With any school, the month of August is an exciting one! The month of August for a brand new school, however, is without a doubt especially exciting, and it certainly has been for Cogito Academy. From the procuring of our final pieces of furniture for Cogito; to setting up that furniture and more for our coming scholars; to spending time in valuable Professional Development sessions; to conducting a very successful Open House; to opening our doors on day one for students, visitors, and families to tour; to continuing to enroll new students daily; to refining everything we do at Cogito, this month has been special and endlessly rewarding.
To begin the month of August at Cogito, we spent the first half of every day in excellent Professional Development sessions. As examples, we spent time with Chris Judge—Assistant Director of the University of South Carolina Lancaster’s Native American Center and professor at the University of South Carolina Lancaster, at the Native American Center; we were visited by Joshua Pauling, author and Classical Education scholar and practitioner; and we were visited by experts in Eureka Math and Core Virtues, and this is just to name a few. During these early days of August, the second half of our days were spent at Cogito Academy situating furniture and moving more furniture in--getting everything ready for our scholars to come ready to learn on August 12.
Our second week of August, our final week before school began, was action packed to say the very least. We continued with our professional development, receiving professional development on Core Knowledge, PowerSchool, and Special Education, and we spent all time otherwise at Cogito Academy working in any number of capacities—cleaning the grounds, setting up classrooms, giving families tours, planning lessons for the students to come, etc. Our work that week ultimately culminated with our Open House. Our families and children who came through were so incredibly excited for the opportunity Cogito is offering them—an amazing school year to come with more amazing school years to follow. And, our faculty was no less excited.
On August 12, our doors officially opened to students. The morning of August 12 was a memorable one, of course, and it was only made more memorable due to the rough weather—heavy rain. The weather, though, didn’t stop us from welcoming students and visitors from The Charter Institute at Erskine with open arms. I believe that the challenge of the weather only drew us all closer and reminded us of our commitment to our families and community. On day one, despite such challenges, I am proud to write that we had 301 scholars in desks at 7:30 a.m. ready to learn, and learn they did. Throughout the remainder of the week we gained enrolled students daily. Elements of our curricula continued to be delivered to us, and by the end of the week we were ready to have our teachers teach from the day’s beginning to end according to our plan: Core Virtues, Core Knowledge, Eureka Math, with P.E. daily and Art or Music daily. And, every day, we grew as we worked together, moving toward the conclusion of an excellent first week.
At the time of this report, we have completed two full weeks at Cogito Academy, and things only continue to improve. On day one of Cogito Academy, we had 301 scholars in our buildings, and come this Monday, we will have increased our numbers to 313. Daily, we have continued to refine all of our systems: student drop-off in the morning, classroom routines with all of our teachers, team meetings with our teachers, PLCs with our teachers and leadership teams, discipline procedures with our leadership team, distribution of breakfast and lunch to students, dismissal of students, and even, specifically, car-rider dismissal, which we trimmed down from over an hour on day one of school to approximately thirty-five minutes with our last pick-up. Our teachers are now fully committed to teaching from the day’s beginning to end according to our plan: Core Virtues, Core Knowledge, Eureka Math, with P.E. daily and Art or Music daily. And, as has been the case each day since beginning this journey, new learning experiences have been offered to us all, and we accept each with open arms. Each and every day we refined what we are doing as a team at Cogito, and we look forward to continuing to do so, continuing to work toward a goal I know we can achieve—making Cogito Academy the absolute best school in all of Lancaster County.