Operation Graduation Charter School

Introduction

Operation Graduation Charter School was created as a direct response to the growing number of young people that are falling through the cracks in our schools in America.  In far too many schools students are performing well below grade level with little or no hope of ever being able to catch up to their higher performing counterparts. The hardest struck by this phenomenon is our inner city youth. In inner cities such as New York, Washington Dc and Philadelphia there is still an overwhelming amount of underachieving schools that are failing our youth today.  In a society where education is the key to social mobility, when schools fail, our society pays for it tenfold.

Now is the time to ensure that every student graduates and is equipped with the tools necessary to succeed in life. At Operation Graduation we believe in equipping students with the necessary social and academic skills to thrive.  We believe strongly that if students are surrounded by caring adults whose only motive is to see them graduate and succeed, they will in fact graduate, and make a positive impact on the world. While legally we will be a Charter School, to our students and families we will be a Life Transformation Institute.

Academic Skills

Operation Graduation’s curriculum features high standards that will ensure that all students are ready and prepared for post secondary education.  We believe that all students can learn and achieve the highest standards possible if put in the right environment.

In order to provide the right environment we will:

-Provide small classroom sizes to ensure more individualized attention

-Align our curriculum to student interest in order to get the most out of learning time

- Lengthen our instruction time to vigorously bring those that are below grade level to above grade level

- Offer differentiated learning to accommodate different learning styles

-Utilize the Socratic Method to increase analytical and critical thinking skills

-Offer Service Learning Projects that connects our academics to real life problems

- Offer Hands on projects that increases retention of material

-Offer Project based learning that emphasizes teamwork and collaboration

- Offer Conflict Resolution Education that reduce the amount of classroom disruptions

-Provide the highest quality educators and administrators that believe in each and every student

In addition to providing the right environment for academics, all of our academic offering must also test our students’ social skills and connect them in some way to the real world. We believe that academics are important but it is our commitment to creating an academic and social skill partnership that will ensure our students thrive in life after graduation. 

Mission

Operation Graduation's mission is to instill in youth the necessary social and academic skills for success in post secondary education and life

Vision

Our vision is to create diverse life transformation institutions across the U.S. that readies students for post secondary education and life by emphasizing character education, community engagement, social responsibility and an unwavering commitment to social justice.

Social Skills

At Operation Graduation we believe that a person’s level of social acumen will determine how far they go in life. We place a strong emphasis on developing and enhancing our students socio-emotional skills set. Studies have shown that a student with high academic achievements but little social skills will find it hard to navigate the world once they leave high school. While academics are able to get a person’s foot in the door it is their social skills that will determine how well they perform in any endeavor.  This is why at OPG Academic and Social skills go hand in hand in all that we do.  We expect our students to not only excel in their academics but to also excel in their development of Operation Graduation’s G.R.I.T.

GRIT Stands for:

Gracious students who are

Resilient Resourceful Relentless in making a positive

Impact through their

Tenacity to make the world a better place    

Through G.R.I.T we will teach students about what it means to be a part of a community of caring individuals.  We not only want our students to make an impact on the community that we serve but to also make a big impact wherever our graduates lives lead them.  We will help students realize their true potential by honing their GRIT traits.  By the time students are finish at Operation Graduation that will be leaders with the social skills necessary to tackle our society’s biggest problems.  It is because of our emphasis on social skills that when a life obstacle gets in our graduates way they will have the skill set to overcome it.  Our social curriculum will be the difference between a college graduate and a college dropout because of emphasis on honing the skills necessary to thrive in the face of adversity.