DeKalb PATH Academy Board Presentation - 1.13.2025

DeKalb PATH Academy Charter School
        3007 Hermance Drive
        Brookhaven, GA 30319
            404-846-3242

PATH At A Glance...
         INNOVATION AT PATH ACADEMY CHARTER :
         Powerful Community Connections
•   PATH Changes Lives In Our Community: PATH has changed the trajectory of our students
    lives for the past 22 years. Our waitlists are on average 500 students across all four grades.

•   PATH is Building on a solid foundation: Building on quintessential cornerstones of PATH
    culture such as the weekly morning circle, the PATH chant and our paycheck system, PATH
    continues to find innovative ways to use relationship and community to foster a community of
    academic excellence, with our newest innovative features being our Restorative Circles and
    House System.

•   PATH Innovations are highly rated and attended by their students - PATH does not just boast
    over 20 years of extraordinarily high attendance for a middle school, with our current year’s
    percentage averaging about 98% a month, but our extended learning day and summer
    orientation attendance is just as high.
         INNOVATION AT PATH ACADEMY CHARTER :
         WHAT IS INNOVATIVE ABOUT OUR SCHOOL & CHARTER?

• Strengths Based Culture Emphasizing Self Actualization, Stewardship and Grit

   • PATH Academy takes the Gallup Q12 assessment, and ranks in the top 25%-30%
     engaged organizations, globally for the past 4 years.
   • Community Engagement - Prior Awards from DCSD, Climate Surveys scores
     are consistently high.
   • Teacher Authored Curriculum - Instruction that draws you in through
     multisensory experiences and culturally relevant concepts, activities and
     content.
   • Curated Experiences - Teachers plan trips throughout the year designed to etch
     concepts and content into lifelong memories for our students.
           PATH’S COMMUNITY: WHO DO WE SERVE & WHY?

PATH’s mission is to provide a safe, nurturing, and challenging learning environment that supports local
immigrant and refugee families, by equipping students with the tools they need to pursue a life passion
while enriching their community. Upon graduating students at PATH will be able to:
 •   Reflect a high level of positive engagement in their school community
 •   Understand their unique talents, how to develop those talents into strengths and how to use those
     strengths to be a good community steward
 •   Reflect a graduating class of which 40 to 50% of students are accepted to competitive schools with a
     focus on students being able to choose which competitive school they attend by obtaining more
     than one acceptance
          PATH’S COMMUNITY: WHO DO WE SERVE & WHY?


PATH’s vision is to create an engaging learning environment that fosters community stewardship and
 success by:
•   Employing and developing top talent
•   Collaborating to develop creative, engaging, standards-based curricula and experiences
•   Seeking out the natural talent in our people and developing those talents into strengths
          Academic Performance/Curriculum

While PATH showed promise in several areas, this term we did not consistently outperform the state or the
district in all areas. Here is some important context to consider:

 •   Teacher Turnover: Like the rest of the country we experienced turnover after covid. The turnover came
     from some of our most seasoned teachers. It particularly affected our 5th and 7th grade teams who
     experienced the most turnover.

 •   PATH has been proactive in seeking out professional development opportunities to address these
     two important factors, and they are evident in the exhibits and data submitted in our application.

 •   Post Covid: Our ESOL population doubled going from 23% to 50%. To date it continues to grow and
     has remained around 52-53%. While we take pride in serving our ELL students, keeping up with their
     rapid growth as a small charter school has been a challenge.
            Proactive Measures to Address Gaps in Data
Content Mastery - PATH partnered with Jay McTighe and his team in 2023 to begin creating and codifying customized
curriculum using Understanding by Design to meet the unique needs of our student population, including our English
Language Learners. Staff completed the first phase of this professional development which culminated in May 2024
with the publishing of custom curriculum maps for each content area in each grade. Implementation of these maps
began this school year. This year our partnership continued with the creation of custom rubrics, beginning with
constructed response rubrics for all content areas. This particular rubric stemmed out of the analysis of our Content
Mastery Gaps on the most recent GA Milestones Assessments. All materials contain a language component to support
language development regardless of the student’s designation.


English Language Learners - Leveraging our flexibility that enables a longer school day and year, we have used our
innovative periods which fall outside of our standard instructional time during the day to group our students
according to their composite scores to promote growth towards acquisition. This allows us to focus on the four
domains (reading, listening, writing and speaking) that the students need growth in through activities designed to
close those gaps. This change was implemented this year after analyzing our ACCESS data over the summer.
Governance
PATH’s Governing Board partnered with Cobalt 21 in the Spring of 2024
to begin working on renewal and will continue this partnership to craft
their strategic plan for the next 3 years. In addition, the board is working
closely with Cobalt 21 to put structures into place to ensure that they
build the capacity to remain consistently in compliance with open
meeting laws
          Financial Performance
Financial Performance- PATH’s financial health remains strong with collaborative oversight from
our Administration & Governing Board. Together we have navigated challenges in transportation
and budget cuts this charter term, and have successfully managed our budget and added to our
savings via our GA Fund 1 account.

Building Lease - As recently as the middle of October, we were given an unexpected two year lease
extension (June 2027) by Oglethorpe, the owners of our building. Our typical lease renewal period is
5 years. As a result, we have initiated plans to locate commercial properties that meet our
community needs. Since we have been good financial stewards we have the means to help us do this,
as evidenced in our application. PATH’s Board intends to vote at their January 14th meeting, which
is tomorrow, to partner with Raymond James & Associates to begin plans to open a new building in a
new location by August 2027. We intend to provide regular updates to the district on this initiative.
We know that home is not a building, but home is where one’s family is.
Organizational Performance
Organizational Performance - PATH continues to thrive under a shared
leadership model supported by Gallup certified administrative coaches.
While turnover is consistently between 10%-15%, transitions are healthier
with solid coaching relationships in place that allow school leadership to
constantly monitor, foster and attract talented staff. Engagement scores
have illustrated that PATH continues to be a highly engaged work
environment, with its highest Q12 scores being around Mission and
Vision for the past 4 years.
                        Acknowledgements


•   Dr. Adrienne Lacey-Griffin
•   Dr. Michelle Jones and the Specialty Area Team Support Office
•   Kina Champion & the Renewal Team
•   Dr. Horton
Questions