Week 2 @ Acton Academy Placer

Overcoming the learning curve

As with anything new- learning a new language, a skill or investing in a project there is almost always a learning curve. There is a gap in between what you know and do not know, and the goal is to make a bridge and bring that unknown knowledge closer to you.

This is exactly what I’ve been adjusting to my second week at Acton Academy. Since there are many unknowns in my job and many things that I have to encounter first in order to do, every day is truly a learning process and every day is different from the day before.

Here are a few things I did last week:

Invoices

• Invoices are one of the things I have to do on my end to keep everything running smoothly and effectively for parents and students alike. These invoices that I write up are for checks that different families receive from the charter school to be used for their tuition. I sent out more invoices this week and I was pleased to find that I’ve become a lot quicker typing out each individual invoice and logging them in their respective spreadsheet.

Weekly Updates

• I also learned how to send out the schools weekly updates. At the end of every school week, we have our staff meeting on Friday’s where we discuss what each studio is working on, including what is working and what is not working and any issues that arose during the week and what we can do solve those issues. It’s a reflective time that helps us redefine goals and keep on track. During this time the guides share what happened in their studio on a shared document that we send out at the end of the week. After everyone contributes to the document I am able to send it out newsletter style in an email to the parents and then I also upload it to the app for those who like to view it that way.

Mastery Transcript Research

• Mastery Transcript Research is something I’ve been committed to because it’s something that is extremely important in the next steps of the graduating seniors. Unlike a standard transcript, the Mastery Transcript is a portfolio based transcripts that showcases skill sets, and projects, and strengths compared to standard grades. Research has shown that a transcript does not accurately represent what a student can do and learn. It does not measure growth or things learned overtime and it does not show what was learned. It only shows a snapshot of a final grade. This Mastery Transcript allows the students to upload their projects as evidence of what they learned and what they are growing in.

I’d say week 2 at Acton Academy was very productive and I’m excited to learn more and grow more as we prepare for a new two campus expansion.