Imagine Bell Canyon Wins National Award

Aug. 6, 2010 - PRLog -- Phoenix, AZ—Imagine Bell Canyon, recently received a national award and recognition for impressive learning gains and drastically increasing enrollment.

“Imagine Bell Canyon offers students an innovative curriculum designed to provide real world learning experiences,” explained Linda Kiefner, Imagine Bell Canyon Principal. “We also use teaching methods that provide our students with a sound foundation for success in high school, college, and beyond.”

Imagine Bell Canyon’s innovative curriculum has been extremely successful.  Last year’s learning gains in both math and reading were substantial. Learning gains represent how much students learn in a particular year—any number over one indicates that students have learned more than one school year’s worth of information in a year.  School wide, over eighty five percent of Imagine Bell Canyon students saw learning gains of well over a year in math.  

Last year, Bell Canyon introduced Singapore Math to their Kindergarten through fourth grade curriculum. Singapore Math is a balanced approach to math which emphasizes problem solving. The successful integration of Singapore Math into Bell Canyon’s curriculum was demonstrated by the impressive learning gains in math earned by students in these grades.  This year, fifth graders will also use Singapore Math.

Imagine Bell Canyon students also demonstrated substantial learning gains in reading.  Again, most students’ scores reflected well over a year’s learning.  

Kiefner continued, “The success of Imagine Bell Canyon’s innovative curriculum has been noticed by the community.  This year the school’s enrollment is nearly 500; almost double that of last year. It is an exciting time for our growing learning community. We are looking forward to another banner year.”

Imagine Bell Canyon was recognized at the Imagine Schools National Conference as a

Most Improved School, an impressive feat.  Imagine Schools is the largest national network of charter schools, operating over seventy schools in fourteen states. Additionally, Imagine Bell Canyon has been interviewed by national press about their impressive learning gains during the last school year.

Due to the tremendous growth, Imagine Bell Canyon is experiencing they recently hired an Assistant Principal, James Mecca.  A longtime member of the Imagine family, Mecca joins Imagine Bell Canyon with several years experience as an elementary school teacher.  

Imagine Bell Canyon provides a learning community of achievement and hope for students in pre- kindergarten through eighth grade.  To learn more about Imagine Bell Canyon please see http://www.imaginebellcanyon.com.