“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
― Winston Churchill

The purpose of this email is to inform I.A. Families of the wonderful changes to look forward to this year. We are so excited to continue to evolve and grow and are happy that you are on this journey with us.

• Our school is growing each year. We will continue to grow until we have two classes at each grade level. This year we will have approximately 365 students
• As the school grows, there are times of ‘uneven enrollment’ meaning that growth is not even throughout the grade levels. This year it means that we will have some mixed grade classes. Fortunately for us, project based learning with a focus on inquiry allows multi-age learning to be differentiated naturally. Additionally, our new math program supports students to work at different levels. And let’s all remember that children are only separated by age in schools, this is not something that occurs in the real world where we all work with people of different ages. That said, our 4^th and 5^th grade classrooms will be mixed in this way with strong collaboration among all three classrooms.
• Our 7^th and 8^th grade classes will collaborate and work together, sometimes mixed while other times separate. Students in both grades will have the opportunity to work with several different teachers. Our teachers are currently redesigning the schedule to break out skill instruction in the mornings (Math, Science and Humanities). This will allow afternoons to be fully dedicated to multidisciplinary projects.
• We are taking charge of our special education services and have joined a consortium of charter schools that have left the SDUSD Special Ed Service Program and joined the El Dorado Charter SELPA.  This means that we hire our own special education staff allowing us to avoid the immense staff turnover that we have experienced in previous years. This also means we will have a full time counselor for our school. We will continue to provide all previous services to our students. We are giving our IEP process a strength based focus which will make our meetings and service delivery a model for the education community and inspirational to us all.
• We have added a community liaison to help our school make deep connections to the greater San Diego community, to support our teachers to connect their projects to the community at large, to support our field trip set up, to bring many high quality guest speakers to our school and to coordinate the art and garden volunteers.
• Some of our teachers are switching grade levels, we have a few new teachers and new special education staff and additional aides. (keep checking the website for details)
• Our 3^rd through 8^th graders will be utilizing the Judo Math program for skill development.
• We are purchasing more technology for our classroom and media arts lab (some of our new purchases will be due to our 12-13 pledge drive, so thank you!)
• We received a donation of pottery wheels and we will be bringing in some volunteer art teachers to help our students learn how to use them. We moved our media arts lab to a classroom to allow more space for art.
• We have rewritten our Family Handbook which will soon be available on the website.
• Our After Care program will be through Outpost, a community program that implements a design aligned with our philosophy.
• Most of our after school enrichment will be moved to before school 8-8:50. Spanish, Dance, Music will be before school and chess after school.
• We have a new lunch program utilizing the services of Rubios, Subway, Pick-up-Stix and Costco. We need some help with this so if you are interested, contact Christine.
• OPEN HOUSE is August 28, 2013…NEXT WEDNESDAY from 5-8 p.m. Come meet new friends, see classrooms, chat with new staff, sign up for enrichment classes and aftercare and have fun!

Thank you for caring about Innovations Academy. Our goal is always to make changes and evolve in ways to best support our students’ needs. Your collaboration is appreciated so please email with any questions. Christine@innovationsacademy.org