In Newport News, An Achievable Dream Academy students enjoy some recreation time. (Photo courtesy An Achievable Dream)
At Highland Springs Elementary School, the youngest students will wear uniforms during the upcoming school year, which for them begins July 10 with four weeks of half-days, Monday to Thursday.
Henrico County police officers and firefighters will greet them and inspect their attire, consisting of a polo shirt, navy pants and black shoes. Students will be expected to shake their instructors’ hands and look them in the eye each day. To help build affirmation, students in kindergarten through second grade will also recite slogans such as “I am somebody.” During the regular academic year, their day will be two hours longer than that of other Henrico students, ending at 4:25 p.m., and there will be occasional Saturday sessions.
“It is about educating the whole child,” says Kate Puschak, the school’s director for the new program called An Achievable Dream Certified Academy, which she says provides “a social, academic and moral education.”
Highland Springs Elementary, one of 12 county schools that were only partially accredited by the Virginia Department of Education for the 2016-2017 year, has a significant population of students considered at risk of failing academically because of poverty and other social factors.
Another grade will be added each year, and by 2021, school officials hope to have Highland Springs Middle and High schools dreaming as well.
Operating within Newport News schools since 1992, An Achievable Dream (AAD) was started by the late Walter Segaloff, a Hampton Roads businessman and philanthropist who was concerned about the poor social skills of the people who were applying for jobs in his discount department stores.
“It started out as a summer after-school program,” says Lee Vreeland, vice president of academics at the private, nonprofit organization. “He had no idea that it would become a school, but now it’s two schools in Newport News, a middle and high school.” A third AAD academy, Seatack Elementary in Virginia Beach, was launched two years ago.
Henrico’s academy will be funded for the next five years at Highland Springs Elementary at a cost of $2.17 million — $400,000 has been appropriated for the 2017-2018 fiscal year — and will be a joint venture between An Achievable Dream Inc. and Henrico County Public Schools, with the Henrico School Board having ultimate authority. The program won’t supplant the Henrico public education curriculum, but expand upon it, with a concentration on social and business learning that encompasses everything from table manners to conflict resolution. There are also expanded extracurricular activities such as special clubs, field trips and cultural experiences.
“I think it will bring an additional sense of pride in my students, and it will help them to set goals and work together towards those goals in a way they haven’t before,” says Shawnya Tolliver, principal of Highland Springs Elementary. “It may awaken talents that they never knew they had.”
Parents who don’t wish their children to be enrolled in the program can have them transferred to Fair Oaks Elementary. In turn, Fair Oaks students can apply if spots open at Highland Springs.
Two dozen people attended an April meeting at the Eastern Henrico Recreational Center designed to introduce country stakeholders to the program, including representatives from Henrico Fire and Rescue, Henrico County Police, the Board of Supervisors, the School Board, Henrico County Public Library and area churches. Before the presentation, there were around-the-room introductions that turned into hopeful testimonials.
“I fell in love with the school in the first 10 minutes I was there,” Tyrone Nelson, the Varina District supervisor, said of the AAD academy in Newport News. “So much is possible here,” echoed Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas, who says he got chills when he saw the program in action.
An Achievable Dream’s results have been impressive. The Newport News academy, which took root in a similar “at-risk” school, has enjoyed an overall 98 percent graduation rate (100 percent of the 2016 class graduated, and students received more than $1.5 million in scholarship funds). Over the long term, since its first graduating class in 2001, more than 90 percent of the Newport News AAD students have attended a two- or four-year college.
The program is big on etiquette – and sports like tennis, which Segaloff believed in as a learning tool — and getting students ready for the business world.
“All students get the math and science, social studies and English,” Vreeland says. “But we feel that we need to level the playing field so that these students are prepared for life after high school, that we expose them to social skills as well.”
One regular AAD focus is called “Speaking Green” — “because green is the color of money and we all want to make money,” Puschak explains. The students will be rewarded for wearing their school uniforms — they receive 10 merits each day, which go into an account at the bookstore, where they can buy school supplies, backpacks, paper and books. By third grade, they’ll be issued checkbooks and taught how to keep up with balances, and they’ll gradually learn the concepts of savings, investing, even buying a home. In the end, the director adds, “this is all about teaching what it means to be a dreamer.”
