About Kestrel Heights Charter School
WELCOME
TO KESTREL HEIGHTS CHARTER SCHOOL
Kestrel Heights Charter School is a small, diverse, and inclusive learning community in Durham that empowers our Scholars to sharpen academic knowledge, demonstrate creative expression and expand leadership abilities to prepare for success in high school, college, and beyond.
We Are Intentionally Small
Parents, families, and staff are appreciative of our school’s relatively small size. We have no plans to expand enrollment substantially over the roughly 500 students we have now. Our small size ensures that there are no strangers in our building. Every student feels like they are part of a close community. Every student has multiple adults looking after him or her.
We Are Diverse and Inclusive
Kestrel Heights is diverse in the most literal sense of the word. We are diverse racially and ethnically. Indeed, we have students and staff from North Carolina, different parts of the country, and from many different continents. We are diverse in our religious beliefs, some of our scholar’s families are very devout while others have no religious beliefs at all. We are diverse in the age and experience range of teachers on staff. We celebrate our diversity in everything we do, and our community is truly an inclusive one where each person has an opportunity to succeed, be supported, and have his or her voice heard. As much as we value our diversity, it is our inclusiveness that makes our community a good and just place to learn.
Durham is Our Home
We are proud to be located in Durham. Durham has a compelling, rich, and multifaceted history that inspires the work we do every day. We believe that our school and our students will play a vital role in shaping Durham’s future. That is a responsibility that we accept with optimism and sincerity.
We Empower Our Scholars
We teach our students, we work with them as they grow physically and emotionally, and we aspire to be positive role models for our students. The desired end result of that work is scholars who are truly empowered to navigate this complicated world as they grow into adolescence, into teenage years and young adulthood. Our students are not just passively along for the ride of elementary school and middle school. Our scholars are empowered and have agency over their thoughts, choices, and actions.
We Sharpen Students’ Academic Knowledge
Naturally, the primary responsibility of any school is student learning. Student performance in literacy and numeracy are the ultimate benchmarks upon which our school is evaluated by local and state authorizers. At Kestrel Heights, however, we are more motivated by each individual student’s educational growth than we are by the average test score of all our students. Since all of our students arrive with skills to grow upon, we will empower our scholars to sharpen their academic knowledge.
We Encourage Creative Expression
We value traditional academic subjects and we are committed to expanding each child’s knowledge base. We are also focused on educating the whole child. Our specials classes, our electives courses, our extra-curricular club activities, and our athletic teams provide students with the vital outlets to learn and grow outside of the classroom. Our scholars employ these outlets to problem solve, think differently, and work with teammates to accomplish common goals. Thus, our scholars are empowered to demonstrate creative expression.
We Build Confident Leaders
Finally, our scholars are empowered to expand leadership abilities. We believe that every child in the Kestrel Heights community has innate leadership ability. That ability can be manifested in many different ways. We have scholars who are more reserved and quietly lead by example. We have scholars who are more gregarious and inspire their peers with their charisma and enthusiasm. We have some scholars who lead by wisely choosing who to follow and when. Everyone has a role to play, and everyone has an opportunity to step up and be a leader in one way or another.
Dear Kestrel Families,
Happy 25th Anniversary! Take a moment to appreciate that our school has been in operation for 25 years. This makes Kestrel Heights Charter School one of the most well-established charter schools in the country. This year, we will continue our long-standing tradition of excellence. We will host the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for our new Elementary School on August 21, 2023. When students return to school on August 23, 2023, they will attend school in the new building for the first time.
I am very excited to welcome you to the 2023-2024 school year! I hope you enjoyed some summertime fun and relaxation. This summer, our staff facilitated multiple summer learning opportunities that served more than 100 scholars. Since the programs concluded, members of our team have been busy preparing for your return. The excitement is palpable, and we are eager to work with our families this year!
At Kestrel we are committed to living our mission in each action and interaction. Our staff plans activities that frontload opportunities for students to learn about the school and become acclimated to the environment. Two such activities will precede Open House. 6th Grade Orientation is scheduled for Monday, August 14, and Kindergarten Orientation is scheduled for August 18.
We are proud to welcome back approximately 94% of our families this year, and we are excited to welcome 127 new scholars to the Kestrel community. This year we are starting the school year with just over 470 scholars enrolled in grades K-8. While we are committed to remaining a small charter school in the RTP area, this incremental increase in enrollment is consistent with our established short-term goals.
School News
We will use several methods to communicate with our school community throughout the year. Class Dojo is the primary means of communication, so please be sure to sign up. We will also send a biweekly Newsletter to keep you informed about key dates and other information. You will receive essential information, such as weather related closures, by way of SwiftK12 (via phone and email). Finally, Ms. Vargas, our Admissions/Data Coordinator, makes frequent posts on Social Media. I invite you to Like and follow our social media accounts below so that you can stay in the know about Hawks’ Happenings.
Links:
Website:https://kestrelheights.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KestrelHeightsSchool/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KestrelHeights
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kestrelheights/
What Makes Us Unique
Throughout the summer, I have had the pleasure of meeting former Kestrel students as they enroll their children. It is heartwarming to hear them reminisce about their favorite people and their favorite classes. What makes us unique is our mission to focus on empowering our scholars to sharpen academic knowledge, demonstrate creative expression, and expand leadership abilities to prepare for success in high school, college, and beyond.
Mind Brain Education: In partnership with Neuroteach Global and the Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning (CTTL), the staff at Kestrel Heights Charter School engages in Mind Brain Education (MBE) training. MBE equips staff with the knowledge and skills to design instruction with the latest brain science in mind. Through MBE, we will be able to develop strategies to improve scholar achievement, well-being, and the whole-school experience. By strategically addressing the learning environment, curriculum design, pedagogy and assessment, and scholar well-being, Kestrel Heights staff are empowered to be brain-changers.
Guided Reading and Guided Math: During Guided Reading and Guided Math, teachers work with smaller groups and design the practice to meet the students’ instructional levels. Teachers can re-teach or reinforce specific skills or strategies with a small group of students with similar needs. Both Guided Reading and Guided Math can facilitate critical thinking and deepen conceptual understanding. Through small-group instruction, teachers’ educational decisions are based on student achievement data to plan the Guided Reading and Guided Math lessons.
Benefits of Guided Reading and Guided Math
- Allows students to practice with the direct support of the teacher
- Provides an environment where students can work towards independence with support and feedback
- Allows teachers to choose texts, math problems, or objectives that specifically meet the needs of each learner
- Creates smaller learning communities within the classroom; these groups are flexible and change as needed
Intervention: The master schedule at Kestrel Heights Charter School includes an intervention block. The intervention block creates an opportunity for each student to receive differentiated support based on their Reading and Math iReady scores. For most students, intervention support will be provided by the classroom teacher, other students will be supported by a member of the intervention team.
There is so much more to come, and our goal is to keep you aware of all the great things happening at Kestrel. Remember to follow our social media and watch for the biweekly newsletter. Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions. I look forward to a wonderful school year!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Tonya Jackson, Ed. S.
Executive Director