Academic Philosophy
The Academic Department Philosophy is that each teacher will strive to create and foster an environment that promotes students’ confidence and their motivation to learn. The staff is committed to implementing our standards based curriculum (in alignment with the guidelines prescribed by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) in order to adhere to a clear and rational structure through which students, teachers, and parents can assess mastery. To ensure academic rigor, Southeastern is committed to differentiated instruction and inclusive classrooms because all students have the right to be exposed to the same high level curriculum. The Southeastern community understands and respects that our students are 21st century learners. Along with implementing traditional reading, writing, math, and critical thinking skills, we will continue to be in the educational forefront by accommodating individual student needs, by embracing technology, by fostering skills that will support success in vocational areas, and by making efforts to stay current in each field of expertise for the benefit of Southeastern students.
Web-based Portfolio, Textbooks, and Standards-Based Assessment
www.studyisland.com
www.myaccess.com
www.pearsonsuccessnet.com
www.edline.net
At Southeastern, all students are exposed to a rigorous grade level appropriate curriculum in academic areas. In order to ensure that all students have the opportunity to excel, students and teachers use an online writing tool called MY Access!®, in both academic and vocational areas. This web-based tool may be used at home or in school to save time, to increase student confidence in writing while maintaining common school-wide writing expectations, and to improve critical thinking skills while increasing student confidence in academics.
All teachers and courses are linked to Edline in order for students and parents to monitor grades and assignments at home regularly. The following courses have web-based textbooks and/or individualized standards-based remediation/challenges through Study Island (traditional textbooks are available to take home as needed):
English 9
English 10
American Literature
British Literature |
Algebra I
Geometry
Algebra II
Pre-Calculus
Adv. Quant. Reasoning
Calculus |
Intro to Biology
Biology (Lab)
Chemistry (Lab)
Physics (Lab) |
US Hist. 1733-1867
US Hist. 1877-2001
World Hist. 1500-1800
World Hist. 1800-2001 |
|
Honors Commitment
At Southeastern, all students are exposed to a rigorous grade level appropriate curriculum in academic areas. In order to ensure that all students have the opportunity to excel, students may make the honors commitment in one or more academic courses. This means that in an academic class, all students are expected to meet the standards of the core curriculum, but those who want to receive honors credit and go above and beyond may elect to do the honors coursework.
Honors coursework is designed for the independently motivated learner who would like to prepare rigorously for college level expectations. Honors students must be able to work independently on multiple tasks at a given time. Honors students must be personally organized, disciplined, task committed, reading above grade level, and self-motivated.
Honors students are expected to complete the entire core curriculum in addition to the projects, assessments, presentations, and readings that will be required for honors students in a particular course/grade level/subject area. Work will be assigned during vocational cycles and will heavily rely on our web-based tools for learning. Honors students must have access to the Internet at home, plan to use our computer labs, or plan to use their local library. *Additional grade point average weight will be given to students who have made the honors commitment, which may result in a higher class rank.
Virtual High School and Advanced Placement
Students who have proven to be independently motivated learners in all courses or in a particular content area aspiring to attend a four year college will be recommended to take one or more Virtual High School courses during their sophomore to senior year. Virtual high school students must be able to work independently on multiple tasks at a given time. Virtual high school students must be personally organized, disciplined, task committed, reading above grade level, and self-motivated.
All Virtual High School (VHS) classes are teacher facilitated and take place entirely over the internet. Class sizes are limited to 25, and there is an emphasis on interaction between teachers and students. Activities are student-centered and discussion and group activities are a part of each VHS course. Anywhere students have access to the Internet they can take a VHS class. Students can post work to their class anytime, day or night. VHS classes are offered in a scheduled asynchronous mode. That means classes will follow a semester schedule and assignments are due at specified weekly intervals. However, students can complete their work at anytime during the week, as long as work is posted by specified due dates. Students who are recommended for VHS and make the yearlong commitment will be enrolled in two semester long four credit courses or one year long eight credit course. To ensure students stay on track, students report to a monitored computer lab for one block each academic cycle. The most recent course catalog is available on www.govhs.org In the left frame, click the “VHS Catalog” hyperlink.
All VHS courses are monitored regularly, and adhere to the National Education Association’s (NEA) recommended course guidelines for high quality online courses. Students may enroll in a wide variety of core academic courses and creative electives at the Standard, Honors, Pre-Advanced Placement, or Advanced Placement level. Advanced Placement testing takes place on the Southeastern campus yearly.
Read 180 & System 44
READ 180 & System 44 are comprehensive reading intervention programs proven to meet the needs of struggling readers. The programs directly address individual needs through differentiated instruction, adaptive and instructional software, high-interest literature and non-fiction, and direct instruction in reading, writing, and vocabulary skills and foundational reading/phonics skills when necessary. In order to ensure that all students have the opportunity to excel, students who are identified through placement testing as reading significantly below grade level may be enrolled in our Read 180 program during their freshman and sophomore years.
Math Strategies
Math Strategies is a course to support students with significant deficiencies in mathematics. Students who are identified through placement testing as significantly below grade level may be enrolled in our Math Strategies program during their freshman year in conjunction with Algebra I. The program directly addresses individual needs through differentiated instruction, adaptive and instructional software, and direct instruction in basic math skills and content area vocabulary skills.