The following is a description of this year's AOK (Area of Knowlege) Classes: 

Sparking Courageous Conversations

Description: This course aims to center discussions about race and racism. Digital texts, picture books, articles, essays and other types of texts will be used to spark conversations that help students recognize individual, interpersonal, and institutional racism.  Essential to these courageous conversations is the racial literacy skills students will acquire that help them to recognize, name, and challenge various forms of everyday racism.

Common Core Connections: In compliance with Common Core Literacy Standards, this course provides students with frequent opportunities to analyze texts from diverse cultures and time periods, and contribute accurate, relevant information during discussions about race and racism. As a result, students will build a foundation of knowledge and utilize the vocabulary and tools demonstrated in the AOK class to speak about issues of race and racism  in developmentally appropriate ways.

Goals: Students will:

• Understand that racism exists in many different arenas and capacities
• Understand that biases are often not obvious or immediately present on the surface
• Learn key racial literacy vocabulary such as: race; ethnicity; racism; racial justice; antiracism; allies; assumptions; colorblindness; discrimination; equity;  identity; individual, interpersonal, and institutional racism; marginalized; microaggressions; narrative; counternarrative; oppression; prejudice; privilege; supremacy; systems; social, economic, and political conditions; stereotype
• Learn conversational strategies to discuss racism
• Learn tools to challenge topics
• Learn strategies to deconstruct canned, racial narratives and acquire counternarratives that provide perspectives that have been silenced

Organizational Skills

This course is designed to improve the ways in which students organize their priorities, time, and materials both in school and at home. Students will receive support in this class this by learning strategies that focus on the following: 

1. Keeping school supplies, lockers and backpacks organized.
2. Setting weekly, monthly and quarterly goals.
3. Working on methods to improve time management skills.
4. Learning how to prioritize assignments.
5. Developing a schedule to keep track of assignments and long term projects.

Under Construction:  

Engineering and Design

Mind and Body Wellness