Dear Phoenix Families,
I want to express my unending gratitude and appreciation to all of you for maintaining your commitment to Phoenix Charter Academy Chelsea, Lawrence, and Springfield in these challenging and unpredictable times. This spring and summer of 2020 have been unprecedented for our team of revolutionaries across the state; and yet our community has persisted with brave truth-telling, empathy for our communities,
and a commitment to the success of our young people that is stronger than ever before.
In the past few weeks we have heard from nearly all of our staff teams, as well as reaching as many students and families as possible who had time and bandwidth to help us think about school reopening. We have included learning and insight from the Phoenix Board. We have also worked in close partnership with our sending districts and community partners. We have observed how schools in other parts of the country have fared when they reopened and we have been watching the percent positivity rate creep up in some of our communities.
We take seriously the importance of not contributing to the increase in community spread of COVID-19. This is critical given the vulnerability of our communities and how disproportionately hard our communities have been hit. We have grappled with needing to prioritize student and staff safety and how to ensure that we are keeping student learning, achievement, and engagement at the center of our work – especially for the academically vulnerable students that depend on Phoenix schools.
As challenging as this time has been for our communities, Phoenix is committed to using this time to innovate and to develop a model that will ensure more of our students progress academically towards their post-secondary goals. There is still a great deal of work ahead.
With Gratitude,
Beth Anderson
Founder & Superintendent
