Breakthrough Charter School is a PreK-8 public charter school operating in Marion, Alabama.  Our school will operate five days per week from (time).  Our mission "is to prepare students in Perry County (and surrounding counties) for success as citizens and leaders by providing a rigorous, service-oriented, and project-based public school that supports the social-emotional development of each individual child."   During the Covid-19 pandemic, many of the students who now attend Breakthrough Charter were separated from traditional educational environments and lacked access to proper resources to sustain and accelerate their age-appropriate, grade-level academic learning. Many of our students matriculated from academic environments that did not provide a climate that was affirming of their diverse educational, cultural, and social economic needs, which may have negatively impacted their capacity to learn and perform academically.  In order to close achievement gaps and promote our students' social emotional wellness, Breakthrough Charter School will use the ARP ESSER funds to address our students learning loss and social emotional needs through implementation of a Prek-3 Literacy Camp, after school programming, and summer enrichment programs.

Our curriculum will be implemented so that we respond to the cultural and academic needs of our students. Breakthrough will utilize the following evidence-based practices and strategies to address the learning needs of our students:

Project-Based Learning will be infused throughout our curriculum.  Students will be instructed in a Blended learning environment in which technology along with teacher facilitation of learning will occur.  STEM/STEAM practices will be infused with the ARTs to provide opportunities for students to learn math and science. Explicit literacy instruction that is connected to current reading research (i.e. Science of Reading, Big Ideas of Reading Success) will be provided to ensure that all students are reading on grade level by grade three.  Counselors will utilize varied instructional tools, programs, and counseling methods to help kids become resilient and socially and emotionally well. 

Our elementary and middle school students will participate in after school and summer programs based on the need to close their learning gaps and losses.   The after school program will operate for 90 minutes after the normal school day.   The summer programs will operate for a specified four week period during the summer.    Funds from ARP ESSER will be utilized to provide the human capital needed to provide academic support to our students beyond the school day through after school and summer enrichment programs.  This additional learning time will enable our school to reduce the achievement gap resulting from school closures, virtual learning environments and lack of access to resources needed to sustain and accelerate their learning.  These funds will be used for the additional support staff salaries and benefits.  Funds will also be utilized to provide transportation from home to school to home for students residing in rural areas outside of the local school radius.

Breakthrough Charter School will ensure that evidence-based interventions are addressing the academic, social, emotional and mental health needs of all students.  We will monitor the students’ needs by implementing a data-driven CIP which aligns to the comprehensive needs assessment.  This plan will include how loss of instructional time will be addressed due to the pandemic as well as how the social and emotional needs of students will be supported.  The plans will be revised throughout the year to assess student progress and implementation.  We will also participate in bi-weekly grade-to-grade feeder pattern data meetings to examine student progress in meeting the standards.  Students will be given additional instruction through a multi-tiered system of support with Tier II, Tier III intervention (academic and behavior) and available tutoring/after school support.  A charter school plan includes specific interventions/programs to use with grade span groups and progress of students is continually monitored based on standards and needs. Many students who experience bullying and trauma from lack of acceptance may have attendance and truancy issues.  We will use PowerSchools to monitor student attendance and will utilize this data to set up a system of support for these students. 

The data collected will be reviewed during bi-weekly data meetings and will be used to make data-driven decisions for students academically, behaviorally and social-emotionally. The following list of data sources will be used to help us identify the students that are most in need:

We will use PowerSchools to collect and monitor student attendance so that we can address the needs of students who are having learning losses due to chronic absenteeism and tardiness.  Behavior referrals will be used to monitor student discipline and design a plan of action to modify the behavior of students having frequent behavior referrals. 

Formative and summative assessments will be used to gauge students performance so that teachers can adjust instruction, provide remediation and intervention via small groups and community data (poverty rate, unemployment rate, etc.).