits equivalent to approximately 1.8 million dollars at a Cal State or 4.2 million dollars at a private school. Overall since we started with these dual credit courses our students have earned over 8000 credits. Prior to going to remote learning we already had an opportunity for at the site base level for all of our middle school students to be one-to-one with academics specifically in regards to technology. Middle school students had access to a Chromebook and since going to remote learning during this time, we've been able to push that so that all the students are at 1-to-1 and they are able to have their devices at home with them. We also have that one to one for all of our high school students even prior to learning so all of our high school students the Western Center Academy have the opportunity to be able to have a Chromebook that is checked out to them just like a text but that they can use both for their High School classes and to be able to come see all of their work we talked a little bit about some of the club service opportunities earlier and just said we have a variety of different things available to our students were also very open in supporting the students and things that they're actively interested in and throw everything from the National Honor Society at both the middle school and high school level are tutoring programs or Shakespeare club first robotics is very large on our campus we have five competitive robotics teams in a normal year and they compete in addition to the solar top are your book club Pat at Eastport Academic Decathlon there's a variety of different things we really tried to do everything we can support students and pursuing what there is just a quick look and some things are most popular and 9 balance that we have is our Cardboard Boat Regatta which we have every year for our students to be able to team up and to be able to build a cardboard boat from scratch using only duct tape and cardboard in order to be get the best design able to go back and forth across the pool in the great time and the kids really really enjoy it will have a variety of different field trips and Outreach opportunities for Christian to Grant the Birch Aquarium in San Diego Astro Camp is an annual rite of passage for all of our 8th graders in addition to 6th and 7th grade during the poly outdoor education camp we found a different personalities like broadcom and heating activity to learn about election filleti's in addition to colleges University campuses throughout Southern California we ought to get students 90s without there are theater group also does a yearly visit and we're open to different opportunities for our students as long as they meet the educational requirements of the Western Center Academy with her pep rallies are theater Productions dances kids have a lot of fun and they get very very creative and what they do on this campus mission and vision and all of the activities we have five different members of the governing Council we have a representative from the Western Science Center representative from within our stem Community to parent representative for the middle school one for the high school in addition to a rapper from the College Community as well we have an amazing PCS a group that does not only fundraising but helps to put on activities for students everything from lunchtime activities all the way through are dances and end of the year tivities they do an amazing job and I'm very active on Facebook and so please check them out at WCA just search for Western Center Academy PCS pay as you go through and continue to have the conversation with your family reasons to choose better Academy we are very highly motivated academically to be able to meet the needs of our students if your student is interested in math or science this is definitely the place for them to be able to use a value of ultra power expectations and if they're thinking about actively working for the post-secondary education and a stem field Western Center Academy is the place to help them prepare to do that in Mission we always get more applicants and then we're able to fit on our campus we would love to be able to take all this weekend but we do have to have a lottery each year and so there is a listing of birth priority students that tends to be siblings and students who are family members of faculty and staff you're on campus but aside from that is an open Lottery there is a weighted Lottery system in the sense that if you are from Hemet Unified if you reside within the Hemet Unified boundaries you do get two tickets in the lottery if you outside of the boundaries you only get one ticket in laundry if you have questions specifically about that I answer this call or email or office and we will help him for any questions or when you pick up your application applications stop at the schedule link to this presentation and all applications for the 2122 school year must be submitted by 7 on April 30th the lottery will be held on May 6th at 6 p.m. and will most likely be asked when online this is normally where we allow questions and the big question is are we going to be in person next year and we have to abide by district county and state rules and we can answer that question people already asking and the reality is is at work now recording this and just in the early part of February and we are part of town will be opening on the same timeline you will need to respond right away or get it the best person to be able to answer your question alright thank you guys very much for taking the time to go to watch the presentation we ask that you click on that tiny URL just type that in I need u r a w a n Roll and you'll be able to get the additional information that you need in order to buy

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