Renaissance Real World High School Academy (RWA) is a small school environment where everyone is connected. This feeling of community creates a safe learning environment where academic rigor is evident and students can pursue their interests and passions. The school is founded on respect for individuality and diversity. Students, parents and staff support and learn from one another. This innovative partnership is giving Real World Academy students the tools they need as they advance through high school to college and to the world of work.
Mission
The mission of Renaissance Real World High School Academy is to prepare students for college and the workforce through active learning, academic rigor, and community involvement. Relationships, relevance, and rigor provide a unique opportunity for students to excel in a nurturing yet challenging academic environment which is closing the achievement gap for our students.
Vision
Renaissance Real World High School aims to empower students to take charge of their learning, to gain skills and knowledge necessary to achieve success beyond high school, and to become life-long learners. We are dedicated to educating one student at a time. Renaissance Real World Academy enrolls families, not just students. Our diverse student body are all encouraged to apply to college, whether they choose to enter after high school graduation or after gaining work experience.
Personalized Learning
How do we personalize learning for each student?
Our Personalized Learning model embodies flexibility, inclusion, collaboration and innovation. RWA recognizes the value of parent involvement and participation in their student’s education and learning process. We support a collaborative relationship between parent, student, teacher, and school in creating an optimal learning process. RWA recognizes a variety of learning choices and opportunities, both within and beyond the classroom, to address each student’s individual learning needs and optimize each student’s learning potential.
Why personalize learning
Personalized Learning provides:
- Accountability structure for students;
- Objective accountability for staff in assessing student growth and issues regarding habits of work and learning;
- Partnering with student, parent and teacher to facilitate successful learning for each student.
- Communication to students that positive values are critical to leading productive lives;
- Clear and consistent expectations for the values students will need to be successful;
- A culture based around rigor and high expectations;
- A common understanding and language around what we want students to know and be able to do
Goal Setting
Students, Parents and Teachers create learning plans with goals for each semester. This plan articulates individualized goals built on the student’s passions, interests, goals, skills, needs, and is created in collaboration with the student, teacher/advisor, parents and workplace mentor. An example of a Learning Plan may encompass the following:
- Internships
- Community Service Learning Opportunities
- Advisory-based activities to introduce and strengthen academic skills
- College classes
- Community and school-based workshops
- Individual research projects
Program Elements
You have probably been thinking about what the best high school in Temecula would look like for your student. Here are 5 reasons why so many Temecula families have invested in our (RWA) – and why RWA might just be the right choice for you.
Our Mentor Teachers follow students for a cycle of 2 years of high school
Mentor Teachers work with the same class of students for two years in a row, 9-10 and 11-12, providing personalization and coordination for all learning during their high school career. Advisory groups meet daily and serve as the core learning community and center of accountability for its member students. Your child’s Mentor Teachers serve as a teaching generalist, finding educational resources for the students, ensuring that individual learning plans target key academic learning goals for each student, working with business mentors to guarantee high quality internships, and actively involve parents in their child’s education.
The advisory is the nucleus of our school. It is the heart and soul of Renaissance Real World High School and could be described as the “home” and “second family” to the students. An essential component of the success of our students is parent engagement. Parents/guardians have many opportunities to be involved at RWA including college presentations, special events, parent organizations, learning plan meetings, exhibitions, and in classrooms. Parents, staff and students view themselves as a collaborative team who work together for the success of RWA students.
Our Advisor/Mentor Teachers teach with a humanities approach
Humanities include the broad study of art, philosophy, history, and literature. The study follows a critical, analytical and speculative approach. In a society, the knowledge of humanities facilitates quicker understanding of different people and eases the process of communication. The study of humanities helps us to interrogate and interpret the basic questions of value and purpose with respect to our lives. Humanities not only bridge the gap between past and present but also relates to the future. The facts, findings and the literature facilitates us to draw information on the past society, its history and culture. This knowledge guides us to predict the future and communicate it to the world.
Students, Parents and Teachers create learning plans with goals for each semester
The Learning Plan articulates individualized goals built on the student’s passions, interests, goals, skills, needs, and is created in collaboration with the student, teacher/advisor, parents and workplace mentor. An example of a Learning Plan may encompass the following:
- Internships
- Community as the Classroom Learning Opportunities
- Advisory-based activities to introduce and strengthen academic skills
- College classes
- Community and school-based workshops
- Individual research projects
Students present exhibitions of learning each semester
Exhibitions: At the culmination of each semester, students demonstrate their learning by presenting their projects and other core class work before a panel of adults and peers. Student exhibitions occur at the end of each semester. Parents are expected to attend exhibitions.
We require students to do an internship in 11th & 12th grade for the real-world connection
RWA offers an innovative curriculum that utilizes each student’s interests and passions to inspire a love of learning. Internships are the center of the Renaissance Real World Academy curriculum, we send all 11th & 12th grade students out on internships at businesses and organizations all over Temecula and Riverside County.
Universally, we are aware that people are most likely to learn—and remember—information when it resonates on a personal level and relates to personal experience. Based on this understanding, each Mentor teacher at RWA along with our Internship Coordinator helps students investigate their interests and find real-world Internships in the community, in order to pursue these passions
We have rigorous standards for our students’ Internship experiences. In addition to performing daily tasks essential to any Internship site, each student must propose and complete a challenging project to meet specific standards-aligned academic requirements, while also serving a real-world purpose for the Mentor and the Internship site.
That means our students are learning in high school to produce work worthy of professional workplace standards. It means tangible accomplishments allow our students to build essential life skills and increase self-confidence. And it means our Internship sites gain meaningful outcomes, in addition to contributing to the growth and learning of Temecula Student Center youth.
While our Internship sites serve as the backbone of our academic program and provide incredible learning opportunities for our students, we find that our Mentors often learn and grow as much as our students through these experiences.
