North Avenue opens 2017-2018 year with Ron Clark Essential 55 curriculum

GONZALES — This week, North Avenue Intermediate opened its doors with a new program in mind for the first two weeks of classes. Instead of books and bustle, students will be following the Ron Clark Academy Essential 55.

The Ron Clark Academy (RCA) is a highly-acclaimed, non-profit middle school located in Southeast Atlanta. The Academy has received both national and international recognition for its success in educating students, from varying socio-economic backgrounds, with academic rigor, passion and creativity balanced by a strict code of discipline.

The Academy seeks to extend its reach beyond its student body by having an impact upon students everywhere.

RCA is a demonstration school – a place where visiting educators engage in a vibrant professional development experience by observing best practices in action before participating in hands-on workshops.

In the past nine years, more than 38,000 superintendents, district level administrators, and teachers from 42 states and 22 countries have participated in the RCA Experience to learn better ways to engage students, promote academic rigor, and create a climate and culture that promotes success.

North Avenue students will be introduced to a set of 55 rules to follow, which are according to RCA, are essential to running a productive classroom.

Some rules are simply to establish community within the school, by having his students know the names of the entire faculty.

Some rules are set to teach the students respect for other faculty like custodians, by making the students clean up whenever they see a mess, even if it is not their mess.

Many of RCA’s rules are rules of conduct and courtesy, like simply saying thank you when a favor is done. The rules are made less to be strict rules, but to create behavioral habits, that students can retain for the rest of their lives.

These are rules that all people can use in everyday life, beyond the fifth-grade classroom.

RCA also stresses that all of the rules are not only for students to follow, but for the instructors to follow also.