High School Highlights

HIGH SCHOOL

HIGHLIGHTS

HIGH SCHOOL OVERVIEW TEACHER RETENTION AND EXPANSION

During the 2021-22 school year at SJA Jeju, we stood firm together in the midst of an everevolving global pandemic and continued to provide our students with a high-quality education.

All the while during the Covid-19 pandemic, we came to school every day, we taught our students every day, and we stood shoulder to shoulder every day to do what we needed to do to get the job done. We are very proud of the courage, perseverance, and strength of character in each and every one of our students and faculty. We continued to strive for and achieve excellence throughout this school year, and we will continue to do so into the future. The high school teacher retention rate for 2021-22 is 93% which is a fantastic rate and a strong testament that the high school is a positive and supportive working environment. Typically most top-tier schools of our size have a teacher retention rate in the low 80% range. This is a very positive trend for high school to have a percentage of 93%. Additionally, the high school maintains the highest percentage of teachers with a Master's degree or higher at 90% division-wide. This is a testament to good hiring practices.

For 2022-23 the high school is expanding from 330 students to 380 students. We are also added two English as an Additional Language (EAL) teachers to support our student's needs. This is the first time in the history of SJA Jeju for EAL teachers to be hired in the high school division and a major success for our Student Support Team. Additionally, for the first time in SJA Jeju history, we are adding a Chinese student support teacher who will provide scaffolded language and learning support for our Chinese-speaking families. We will also add a full-time Social Emotional Counselor to our SST.

STUDENT SERVICES DEVELOPMENT

We have expanded our course offerings for all students next year, and with these new courses, students will have more options to explore their path toward educational excellence.

We expanded our Student Support Team with the addition of a Dean of Students. The Dean of Students led our advisory relaunch and incorporated Character education into our new advisory program. We created and implemented student orientation and advancement programs, including but not limited to New Student Orientation at the beginning of the year and our Student Ambassador Program.

We launched foundational level classes to support students at all levels, including Algebraic Foundations, Integrated Science, and English Foundations. These courses helped students develop the executive functioning skills and life skills necessary to be successful in high school.

We enhanced our student programs through our Student Ambassador Program, National Honor Society, National Student Council, and Computer Science Honor Society. These are all first-time programs in the history of SJA Jeju. On March 4th, 2022, we celebrated our first National Honor Society (NHS) Induction Ceremony. We welcomed 44 new members of the SJA Jeju NHS Chapter.

Programs such as our Student Ambassador Program, National Honor Society, National Student Council, and Computer Science Honor Society allowed student leaders to develop their skills by leading student groups and creating a number of school activities.

Some of these activities include our first ever SJA Jeju high school prom, our high school Halloween dance, and our first-ever SJA Jeju TEDx event, which was developed and run by student leaders. These types of opportunities grow student efficacy and develop student leadership at SJA Jeju.

DEVELOPMENT OF NEW LEARNING SPACES

As the SJA Jeju High School is expanding, we have met the needs of our students and teachers by designing and creating new spaces to support our students learning and development. These spaces are typically flexible, functional, and operate as shared spaces across the secondary.

With the addition of more faculty for our SST team, we created a flex space called the Academic Bullpen to support our SST team and students who need support. We created a new office space for our Social Emotional Counselor. We created a new office space for our Dean of Students and an additional Administrative Assistant.

We created new learning spaces in the Sports Complex, Blackbox Theater, and MU130. We relocated the Kiln room and incorporated the kiln into the 3D art classroom space. We created a shared calendar system to share space equitably. We also created and developed a middle school/ high school shared medical center.

PARENT COMMUNITY OUTREACH

The High School hosted multiple parent information sessions throughout the year. These informational virtual coffee sessions were designed for secondary parents to explain the different models of learning and keep parents up to date with high school news. These parent coffee mornings were held virtually due to Covid19 and were a mix of prerecorded and live presentations that included question and answer sessions. Parents were encouraged to participate in these coffee morning presentations.

These information sessions were a huge success and hosted on average 100-120 parent participants depending on the topic. They were also recorded and are available for parent viewing on the High School website.

In addition every month throughout the school year the high school administration met with the high school parent association representatives. These meetings were vital in helping to keep the parents and community connected virtually and up to date on high school current events.

AP COURSES AND UNIVERSITY PLACEMENTS

A big part of high school is preparing students for success and acceptance to the world's best universities. This year at SJA Jeju, we have made significant improvements to our Advanced Placement (AP) courses and college counseling department.

Advanced Placement (AP) courses prepare students for the rigors of university-level academic work. As students build their transcripts with high-level courses, admission officers recognize our students for their abilities to perform at the highest levels of academia, leading to high placements for our students and enhancing the reputation of SJA Jeju. This year we have made the following updates to our AP program: We have redesigned our AP program to make classes more accessible for students. This design has allowed more students to take AP classes.

80 unique student registrations 20-21 160 unique student registrations 21-22 215 unique student registrations 22-23 34% increase in student registrations New AP offerings: 14 AP offerings 20-21 20 AP course offerings 21-22 23 AP course offerings 22-23 College counseling has been very successful this year at SJA Jeju. We have added a 2nd college counselor and began the development of our SJA Jeju Pathways to Success Program, which focused on supporting grade 9 and 10 students. This program helps our students begin the process of learning about universities earlier and will help our students make more informed choices. As of April, 85% of our graduates from this school year have been admitted to the world's top 100 universities.

Top Placements This Year

Two accepted Northwestern (9) Three accepted Washington Univerisity (14) Three accepted UCLA (20) Three accepted Emory (21) Two accepted Berkeley (22) Two accepted Carnegie Mellon University (25) One accepted University of Virginia (26) Three accepted University of South California (27) Three accepted NYU (28) One accepted Wake Forest University (28)