Acceleration Academies_Spring2023_Pathways Magazine

FIRST
THINGS
FIRST.
At Acceleration Academies,
we’re committed
to removing the
non-academic barriers
to academic success.
At Lowcountry Acceleration Academy — like its
sister schools across the United States — caring
educators make sure young learners don’t get lost.
Late one afternoon, that personalized attention
may have saved a young woman’s life. Graduation
candidate advocate Janell Reyes noticed that one
of the learners on her caseload — a 16-year-old
affectionately known to LAA team members as the
“Quiet Storm” — had disappeared into the bathroom
for a long time. Reyes went in to check, asking, “Are
you okay?”
The young woman said she was, but Reyes wasn’t
sure. She alerted Dr. Jacinta Bryant, the academy’s
founding director. Bryant took a gentle approach,
saying, “We have our cleaning
crews coming in a moment
and we don’t want any
strangers coming in while
you’re here.”
“I can’t come out,” came the
reply, soft and anxious.
Bryant persuaded her to
open the door, saw blood in
the toilet and, after they had
retreated to a quiet room, the
cut marks on her arms. The young woman’s sorrow
poured out: she had lost a sibling, her mother had to
go into dialysis and the family had lost their home.
“She was tired of living in a motel and afraid to lose
her mom,” Bryant recalled. “Her life had just gone
broken.” Bryant and her team stood ready to help
her heal.
“
Her life had just
gone broken.
- Dr. Jacinta Bryant
Bryant and her team teamed up with her mother
and connected the young learner with mental
health services. LAA’s life coach developed a plan
to welcome the young woman back into the
academy and provide the support she needed
to regain her stride. A year and a half later, she’s
going strong — a smiling “quiet storm.”
‘Don’t Call Us Dropouts. The System
Pushed Us Out’
On any given day in the United States, nearly 2
million young men and women who should be
laying the foundation for their futures are instead
scraping by as high school dropouts — and that
doesn’t even count the millions more who have
grown disengaged and are at
risk of quitting.
A decade ago, Acceleration
Academies was founded
by Dr. Joseph Wise and
David Sundstrom, veteran
educational leaders who saw
the need for a different way.
“It was not because the kids
were consciously choosing to
reject what was on the table for them. It was just
the opposite — they felt they had been rejected,”
recalls Sundstrom. Wise adds, “ ‘These kids said,
‘Don’t call us dropouts. We were pushed out. The
system pushed us out.’ “
Many school districts across the country take
pride in boasting graduation rates of 85%, 90%,
6 Pathways | Spring 2023