Brass City Charter School

The BCCS educational philosophy is based on the following premises:

• We believe in the transformative power of education as a means to end the cycle of poverty. Educational attainment is well documented as a powerful key to future employment success and lifetime earning potential.

• We believe that high expectations, combined with a supportive environment, affect student outcomes. High expectations are conveyed to students in a variety of ways that are integral to the structure and daily operation of BCCS. These include striving for excellence at every level; fostering personal relationships between all school staff and students and their families; providing ongoing guidance, challenge and stimulus; discovering and building upon children’s individual strengths and interests; offering intensive and structured learning opportunities throughout the school day; encouraging and rewarding critical thinking and curiosity; assessing early and often, and using the results of assessments to adjust teaching methodologies to ensure optimal learning; and leveraging students’ intrinsic motivations to excel.

• We believe that all students can make academic progress and are entitled to appropriate and rigorous instruction that will move them along the learning continuum. Curriculum must be relevant and challenging, based on standards and research, and feature multiple learning and teaching approaches that respond to student diversity. Frequent assessments of various types, both formal and informal, must inform instruction so that difficulties can be identified early and remediated immediately, before they become obstacles to continued progress. Similarly, high-performing students must be provided with learning experiences that will challenge and interest them, delivered at a pace appropriate to their abilities.

• We believe that participation in a high-quality early childhood education program by underserved children can enhance these children’s development, reduce achievement gaps at kindergarten entry, and even have long-term benefits for children’s school trajectories.

• We believe that every child can learn to experience and express music deeply, can receive its many benefits, can make different critical life choices as a result of this learning, and that music is an effective strategy for helping to close the achievement gap. 

• We believe that teachers and staff must work to design an environment that fosters academic and social growth, enhances emotional intelligence, and prevents and addresses the underlying stresses that manifest in challenging behaviors. 

• We believe that students need to learn how to learn (metacognition). Teaching children how their brains work helps them become more active in their own learning.

• We believe that high-quality teachers and school leaders are essential to the success of students and that the Principal should be the instructional leader of our school, tasked with supporting and coaching teachers in order to drive and improve instruction.

• We believe that school resources matter, including small class sizes, especially for children in low SES areas.

• We believe that small schools foster a tighter knit school culture enabling more effective and frequent teacher collaboration, continuous professional learning, and closer relationships between staff and students.

• We believe that the school environment should foster health, wellness, and safety. BCCS will support students’ daily readiness to learn by providing nourishing meals and snacks to all students, regardless of federal program eligibility, incorporating physical fitness into the school program, and ensuring an environment that is safe from physical and psychological hazards.