Miami Shores/Barry University Charter School
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Students

General information regarding MS/BU Charter School.

Fact Sheet continued  

Teachers 

• Teachers who work at the Miami Shores/Barry University Charter School are all certified in their specific subject area(s).
• Assistant Teachers who work at the Miami Shores/Barry University Charter School are required to have at least 60 credit hours at the university level and/or an Associate of Arts degree.
• Teachers of the MS/BU Charter School are trained in the integration of technology into their instruction.

Curriculum

• The curriculum of the MS/BU Charter School is theme-based for each nine-week grading period. The themes are chosen at the end of each school year for the upcoming school year.
• All of our 180 charter school students are expected to complete a service-learning project accruing 75 volunteer hours by the end of their 8^th grade year.
• All of our charter school students take 6 credit courses during the year – Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, Foreign Language, and Physical Education, in a day 1, day 2 – block schedule of 2 hours each (3 classes each day).
• All of our 180 students will have completed 2 years of Foreign Language by the end of their 8^th grade year.
• Our 8^th grade charter school Physical Education classes are involved with the Yoga Inside Foundation Project as a county model, and participate in yoga classes weekly.
• Our 8^th grade students graduate from the MS/BU Charter School with three high school credits – Algebra I, Spanish I, and Earth/Space Science Honors. About 50% of them earn a fourth credit from Geometry Honors.
• Our charter school students are also scheduled in art and music classes during their 6^th grade year.
• Our core curriculum classes have a ratio of 15:1, as 30 students have a Master Teacher and an Assistant Teacher in each class.
• Each class is equipped with 5 to 8 computers, a TV Elite, a TV/VCR, and printers. Three classrooms are presently equipped with carts containing 30 laptops all connected to our wireless network.
• Our state-of-the-art technology lab is equipped with desktops and laptops from both platforms (Win/Mac), scanners, laser printers, digital cameras, multi-media TV, video camera, CD burners, a portable white board computer, zip drives, and software support.
• Our charter school students receive progress reports on a bi-weekly basis in the 6^th grade, and every four weeks in the 7^th and 8^th grades.
• Our charter school students receive an M-DCPS report card every nine weeks.

Testing 

• All of our charter school students are pre and post tested in the core curriculum areas – Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science. Most of our students demonstrate a significant increase for the year.
• In the 2002-2003 school year, our charter school students ranked #1 in the state of Florida in FCAT Writing, #1 in the county in Science, and in the top 3 in the county in Reading and Mathematics in all grade levels.
• Students in grades 7 and 8 who are registered with the Talent Identification Program (TIP) at Duke University take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), a college entrance exam, and their scores have been comparable to those of high school juniors and seniors.