By Student Fellow Janae Smith
Seeing students dancing on tables is a dream come true for Kevin Wheat, Principal of Allen Jay Preparatory Academy in High Point, North Carolina. Chants, clapping and dancing may seem at odds with the hushed school halls recalled by many, but it’s just one of the ways that Wheat and his team have been thinking about learning a little differently at AJ Prep.
At AJ Prep, student participation at the combined levels of body and mind is seen as crucial to academic success and student wellbeing. Crucially, a holistic framework for teaching has helped the school maintain a culture of engagement, even as the Covid-19 pandemic has constrained in-person instruction.
Student engagement has become one of the year’s most important education issues as millions of the nation’s PK-12 students have faced a partial or complete transition to remote learning. For education researchers and administrators, however, engagement has been top of mind for years. A 2018 Gallup poll found that 88% of superintendents see student engagement as an important measure of school effectiveness.
The promise of AJ Prep’s unique brand of engagement, backed by encouraging student test results, helped put the school in the top 5% for growth in the state. Wheat emphasizes that AJ Prep uses a combination of methods to engage its students, who teachers and staff refer to as scholars. Wheat says “music, movement, cheers, and chants as a way to engage scholars,” drawing them into learning. Wheat adds that the combining body and mind in the learning process engages both the right and the left brain, enhancing focus and retention for scholars.
AJ Prep’s mind-body approach also helps promote the success of scholars who previously struggled with behavior and learning challenges. As one eighth grader remarks on his experience at the school, “the more you engage in something, the more you learn, the more you remember it, you feel me? You learn very easy here.”
Developing students’ character and leadership skills is one of AJ Prep’s top priorities. By referring to students as scholars, Wheat and instructors hope to emphasize the school’s drive toward college preparation. In addition to seeing portraits of historical leaders that adorn the halls, AJ Prep scholars also know the school’s “Leader’s Creed” by heart, which emphasizes integrity, service and excellence. It’s these high standards, paired with an environment built on physical and mental interaction, that make students excited to be at the school. “I’m a scholar at Allen Jay Prep. It’s already changed my life, and I feel like it’s continuing to change my life,” says another eighth grader.
AJ Prep school recognizes its dynamic model and impact on students would not be possible without complete buy-in from the educators themselves.
Teachers are the secret ingredient in the school’s annual “Best First Day of School Ever,” where scholars are welcomed back by costumed teachers embodying a theme, such as boot camp, magic, or superheroes. As part of this process, students are sorted in houses like the witches and wizards of the fictional Hogwarts school. Teachers are encouraged to create themes for their classrooms, resulting in rooms decorated with kayaks, sports paraphernalia, or styled as a pizzeria. All of this adds up to a greater sense of belonging for instructors and scholars alike.
AJ Prep relies on teachers to help students navigate the school’s unusual approach and to connect with their students in ways that extend into the community. As researchers like Jennifer Fredericks have argued, strong teacher-student relationships are critical to student engagement, especially for students from communities that have been historically excluded from academic success.
To help their scholars explore their potential, AJ Prep invests significant time and resources outside the typical school norm, efforts made possible by supporters like the Phillips Foundation. AJ Prep allocated Phillips Foundation support to a multi-year effort focused on academic and leadership development, funding efforts beyond typical school hours, including Saturday programming, tutoring, and teacher support.
“Our scholars go to school 20 additional days per year,” says Wheat. “They go to school an additional hour per day, and that requires additional funding.” Doing more has required significant investment, “from transportation to child nutrition to paying salaries.”
Lessons from other philanthropic investments in education show that these kinds of efforts can have huge impacts on people’s lives.
“One of the goals of Allen Jay Prep is really to help young students get on the pathway towards college and help break those cycles of poverty,” says Wheat. “We are working with a lot of first generation college students, families that really had no idea that their students could even be eligible for college. That type of investment in young people’s lives is paying high dividends.”
Like schools across the nation, AJ Prep has faced the challenge of bolstering student engagement within the virtual learning environment necessitated by Covid-19. Even though students and teachers can’t gather in person, the school’s pillars—including innovative instruction and leadership development—appear to be standing strong.
This fall, in true AJ Prep fashion, Wheat and his staff took the opportunity to embrace change and frame this year as a growth opportunity for students. In September, Wheat and his staff debuted a superhero-themed video encouraging their scholars to “find the superhero within,” and reminding them that they “can do virtually anything.” The video captures the tenacious spirit that fuels AJ Prep’s approach, as Wheat (cast as a roller-skating Frozone from the Disney/Pixar film The Incredibles) teaches students that superheroes rise to challenges and find strength when they thought they had none.
AJ Prep has made its leadership instruction a key way to start the day, with Principal Wheat delivering a lesson at the start of the week, and students leading classroom leadership discussions on other days. For students, starting the day engaged in notions of leadership, and sometimes presenting the ideas themselves, makes it that much harder to disengage. When he’s not teaching leadership skills, Wheat is working hard to make the school community a real and present force in students’ lives—delivering Wi-Fi hotspots, devices, and even food to students’ homes.
While it may be months before AJ Prep scholars can get back to dancing on the tables, it’s clear the school’s commitment to academic success and student engagement will carry it through this year and beyond.
