1. Mission Statement and Executive Summary Mission …

Gray Collegiate Academy

1. Mission Statement and Executive Summary Mission Statement. The mission of Gray Collegiate Academy (GCA) is to provide an outstanding academic and athletic program, with a college preparatory program in 9th and 10th grade and dual enrollment in 11th and 12th grade. Students will graduate from GCA with an AA degree or 48-60 hours of credit, and with college scholarship opportunities. Executive Summary. Too many of South Carolina's high school graduates who have the athletic ability to compete at the college level are not academically prepared for admission. Some attend post-graduate preparatory programs; others fall through the cracks. GCA proposes to establish a dual enrollment public charter high school in West Columbia, SC with a premier athletic program that will help interested students be eligible when they graduate from high school with an AA degree or significant college credit. The rigorous dual enrollment program will be attractive to all students, regardless of athletic ability. GCA will serve high school students who seek the challenge of high academic and athletic standards, a rigorous curriculum, and college-level study at a small innovative school. GCA will be an innovative alternative to the highly-respected academic programs provided by the South Carolina Midlands area schools. GCA design reflects best practices found in increasingly robust research literature on school reform, including the successful Early College High School Initiative endorsed by the Gates Foundation and highlighted by President Obama in his 2013 State of the Union Address. GCA will assist its seniors in continuing their education by obtaining admission to two- and four-year institutions, and will promote interested student athletes to obtain collegiate athletics offers. Most public schools offer courses for 135 hours (e.g., 45 minutes over 180 days); GCA students will receive 180 hours of instruction plus needed interventions. GCA recognizes the important relationship between academics and athletics, and believes that regular exercise, skill

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development, and interscholastic athletic competition can play critical roles in each student's growth. GCA also recognizes that the primary responsibility of student athletes is educational and supports linking academic achievement to eligibility. GCA will guide its student athletes through the college athletics eligibility process. Our sports program will nurture integrity, pride, loyalty, and overall character while it builds school spirit.

A needs assessment was conducted early in the planning process, which included community members, parents, and business representatives within the Lexington community. GCA developed a focus group which adopted a conceptual framework based both on community needs and pertinent research on charter schools. Survey and focus group data from Lexington County citizens and stakeholders weighed heavily in the design of GCA. The GCA planning committee already has a database of over 325 students interested in attending the charter.

The focus of GCA will be for students to graduate from high school with an Associate in Arts (AA) degree and high school diploma simultaneously. The Midlands area has no Early College Initiative schools. While the Midlands schools' dual enrollment programs have enabled a few highly motivated students to graduate from high school and a two-year degree program concurrently, GCA will greatly expand this opportunity. The 9th and 10th grade will intensely focus on core academic courses, interventions, and the knowledge and skills needed for college admission. In the Collegiate Program (11th and 12th grades) students with college-admission qualifying scores and other evidence of preparedness will accumulate a broad range of dual credit from a higher education institution and graduate on-time from high school with an AA degree. Due to its size and location, GCA can focus on rigor, relationships, and relevance drawn from college resources. Critical thinking will be embedded in the curriculum, enabling students to assess their own thinking in a cognitive way.

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As a public high school, Gray Collegiate Academy will reflect the diversity of Lexington and district 2. Population of West Columbia, SC is 78% White, 17% African-American, and 5% of Hispanic origin. Lexington 2's enrollment in 2011 was 51.3% White, 37.2% African American, 19.4% Hispanic origin, and .8% Native American. As a member of the SC Public Charter School District GCA will also invite students from all over South Carolina who seek a college prep education while acquiring an AA degree. High standards will be communicated during the application process, as GCA will engage students in rigorous, in-depth academic work requiring intellectual inquiry, creativity, and critical thinking.

GCA Vision Statement. Students will: ? Be prepared to graduate as responsible and contributing citizens. ? Graduate with a high school diploma and an AA or 48-60 transferable credits. ? Be provided the necessary coaching and skill development to be successful beyond high school. ? Develop into leaders through athletic competition and service learning. ? Attain educational, personal, and career awareness skills in smaller (1:25 or lower) classes with a variety of scheduling options on a "split" schedule (morning or afternoon sessions). ? Benefit from a multi-ethnic community, parents, business partners, administrators, other students, and staff that work together to create an academic, physical, emotional, social, and safe environment where everyone can learn and respect one another. ? Acquire an education through innovative techniques to enhance lifelong learning through technology and varied instructional strategies.

The school will begin with 450 students in grades 9-12, and have 600 at full capacity (150 students/grade). Gray Collegiate Academy intends to contract with a Charter Management Organization (CMO), Pinnacle Charter School Management Group, LLC.

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2. Evidence of Need and Support Some members of the Gray Collegiate Academy (GCA) charter planning committee have experience with Gray Military Academy, a post-high school college preparatory program in West Columbia, SC for college-bound athletes. Those experiences generated the idea for the GCA charter. Rather than wait for promising student athletes to fail to reach their goals upon high school graduation, why not intervene earlier and help these students reach their goals? Gray Military opened fall 2011 because so many student athletes fail to obtain entrance into college or to receive an athletic scholarship. Its post-graduation prep program helps student athletes obtain admission and scholarships. Through the screening process at Gray Military, it became apparent that intervention and support were needed before students graduated from high school rather than after. Each Gray Military student (over 1,000) was surveyed. All agreed that a school focused on athletics and academics would have been of benefit to them, and that they would have liked to have attended a school like GCA. Once the need and interest in intervening on the front end - instead of the back end - was established, the GCA charter planning committee was established to create a rigorous academic program for all students that also focused on the needs of athletes. The GCA academic plan supports the student/athlete success in the collegiate arena by accelerating the curriculum. The GCA charter committee assessed community, parent, and student support. Through email (one database has over 20,000 contacts), social media, local news media, parent meetings, and personal contacts, GCA has reached thousands of people. Notices were sent to a list of 35,000 children ages 12-17 in the Cayce, West Columbia, Lexington, and Irmo areas. Notices in the Irmo News (readership 25,000), Cayce-West Columbia News (25,000), and Lexington Chronicle announced public meetings every Tuesday and Thursday evening in April 2013 at the proposed

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site for the school, where charter committee members described the vision and received overwhelming support from those attending. GCA also has letters of support from the Mayor and Chief of Police for West Columbia, and Lexington County Sheriff Metts. To ensure equal access and reach out to at risk populations, the committee purposefully sought input from all demographic groups. Examples of the contacts and responses are included in Appendix B, Evidence of Support. All responses have been positive. The number of parents and students (325) interested in attending GCA, as documented on sign-up sheets (one example is in Appendix B) and social media contacts, indicates that when GCA opens its doors with 450 students in 2014, there will need to be a waiting list the first year.

GCA will partner with an institution of higher education for dual enrollment coursework to insure 48-60 transferable college credits upon high school graduation for each GCA graduate. GCA is in promising discussions with the University of South Carolina (USC); however, their approval process will not be complete until after May 15, 2013. Other options, such as Winthrop University, are being explored. GCA will have an established higher education partner before opening in August 2014.

The GCA charter planning committee is a cross section of community members, educators, parents, professionals, business and clergy. The committee has worked diligently to generate interest and support for the Gray Collegiate Academy. Additional details on the charter committee members can be found at Appendix A.

Todd Helms, Founder & CEO/President of Gray Military Academy; Charter Planning Committee Chair. Coach Helms was a military leader for 28 years in the SC Army National Guard and US Army Reserves before retiring in 2011 as a Lieutenant Colonel. As a civic leader, Coach Helms was elected and served on the Lexington School District 2 School Board from

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