AHES Family News
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The Amazing Alexander Hamilton College Prep Academy #145
Strengthening Parent and Community Partnerships
PARENT ACTION
TEAMS
Parent Action Teams
(PAT) will work closely
with our School Family
Council (SFC) to host
quarterly Listening
Campaigns aligned with
our school improvement
goals and priorities.
Each classroom will
have two parent leaders
who will work with the
teacher to support
curriculum, instruction,
and assessment.
Classroom parent
leaders will be assigned
10-15 families. Their
goal is to keep families
informed of our work
and to motivate each
parent in our school
community to become
active participants. PAT
and SFC will collaborate
to create a one-year
action plan, budget, and
monitor the
effectiveness of the
plan. They will meet
monthly to gather ideas
and plan and publicize
programs. If you are
interested in being a
PAT leader for your
child’s classroom,
please sign-up in
Business Suite 100!
Our children made
beautiful products to
show their gratitude to
our partners. We
welcome our many new
partners, including: The
Boy Scouts of America,
Men in the Mirror, All
Walks of Life, Good
News Bible Club, and the
Baltimore Westsiders.
WELCOME NEW
PARTNERS
Special thanks to Ms.
Brenda Gillard, our
campus Educational
Associate (EA), for
facilitating our spring
partnership luncheon.
September 6, 2015
Volume 1, Issue 1
Inside this issue:
Parents & Partners
1
College Ready Vision 1
Attendance
2
Homework Policy
2
Grading Policy
2
Get APPcited!
3
Kidz College
3
New Teachers
3
PoP 2015
4
4th and 5th grade students
sing school song at
partnership breakfast
Creating a Culture of College Readiness
We are not just going
to talk about it, we are
going to be about this
year. Get ready to help
us name our floors and
key locations after the
best colleges and
universities in our
nation! Prepare your
kids. They will be
required to call each of
their teachers
Professor. We will
begin to use college
language such as
transcripts, grade point
average (GPA), and
dean. We fully
implement College
Fridays where children
will attend the AHES
Colleges of Fine and
Performing Arts,
Science and
Engineering, and Liberal Arts. The children will
take elective courses in the afternoon. Each
college will have an Academic Dean, and each
student will have an Academic Advisor.
Each quarter, we will bring parents and
teachers together to study the standards and
learning targets at each grade level. Parentteacher teams will collaborate to develop
monthly school-wide standards-based projects.
LISTEN! INNOVATE! LEAD!
2
School Every Day!
The Reality

When children are absent and/or
late they miss instruction.

When children miss instruction,
they are placed at-risk of failing.




and spend tremendous time
planning for each child to meet
grade level standards.

When children are late, it
disrupts instruction for students
who are on time for school.
We need each parent to make sure
your child is here on time and all
day to experience every moment of
planned instruction.

When children are late or
absent, it is more likely they will
struggle with getting settled in
for instruction and making up
missed work.
We want to celebrate you and your
child each quarter and honor you
with a Blue Ribbon attendance
reward.

Please read the attached
attendance and early dismissal
policies. They will be strictly
enforced.
AHES teachers and
administrators are passionate
NEW AHES LATENESS POLICY!
3 tardies = 1 absence. Children
marked late by 8:05.
School-Wide Homework Policies and Practices
Students will receive 20-60 minutes
of homework MONDAY-FRIDAY.
Nightly homework will include
reading, math, and science or
social studies. In addition, your
child will be expected to read and
write an additional 15-30 minutes
each night and will record work in
academic journals and
reading/writing log. Also, he or she
will receive assigned homework
tasks from his or her music, art,
technology, PE, library, drama,
dance, or creative writing teacher.
Each month, we will engage our
students and families in school-
wide projects. These projects will be
displayed throughout the school, and
there will be a monthly assembly where
students, teachers and parents share
the projects.
All homework must:
Homework gives your child a
chance to practice skills taught in
class. It teaches personal
responsibility.
-Be signed by the parent.
-Receive feedback from the teacher.
-- Be completed by the student and
calculated as 20% of your child’s grade.
You will be contacted if there is a
pattern of missed or incomplete work.
Help Your Child Make the Grade!
AHES Blue Ribbon Principal’s List
Scholars demonstrate 90% subject
mastery in each class. Dean’s list
scholars demonstrate 80% mastery
in each subject. Excellent
attendance, highly effective
instruction, high expectations for
completing homework, persistence,
and goal setting help our children
meet these standards. Start the
year off strong! Participate in our
Annual Back to School Open
House and Title I Meeting. You will
learn how to create a culture of
learning at home that will help your
child excel at the Amazing AHES.
College Prep Academy!
GRADING POLICY
Classwork- 20 %
Homework- 20%
Responsibility- 10%
(Coming Prepared)
Parent-Teacher teams will
collaborate to develop monthly
school-wide projects.
Assessments- 20%
Monthly Project- 30%
3
Android or iPhone: Get APPcited!
We are embracing 21st century
technology and social media tools
at AHES. For the first time, we we
will have official Facebook and
Twitter accounts. We will also have
our very own AHES App that you
can download to your phone. Each
of these tools will be used to:

Communicate important
updates;

Publish student and
teacher work;

Celebrate excellent
members of our school
community;

Highlight our vision and
mission work with
community partners; and

Raise funds for our school
via advertising.
Social Media Philosphy
Social media will be used to
improve communications with the
community, integrate new
technologies into the classroom,
and improve collaboration within
our community.
Social Media Policy

Demonstrate professional
conduct at all times.

