Prospect Hill Academy Welcome Newsletter

June 16, 2020

Welcome to the PHAmily,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the Upper Elementary Campus of Prospect Hill Academy Charter School. My name is David E. Brown and I am excited that I will be your child’s Principal. I have had the pleasure of being the Upper Elementary Principal for three years and I love what I do.

I have been lucky to be in the field of education for nearly 30 years. I began my career as a Health, Science and Physical Education teacher. In 2000, I became a School Administrator. Throughout my time in education, I have had the opportunity to teach and work in various schools with students from grades PreK – 12. I love being a part of PHA because it represents the best of the various schools I have worked at, all wrapped up in one awesome school.

At the Upper Elementary Campus, it is our goal to ensure students are healthy, safe and actively engaged in their learning. In order to maintain this focus, we rely on RAPS ( R espect, A cceptance, P ositivity & S afety). As we learn to grow and live in our educational community, it is important that we do it together as we show our respect for ourselves, each other and our environment. We do this by accepting our differences and knowing that they make us stronger as a community. We also believe that no matter what we face, we will be positive and persevere together as a community. Finally, we believe that we are our fellow human’s keeper. To that end, we learn, interact, follow the rules and play safely. By doing this, we should show our love for our awesome community.

While we do not yet know precisely what the coming year's school structure will look like, we are looking forward to engaging our students in exciting and meaningful expanded learning experiences. These might include outdoor adventures, career exploration opportunities , robotics and coding, in addition to monthly celebration assemblies, weekly clubs and daily advisory classes.

My dedicated and experienced staff and I are excited to soon meet you and your children. In the meantime, we are committed to keeping you abreast of our plans for the fall as additional guidelines from the Commissioner of Education become available and as we continue to prepare for exciting, enriching, and challenging learning experiences for our students.

Sincerely,

David E. Brown

Principal

Equity, Empowerment, and Justice at PHA

A Restorative School Culture

In these turbulent times, we want to reassure you that PHA remains steadfastly committed to equity, empowerment and justice. With our restorative school culture, we have created a uniquely diverse community of belongingness and inclusiveness. While we embrace and build upon the collective strength of our differences, we fiercely reject racism, bigotry, and hate.

Our school community, our PHAmily:

Is an inclusive & restorative practices school that allows our students to BREATHE while balancing high expectations, high accountability and high support for them.
Respectfully and openly grapple with the issues of racism in our own institution.
Lean into our own learning to continually pursue our cultural proficiency and our journeys to becoming antiracists.
Eliminate structural and systemic barriers that prevent access to an equitable, excellent education for our black and brown students.

Please take a moment to watch this short video of what a restorative school culture looks and feels like at PHA.

Family Engagement

Connect with the PHAmily Community

The Family Advisory Board (FAB) - PHA's Parent & Family Group- is meeting virtually twice every week and you are invited to join:

EVERY WEDNESDAY at 5:30 PM

EVERY FRIDAY at 9:00 AM

RSVP using this Google Form , and In Paik, PHA's Family Engagement Coordinator will send you a ZOOM invitation by email. You can join by phone, mobile device, or computer. Please come to both if you like. It is so good and reassuring to see and hear from other families! Thank you for being a part of the PHA community!

Family Support at PHA

At PHA we recognize that the months since the COVID -19 school closure started were challenging for many of our families. As always, we have remained committed to supporting our students to ensure they are positioned to continue their learning from home. Below, please find some of the ways we have been able to support our families: