About Achievers Early College Prep Charter School

Achievers Early College Prep Charter School (AECP) is New Jersey’s first public charter school for students in grades 6-12 that provides them with the unique opportunity to take a two-year course of study in STEM fields following the 10th grade, enabling them to redefine the high school experience and graduate with skills, experiences, and content mastery that’s significant to them in the market place and the world beyond.

AECP wants to make it possible for students in Trenton to earn, at no or low cost:

1. A High school diploma
2. Up to 60 transferable college credits
3. An associate’s degree
4. Workplace learning, credentials and internships

This alternative to a traditional middle and high school is founded on the belief that many underserved minority students are not prepared early enough for college and competitive STEM studies. They tend to lack the emotional and financial resources to apply to, enroll in, and complete degrees of study that will be professionally and financially rewarding in the long run. Achievers Early College Prep benefits from the leadership and experience of New York and New Jersey-based charter school operators, teachers, college professors, community leaders and early college school leaders.

Trenton is a historic proud city with a rich past and a bold future. Located in Central Jersey, Trenton is New jersey’s understated capital city situated next to Princeton township and is accessible by train from New York (75 minutes) and Philadelphia (30 minutes). Founded in the early 1700’s, Trenton was briefly the capital of the United States, rose to fame during the industrial age and much of the 20th century as a manufacturing powerhouse, and is most recently, the scene of the quietest—yet complex-- public charter success stories. Today, Trenton is a diverse city with a burgeoning arts scene, promising real estate opportunities, increasing diversity and restaurants that cater to that diversity, make Trenton an attractive town for newcomers. Its strategic location between Philadelphia and New York, its size (84,000 people - a super cozy city), and rich history give it charm and significance that few cities rival, making it a great place to live and work.

We don’t believe in focusing on more than a just a few goals at a time. We believe in moving away from becoming “jack of all” and perfecting concrete skills, specific bodies of content, and teaching strategies. This will drive how we develop our team, curricular choices we make, and programmatic ones as well. We will do this with our following core values: Ambition, Allegiance, Accuracy and Ability!

Ambition

We believe in being “All In”, which means we don’t approach our work with competing priorities or half-effort. We are committed, we are determined, and we show that with our intentionality, presence, effort and outcomes.

Allegiance

We are a team and family! We believe in tapping into each other's strengths and traits in our team and students, growing them, and holding each other accountable. Just like a family, we are loyal to each other, holding each other to a high bar of excellence!

Ability

We are firm believers in growth and the growth mindset. We don’t accept not trying hard and multiple times, vis-a vis multiple formats, and practicing deliberately.

Accuracy

Right is Right--100% of the time! Our aim is high and we make no apologies about it. We strive for excellence and commit to everyone getting better each and everyday. We will ensure that we get better, stronger, excellent together!

We are a literacy-focused middle school that’s an intervention zone, at its core. Students will read leveled books, and independent picks on their own time, and will be practicing all-school reading, annotating and notetaking strategies in across content areas. Our ELA curriculum is novel-based and we believe we’ve got rich, well-written and culturally relevant stories to teach reading, thinking, and writing with. We believe in the right intersection of direct teaching and project-based learning, but we believe that we have to help our students build proficiency in skills before we can let the content do the driving. We believe in the strategies exposed in Teach Like a Champion and will be holding a number of them sacrosanct in order to make sure our school is a bastion for learning, academic minutes are preserved, and expectations are high and clear for all.