Abide by all AHES policies
and respect instructional
time.

Do not disclose student,
staff or other families’
information.

When using copyrighted
photos or written content,
properly credit the source.
Parents, I am also asking you to
monitor your child’s cell phone use.
Let’s protect our children from
cyber bullying, sexual predators
and any activity that is harmful to
their well-being.
Mandatory Summer School and After School Programs
Academic Intervention
Update 2015-2016
Blue= Above grade level
Green= On grade level
Extended Learning
Yellow= Near Grade Leve
Once teachers have completed
beginning of year (BOY)
assessments in literacy and
mathematics, students will be
organized into bands- blue, green,
yellow and red.
Red = Below Grade Level
LOOK OUT FOR INFORMATION
ABOUT AHES KIDZ COLLEGE
PROGRAMS 2015-2016
All students below grade level
will be required to attend after
school programs in literacy and
mathematics and AHES Kidz
College summer learning
programs. We will also support
parents with finding tutoring
programs. Students near grade
level will be required to attend
AHES Kidz Weekend College.
The Weekend College will
launch the third weekend in
October. Registration will begin
in September.
Welcoming New Teachers 2015
Professor Holly Hood-Mincey
Dr. Holly Hood-Mincey is an
acclaimed music and fine arts
teacher. She is the founder and
director of The Singing Sensations
Youth Choir. Check them out on
You Tube! She will serve our
school as a professor of chorus,
dance and drama. She will
collaborate with our returning
Professor of Music, Ron Summers,
to take our fine and peforming arts
programs to the next level! Dr.
Hood-Mincey is also a former
school leader who will be an active
participant of our Instructional
Leadership Team (ILT).
Professor Valerie Goodman
and Gwynns Falls Elementary School.
Her reputation precedes her as a
prepared, passionate professional who
touches the lives of children In
meaningful ways.
Professor Wallace Lane
Student newspaper…creative writing
courses…mentoring…fine arts.
Will serve as our Physical
Education teacher, grades 3-5. She Wallace Lane is multi-talented and will
will teach boys and girls at AHES help our boys and girls improve their
wrting this year.
Alexander Hamilton College Prep Academy #145
Our Vision:
In partnership with our families and community, we are
creating a culture of college readiness where everyone is a
learner, everyone is a teacher, and everyone is a leader.
Our Mission:
The mission of Alexander Hamilton College Prep Academy
#145 is to become a high performing community school that
engages all students in exemplary teaching and learning
experiences that are rigorous, differentiated, meaningful and
memorable and take place in a safe and orderly
environment.bb
The Amazing AHES #145
800 Poplar Grove Street
Baltimore, MD 21216
Phone: 410.396.0521
Fax: 410.396.1803
Creating a Culture of College Readiness
We’re on the Web!
http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/145
AHES 2015 Problem of Performance (PoP)
other student work, we noticed many
students across grades were not able to rigorous writing instruction?
compose a focused written response to
READING & WRITING ARE AT THE
text-dependent questions that require
HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO!
them to explain thinking by citing specific
textual evidence. Students use low-level
Tier I vocabulary when writing. Student
writing contains incomplete thoughts,
simple sentence structure, and does not
demonstrate evidence of complex
thinking and intellectual engagement.
However, we also noted that several
classroom teachers have produced
Our school summer team worked
students who are motivated to write and
very hard to define this problem,
are excited about sharing their writing.
and have received valuable
feedback from other school teams. I These students write longer pieces of
am sharing it in this first edition, and text (fluency), write for extended periods
of time (stamina), and are using learning
it will be the buzz on campus
logs consistently to capture thinking.
throughout the school year.
Our Chief Academic Officer, Ms.
Linda Chen, is guiding school
teams through the process of
looking at student data to identify
areas of low achievement (formally
called our Problem of Performance)
in our school, collaborate with other
school teams to design strategies to
improve student outcomes, and
carry out the work in a way that
raises the bar for every student.
AHES Problem of Performance
Our Big Question
When analyzing our school-wide
interim literacy assessments and
How can we develop teacher
capacity to engage ALL students in
Grade 5 Socratic Dialogue