• Category 1

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: k - 8
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 271,000
    Student Enrollment: 267
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 26%
    White/Caucasian: 10%
    Hispanic: 16%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 48%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:16
    % Reduced Lunch: 51%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 1997
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Claudia Zuorick
  • CONTACT:
    1 Romar Avenue
    JERSEY CITY, NJ 07305
    201-434-4800
    bmcg13@aol.com
Soaring Heights Charter School
JERSEY CITY, NJ
The school seeks to build a community of students focused upon building a better world.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
The well developed confident teacher often has the greatest impact upon students in encouraging them to strive for their personal best. The philosophy of Soaring Heights Charter School is founded upon the idea that building strong, trusting relationships among all members of the school community is a recipe for success. The teachers are trained to build solid relationships with each other which enables them to build solid relationships with students and families. After years of studying human communication in which teachers develop a high level of listening skills and an awareness of how their words impact others, a relaxed environment in which teaching and learning thrives has been created. A process developed at the school known as the Direct Communication solidifies the relationships among the teachers and results in a strong sense of unity. When teachers work from a position of unity, the skills and strengths of all shine through.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
The single most important factor in the success of Soaring Heights Charter School that others could replicate is the identification of blame and self-blame and their ramifications throughout the classroom and school climate. The school learned that if it did not carefully build a constructive climate free of blame and self-blame, the climate would develop on its own filled with cycles of complaining and other destructive forms of communication. We have found that teachers in this climate thrive and when they thrive, the children in their care thrive. This has been accomplished by studying what people say to each other, why they say it and learning how to listen more effectively to the words of others. Even though the school has only been operational since 1997, the average time the teachers have worked at the school is 14 years. For the past five years, the average teacher retention rate has been 98%.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
Soaring Heights is committed to enhancing the growth and development of all its teachers so that all of its students are educated by confident self aware educators committed to the same outcomes for cultivating exciting, inspirational leaders for tomorrow. The school seeks to build a community of students focused upon building a better world. Soaring Heights's teachers are continually striving to be better today than they were yesterday. The recipients of this effort are the students in their care. The school developed and implements its own teacher evaluation system approved by the New Jersey Department of Education. Today, the evaluation committee is comprised of seven tenured staff. These teachers conduct evaluations. Together they reflect upon the strengths and struggles of each teacher and consider possible ways to congratulate the individual teacher's accomplishments or supports and assist in finding solutions for areas of need while also building confidence.
Explain how ESEA federal funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
Through the funding provided by ESEA our urban school has developed a tutoring program that functions in a mode of continuous improvement. At-risk students are identified and placed in groups for instruction accordingly. All groups have a minimum of two instructors. The school has learned that when instructors' work styles are studied then paired so as to complement each other, their effectiveness in working with students increases dramatically. This results in a more efficient use of time and money. The attitudes of both students and instructors remains consistently enthusiastic because the tutoring climate is one of unity and fun. The school attributes its increase in test scores to this approach.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
At Soaring Heights Charter School on a daily basis blame is addressed, reduced and replaced with an attitude of finding solutions to make everything work. Schools, a journal is published by the University of Chicago Press in spring of 2010, included an article written by Claudia Zuorick, Director of Soaring Heights Charter School, "The Road Out of Blame" which highlights ways to identifying blame and how unaddressed blame prevents growth. Our school continually moves forward because it is "we" much more than it is "I". We seek both competition and collaboration jointly. Everyone is invested in everyone else's success as well as their own.
Stats
  • Category 1

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: k - 8
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 271,000
    Student Enrollment: 267
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 26%
    White/Caucasian: 10%
    Hispanic: 16%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 48%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:16
    % Reduced Lunch: 51%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 1997
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Claudia Zuorick
  • CONTACT:
    1 Romar Avenue
    JERSEY CITY, NJ 07305
    201-434-4800
    bmcg13@aol.com