OF I NTEREST OR AN G EWO O D F OU NDATION’S SA MU ELI ACA D E M Y — A RECIPE F OR S U CCES S By Wendy Bowman In 2011, Orangewood Foundation enlisted longtime Bakersfield educator Anthony Saba to build its public charter high school on 7-plus acres in Santa Ana from the ground up to serve Orange County’s foster and community youth. Saba convinced his family to take the plunge and relocate, and then he began visiting schools across the country to research and study best practices in preparation for his new role. The result? The Academy, which opened in August 2013 to serve its first class of 120 freshmen students using an innovative, hands-on, projectbased learning approach. Think real-world experience in a wide range of fields, including engineering, arts and media, science, and technology. “We didn’t want to just build a traditional school, because the students we were looking to serve didn’t find a lot of success in those models,” says Saba, who adds that about half of the students in California’s foster-care system never graduate from high school. “Every student is given a free laptop and we don’t have any textbooks. The way we teach and learn is totally different. We don’t overburden our students with lectures and instead teach with project-based learning. That means we are a public school and though we teach to the same public standards, we use real-world, hands-on examples and bring in authentic people so students can engage with them.
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“When you couple hands-on projects with real-world authenticity and a caring staff and infuse technology, it really is a recipe for success for kids everywhere,” he says.
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Photos courtesy of Orangewood Foundation
