Foundation Academy at a Glance

Foundation Academy is an independent, "No Excuses" college preparatory middle school in Trenton, New Jersey. We opened in August 2007, currently serve 200 students in grades 5-8 and plan to expand to grades K-12 over the next decade. Our mission is to ensure that all of our students secure the academic knowledge and skills to prepare them for the nation's finest high schools and colleges, and to instill in them the core values of caring, respect, responsibility and honesty.

Foundation Academy’s program has seven key elements. They are:

1. High and Clear Expectations
2. More Time on Task
3. Rewards and Consequences
4. Values Focused
5. Results Driven
6. Student-Centered
7. Building Community

High and Clear Expectations

• We base our curriculum on the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards (NJCCS).
• We test our students regularly on their progress towards the standards.
• We use standardized classroom structures and daily learning objectives throughout the school so students clearly know what they are supposed to be learning.
• We use common conduct expectations and consistently enforce them.
• We require students to wear school uniforms.

More Time on Task

• We have a longer school day - from 7:30 am to 4:00 pm.
• We have a longer school year - 200 days, including a mandatory three-week summer session.
• We focus on Language Arts and Mathematics skills by teaching these subjects more minutes each week than in most schools.
• We use block scheduling in select subjects to provide for better use of the time in the classroom.
• We quickly identify when students are not being successful, and we take immediate steps to use all of our available time and resources to get students on track.

Rewards and Consequences

• We reward positive academic and social conduct and impose consequences when a student's actions detract from learning or are inconsistent with our core values.
• We recognize students' character, learning, attendance, punctuality, knowledge and improvement on a daily basis.
• We measure students’ contributions to the academic and social life of our school on a daily basis and record this through a point system. Each week, students are required to get their parents to review and sign-off on their points before they may use them to earn special privileges, attend social events and participate in out-of-school trips.
• We have an honor roll, an academic Hall of Fame, and members-only "status cards" to reward students for academic and social success.
• We place students who are disruptive in class on the "bench", an in-class time out.
• We deny privileges to students who do not do homework, do not wear their school uniform properly, or fail to meet any of our other expectations.

Values Focused

• We unapologetically focus on our core values - caring, respect, responsibility and honesty.
• We reinforce our values with the names of the student teams.
• We provide daily lessons in character education.
• We expect our students to apologize if they violate one of our core values.
• We recite our core values on a daily basis.

Results Driven

• We are relentlessly focused on preparing our students to succeed in college and we anchor our self-assessment in how well our students perform on state tests.
• We give parents Progress Reports or Report Cards every 12 weeks.

Student-Centered

• We focus on the needs of students by teaching to their particular learning styles.
• We are crystal clear about our academic and social expectations, and we are consistent in the way we communicate our expectations to students.
• We employ proven teaching techniques.
• We are eager to work with urban adolescents.
• We constantly search for and use best practices from the finest urban schools throughout the country.

Building Community

• We meet each morning as an entire school community in Circle.
• We motivate students through a call-response, during which students affirm our values and prepare to start each day.
• We identify students as members of teams, not "homerooms", and these teams carry the names of different human values our students will learn and embrace.
• We expect the entire school community to keep our school clean and tidy.
• We require students to perform community service and participate in co-curricular activities.