About

Our Mission

We are committed to providing the best academic core curriculum blended with meaningful integration of the visual and performing arts to build educated, confident students to be future community leaders.

Arts Integration

In addition, we believe in the importance of a strong arts education program which is integrated into the development of core academic areas, as well as into the development of personal and interpersonal skills. "Qualities of Quality" research sponsored by the Wallace Foundation through Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (June 2009) emphasized the multiple benefits of arts education served in tandem with a high quality core academic program:

Fosters broad dispositions and skills, especially the capacity to think creatively and the capacity to make connections
Develops artistic and creative skills and helpful techniques for learning
Develops aesthetic awareness
Provides ways of pursuing a broader understanding of the world
Provides a venue for students to explore and express themselves
Helps students engage with community, civic and social issues
Helps students develop as individuals

We believe the integration of fine arts into the regular school schedule will provide a systematic infusion of activities and resources that heighten understanding and application of knowledge across the curriculum. We understand the importance of administrators, a team of teachers and teaching.

RSAA believes these thinking and creative skills must be brought to the forefront of the curriculum and used as a guide for teachers in ensuring that students know how to apply and use learned information. Research has shown that integrating higher order thinking and creativity skills into the curriculum has been notably successful in accelerating advantaged and disadvantaged students in all respects. When these skills and techniques were taught, students developed intellectually and socially, and their test scores grew dramatically. We teach the concepts of the test, not by having the student memorize a bunch of unrelated facts, but by allowing the students to work with each concept through an active arts-based learning environment. This allows concepts to be totally internalized and heightens the student’s understanding so the information can be used not only for the test but also applied to every day life.

Middle school children (grades 4 through 8) bring a variety of personal issues to school every day. In many cases, it is difficult for them to achieve academically if they are dealing with a wealth of emotions, such as feelings of fear, anxiety, anger, isolation and rejection. RSAA will address these issues by providing our students (with and without disabilities) a customized individual learning plan designed to fully help develop each student’s social awareness, emotional self control and problem solving techniques needed to become thinkers and problem solvers who articulate their feelings and opinions in a positive way (Comer, 2007).

What are “Community” or “Charter” Schools?

Charter schools are innovative free public schools designed by educators, parents or civic leaders that are open by choice, accountable for results, and free from most rules and regulations governing conventional public schools. Today, nearly 4,000 charter schools serve more than a million children in forty states plus the District of Columbia and 94,000 children in Ohio.

A charter school is an independent public school that must perform well and attract parents to stay in business.
A charter school must practice open admission policies, meet health and safety standards, comply with civil rights laws and state laws.
A charter school is held accountable. Its students must show satisfactory achievement equal to or better than the state average.
A charter school will often serve children whose needs, for one reason or another, are not met by traditional public schools.
A charter school provides freedom for educators and school founders to use curricula or programs to set up the school day in a way that meets all legal requirements. This freedom allows a school to address the special needs of its children directly.

The Sponsor
Community Schools must have a Sponsor, who oversees the school’s fiscal procedures (working with the School’s Fiscal Agent), educational progress, and compliance with state laws and provides technical assistance as needed. The Richland Academy School of Excellence's sponsor is Buckeye Hope.

The Role of the Sponsor includes the following:

To provide general technical assistance
To monitor and give oversight
- Compliance with contract (charter), state and federal rules and laws
- Intervene when necessary
Assess performance to determine contract renewal/non-renewal
Buckeye Hope buckeyehope.org/community-schools/