CP Academy School Profile 2007-2008
The Community Partnerships Academy (CP Academy) is a small school within Berkeley High in which academic rigor is integrated with community internships. Serving grades nine through twelve, CP Academy offers each student a full college preparatory curriculum which meets the requirements of all major colleges and universities including the University of California’s a – g requirements. Through its community internship program, CP Academy makes the connection between academics and the real world. Eleventh and twelfth grade students participate in internships in local organizations such as hospitals, law firms and non-profit agencies. Our educational focus is to nurture academically strong, ethical, self-motivated students that value contributing to the life of their community. For fourteen years, CP Academy was a program based within the large school. Due to its success, it was established as a small school starting with the 2004 - 2005 school year.

Student Body
Our excellent teaching staff and educational curriculum attracts multi-talented students each year. Our student body has a diversity of interests and talents, and mirrors the broad racial, ethnic, and economic diversity of Berkeley. We have been a small school for three years - long enough to enroll approximately 180 students in the freshman, sophomore and junior classes as well as keeping the 60 seniors enrolled when we were defined as a program within the large school. The school is evenly split between girls and boys.

Faculty
Like our students, members of our faculty mirror the broad racial, ethnic, and economic diversity of our city. Many of our faculty have earned local and national teaching awards such as the prestigious National Board Certification (we have the only teacher at Berkeley High so accredited, and only 1% of California Teachers have achieved this distinction), The Outstanding Technology Educator from the International Society for Technology in Education, The Alameda/Contra Costa Math Teacher of the Year and The USA Today All-American English and Math Educators. Of our thirteen faculty members, nine hold master’s degrees in their respective fields.

Curriculum

English: English 1 A/B, World Literature A/B, American Literature A/B, Writing/Composition; AP Literature and Composition is available as an option for juniors and seniors.

History:  Community Ethnic Studies, World History & Cultures 1/2, US History 1/2, American Government/Economics

Languages: Spanish, (French, German, Latin, Kiswahili are options though cross registry in the large school)

Mathematics: integrated math - IMP 2, IMP 3, IMP 4 and AP Calculus, (AP Statistics is an option through cross registry in the large school)

Science: Advanced Biology, Chemistry, AP Environmental Science, (AP Physics and other science courses are all options through cross registry in the large school)

Art: Creative Arts 1/2, Computer Art 1/2, Beg., Int. and Adv. Photography (other visual and performing arts courses such as dramatic arts, dance and band may be taken through cross registry in the large school).

Physical Ed: 9th grade PE, 10th grade PE (2 years required)

*Special: Community Service Professions: an 11th grade course that utilizes an internship in a local business or non-profit to help students explore career fields and foster the connection between academics and practice.
Senior Project: the research process is developed in this 12th grade course culminating in a year long research project. Concurrently, students perform post-secondary planning, and are assisted with the college search and application process.

Other:  A myriad of courses such as computer programming, psychology and journalism may be taken in the large school through cross registration.

We encourage students to take AP courses when they have the required prerequisites. We also encourage students to take community college courses, including courses that are University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) transferable.

Internships
All Community Partnerships Academy juniors and seniors participate in community- based internships to re-enforce the academic training they have acquired in school and to foster an ethical stewardship of society. They work on assigned projects with established community institutions such as hospitals and municipal governments. They also create service-learning projects which benefit the Berkeley community such as tutoring middle school students and developing community-needs surveys. As part of these projects, students document their work in a final report using multi-media technology.

Support Services
CP Academy uses a looping education method where students remain with their teachers for core courses such as English, history, math, science and foreign language for several grades. This creates a close-knit school community by reducing beginning of the school year student/teacher/parent apprehension. It increases academic continuity by allowing teachers enough time to become familiar with social developmental stages of students, and fosters in-depth parent/teacher relationships because of the multi-year interaction period. Due to our small size, timely individual attention is given to each student by school administrative staff with respect to counseling and course selection.

We have established formal and informal group and individual tutoring as well as mentor programs. For example, we have UC Berkeley students that work one-on-one at lunch and after-school with students that need personalized attention. The faculty meets regularly to review student success so they can target students who are not achieving for referral to extra assistance, such as pull-out time with a teacher focusing on study skills. We also mobilize parents, other community volunteers, tutoring and mentoring resources to get academic support to students when and where they need it, whether that is AP calculus or biology.

Other support services include working closely with our parent council who support and help direct our school through fund raising, community building and communications facilitation such as producing a website (http://www.bhscpa.org) and newsletters. Our leadership council’s decisions are “data-driven” so that limited resources are intelligently applied.
High School Graduation and College Matriculation