The Programs We Envision...
Our vision for Meet-Exceed VI, Incorporated is for us to radiate a growth mindset paradigm. We would like our Virgin Islands children to meet and exceed numeracy literacy, and science standards, despite our socio-economic status. We would like parents and the community to begin raising children with confidence and the desire to learn what is necessary to be successful. The leaders and elected officials will make meaningful interventions in education by making changes through legislations, public-private partnerships, and outreach to the community. Finally, we would like all children in the Virgin Islands within the next 8 years to meet and exceed grade level standards and advance to at least a 70%a proficiency in reading, mathematics, and science.
We asked ourselves what we can create and build to service the children in St. Thomas
and St. John and even across the waters to St. Croix. We know that parents and other stake-
holders want our children to do well. Parents expect that the schools equipped with the
professionals are helping their child to meet grade level standards, and that they, as parents,
have a minimal role in ensuring this. The community will benefit from services where children
are in a much smaller setting, has a small teacher-to-student ratio, offer consistent
and targeted intervention and offer opportunities for children to reflect and examine a
growth mindset approach to life and learning.
Tiny Table Academic Camps
One program that we are launching is the Tiny Table Academic Camps. Tiny Table Academic Camps will be an extended-learning program where students will be matched with reading and math teachers in a guided reading/math and reading/math workshop format. There will be no more than four students to one teacher, and teachers will create intervention lessons based on progress monitoring data. Fun activities will be assigned in larger groups while the teachers are working with small groups. Each cohort will have four "classrooms", with four students and a teacher--Enrollled will be16 children (grades 2nd-6th ) in all.
Re-Discover Everything
Our Re-Discovery Everything program is an extended-learning program that will be different from most after school or summer enrichment programs. We will have social emotional learning curriculum, which will be a novelty. We plan to incorporate social-emotional learning intentionally into our Re-Discover Everything program curriculum and teach our enrollees to see how these principles, combined with this unique curriculum, will help them to meet and exceed grade level standards. Children in the Virgin Islands can re-discover everything by interacting with multiple disciplines and applying principles of social emotional learning, as they focus on core subjects of reading and mathematics. Each cohort will have four blocks. Our schedule will begin with a 30 minute block, then a 45 minute block, another 30 minute block, and ends with another 45 minute block. The first 30-minute long block will be a special time for students to learn about reflection and growth mindset, as they transfer academic and non-academic learning to real world experiences. The other 30-minute block will be an academic block used for targeted intervention for reading and math. The two, 45-minute blocks will be enrichment electives or Quests where students will be assigned two out of four electives offered. The electives offered for this cohort are Literature Club, STEAM, Arts and Crafts, and Music. Five teachers, four teacher assistants, and a director will guide and instruct 50 enrollees.
10-10-10
A program currently in the development stage is 10-10-10. Ten students, ten teachers, ten weeks is our reading and mathematics tutorial program where students will be a part of a reading and math intervention and progress monitoring program. In this program, each student will be assigned to one teacher who will assess, assign intervention lessons, and use progress monitoring data to improve reading and/or math performance.
Rock Logic
We are currently working on a curriculum for a math program called Rock Logic to be implemented in the summer and possible as an after school program. A fun math program that focuses on deductive reasoning with logic puzzles, real-life practical math, and games utilizing strategy and probability concepts is something we envision for Rock Logic. The nickname for St. Thomas (V.I.) is "Rock", so yes, Rock Logic is a play on that name. Rock Logic will be a great pull away from traditional math and hopefully will encourage the development of critical-thinking skills in the enrollees.
