Strive for Excellence

A natural lover of all things outdoors and nature, Annalisa had a hunch that being a science teacher would be her dream job. Part of what inspired her was the unforgettable experience she had learning science in middle school—thanks to her thoughtful, patient, and creative teachers. Annalisa wanted to emulate them. She wanted to share her love of science with students and be the kind of teacher who taps into their interests and curiosities to help propel them to achieve greatness.

What Annalisa’s hunch didn’t tell her was that her first year of teaching STEM at AF Iluminar Middle School would be during one of the worst pandemics in modern history.

The switch to hybrid learning didn’t stop Annalisa from figuring out ways to create a joyful learning community for her students. After multiple iterations, she built an environment that fostered trust amongst her and her students, made learning fun and interactive, and left room for students to explore their unique interests.

In-person parent-teacher conferences transformed into virtual spaces where students took ownership of their learning and presented their successes, challenges, and plans to improve. And traditional field trips turned into modified virtual field trips with opportunities for students to explore digital content together like computer programming and coding.

Annalisa’s commitment to providing her students with the best learning experience possible exemplifies one of the values of Achievement First—choose joy—and is something her middle school teachers would be proud to see today.

ANNALISA

Sixth GRADE Stem Teacher AF Iluminar MIDDLE

GO FURTHER TOGETHER

Since the beginning of the pandemic, schools across the country worked to figure out how to best serve thousands of students. They didn’t have to do it alone. Our commitment to sharing and partnership pre-dated the pandemic; our curriculum is fully open-source and available online, and we partner with districts and public charter schools throughout the country through our Navigator and Charter Network Accelerator programs.

The 2020-21 school year was no exception. Through the Accelerator, we partner with public charter schools to help them grow with quality. This past school year, we served 22,344 students at 53 schools across the country. Our Navigator program, which provides schools with implementation support for AF curriculum, served 22,758 students at 78 schools nationwide. We also launched a new Community of Practice for Hybrid & Remote Learning with more than 25 partners. And we’re continuing to learn and grow every day. Members of our AF Accelerate team scour the country for bright spots in reading, socio-emotional learning, digital learning and everything in between.

At the end of the day, each principal has to ask, are we ensuring our students are safe, known, and loved? Are they connected to teachers? Are they coming to do their best work and show who they are? At our school, that is who we’ve always been. That didn’t change on March 13, 2020. I do think the way we had to do it has looked different. And, it’s reaffirmed that we need to make sure everyone–adults and kids– knows that we have their back. — Zachary Segall, Principal, AF Aspire Middle