Commitment to Excellence
Student success at KIPP schools requires a partnership between parents, students, and teachers that puts learning first. In order to join the KIPP team and family, all three parties are required to sign the “Commitment to Excellence,” which ensures that each will do whatever it takes to make achievement possible.
Download KIPP San Jose Collegiate’s complete Commitment to Excellence.
Academics
KIPP San Jose Collegiate will combine California‘s rigorous content standards with the pedagogical methodologies that have proven successful in established public, private, and boarding high schools across the country. KIPP San Jose Collegiate firmly believes that matters of specific content, choice of texts and other readings and materials, and similar areas of preference within the clearly defined standards, rightly belong in the hands of the specialists who will be hired as teachers of these courses. When skilled experts are allowed to design courses around student need and their own areas of interest and enthusiasm, students benefit far more than when a central administration usurps such legitimate instructional choice.
The school curriculum and scope and sequence is determined by looking at the content that must be taught, as well as the culminating exam(s) for the course. To ensure courses are being taught at a rigorous pace and level, the school refers to the California Standards Test and AP test or SAT II Subject test (depending on the exam offered for that particular course) as the end goal for the class. Through careful backwards planning, teachers and staff create a scope and sequence for each course in years 1-4. As teachers build their curriculum, they are expected to use state-adopted Curriculum Frameworks as a starting point. Teachers also have access to a variety of past tests, a textbook, outside texts, district curriculum and AP curriculum and other resources to use as they are developing curriculum.
Character
As with all effective instructional design, curriculum development at KIPP San Jose Collegiate begins with the end in mind: a clear vision of the well-educated KIPP San Jose Collegiate graduate. A graduate of KIPP San Jose Collegiate will have the necessary habits, skills, and mindsets to successfully navigate his/her way through four years of college and the world beyond. KSJC graduates will embark on their life journey with a lifelong love and passion for learning and a commitment to service. It is the responsibility of the KSJC faculty and staff to ensure that every student leaves the school with the following qualities in order to see success as a college student and an active citizen of the global community.
