Located within New Song Community Learning Center is the independently run K-8 Baltimore City Public School #322 - New Song Academy.

In 1991, New Song Academy started as a preschool and after-school program, and three years later, with a mail-order curriculum just out of the box, we secured a three-year grant and opened a private middle
school for 12 children in our community.

In 1997 the BCPSS was asking for proposals for special-needs students alongside their non-disabled peers, the result of a long-running special-education lawsuit. This RFP came about just as New Song's three year grant was nearing its end. We submitted a proposal to the BCPSS that was accepted and that's how New Song Academy became a public school.

New Song started its new relationship with BCPSS in cramped quarters in the original preschool building, but Principal Susan Tibbels along with  her husband Allan and another Sandtown couple raised $5.4 million to construct a 28,000-square-foot building across the street. The new facility, which opened in 2001, is brightly lit with high ceilings and soothing pastel colors providing a wonderful educational environment for our children. Needles to say we're very proud of our new facility.

The original proposal that the BCPSS approved in 1997 specified that New Song's maximum class size would be 15 which is a key component of our model. In the following you will find just how well our model for educating the children in our community works. Keep in mind as you read both the highlights from 2005 and the MSA data that we are a school that serves a Title 1 classified student population but you wouldn't know it by their achievements. We believe New Song is a wonderful example of what is possible, even with the most disadvantaged groups of children, when educators have the resources, and the will, to truly educate our children. We have high hopes and expectations for the students of New Song and everyday they demonstrate their ability to meet those expectations and realize those hopes.

We serve students from the surrounding neighborhood only. We have aprox. 125 students in our k-8 setting. Being part of the New Schools Initiative, a precursor to the Charter School movement in Maryland, we enjoy a certain amount of autonomy from the System demands. Here is what makes our school different:

	While we are in session for the same 190 days that all other Maryland schools are (180- with students and 10 for professional development), we run a "year round" calendar consisting of 6, 5 - 7 week sessions with a 1 or 2 week break between each session (1 professional development day is scheduled during each "intersession").
	We have an extended day for the first 5 sessions. Our clock schedule runs from 8:40 until 5:00 Monday through Wednesday and 8:40 - 3:15 on Thursday's and Friday's. Every effort is made to ensure that teachers have adequate planning time, but extended blocks of instruction allow our teachers to fully implement our curriculum.
	We use the Workshop model as the framework for our instruction for math, reading and writing. We use Expeditionary Learning from Outward Bound as the basis for the planning. All planning and instruction is focused on State and National standards. For more information on ELOB please refer to http://www.elob.org/design/index.html.
	We believe strongly in the importance of creating and maintaining a strong school culture. We have a full time social worker who is integrated into our school's discipline plan. A great deal of time is spent on creating and maintaining the protocols that allow classrooms to function smoothly.
	The corner stone of our school is that productive classrooms and school can only come from consistency, structure and relationships between staff, students, parents and communities. To that end, we all use the workshop model (although the content varies from room to room, and grade to grade), we all use the same school wide discipline model and we all spend a lot of time (though the use of morning meeting, ELOB and other curriculum based structures) on developing a community of learners.
	In the upper grades - 5th - 8th - we split the classes by gender and combine grade levels. This means that we have 4 classes in the upper team - a 5th/6th boys class, 5th/6th girls class, 7th/8th girls class and 7th/8th boys class. The middle grade teachers are responsible for teaching all subjects to their homeroom except for math, science and PE.

Our Students Achieve - Some highlights from 2005:

	Grade 3 - Our students outscored the BCPSS average for proficiency in reading.
	Grade 4 - Our students outscored the BCPSS average for proficiency in reading by over 6%
	Grade 5 - Our students outscored both BCPSS and Maryland State averages for proficiency in reading. Outscored the BCPSS average for students scoring at the advanced level on MSA Reading by 5 times. Outscored the BCPSS average for proficiency in math.
	Grade 6 - Our students outscored the BCPSS average for proficiency in reading by over 20%. Outscored BCPSS averages for students scoring at the advanced level in reading.
	Grade 7 - Our students outscored BCPSS average for proficiency in reading by over 20%. Outscored BCPSS average for those students scoring at the advanced level in reading by 6%. Outscored BCPSS average for proficiency in math.
	Grade 8 - Our students outscored BCPSS average for proficiency in reading by over 20%. Outscored BCPSS average for proficiency in math.
	Overall - New Song Academy students can boast of the second highest attendance in the City with attendance in the elementary grades at 97.4%, in the middle grades at 98.2% and with a remarkable 100% family involvement.

How We Compare - Official MSA Data

Staff

Coming soon.

Vision / Mission / Philosophy

Coming soon.