Pre-enrollment is now open to all students residing in the respective school district. Ahwatukee Foothills Prep High School can accommodate students entering into 9th and 10th grades. It is imperative that parents submit enrollment applications for each student planning to enroll, as early as possible.

Ahwatukee Foothills Prep High School implements a thematic, interactive program that incorporates multiple learning styles. Mornings are dedicated to building solid skills in the core subject areas of reading, writing, math and science. While the afternoons are reserved for foreign language, music, physical education and a daily 90-minute block of Ahwatukee Foothills Prep High School’s Paragon curriculum.

The Paragon curriculum is interdisciplinary, engaging, discovery-based and multi-cultural. The hands-on approach of Paragon addresses the multiple intelligences and individual learning styles. This enhances students’ communication skills, analysis and self-expression.

Ahwatukee Foothills Prep High School also offers an emotionally and physically safe learning environment, access to computers and technology, committed and qualified teachers and staff and encourage parental involvement. Teachers will conduct regular goal setting conferences with individual children and their parents, to ensure the student’s success.

To enroll, click here.

Paragon Night is an opportunity for the community to see what AFPHS students have been studying in Paragon class. The evening will include performances, artwork, and project displays that reflect student’s ideas about the Holidays. All students, from Kindergarten to ninth grade, are expected to perform.

Students will answer essential questions such as, who am I, what do people need, how do we recognize a civilization and how do we unlock the mysteries of a civilization?

Parents should check with teachers, to see if their child show be rehearsing lines or songs for their presentation.

OPEN HOUSE/INFORMATION SESSION: Tuesday, July 13 5:30 PM at Ahwatukee Foothills Prep School 10210 S 50th Pl (Phoenix Tech Center) Elliot Rd and 51st St, off I-10.

OR Stop by at anytime for a personal tour and interview with the principal!!! We’d be happy to see you!

Ahwatukee is getting a fifth high school next year. And, if all goes as planned, the students will look nothing like the casually attired kids at Desert Vista, Horizon Honors, Mountain Pointe or Skyline Technical high schools.

No jeans, T-shirts, athletic shoes or flashy jewelry will be allowed for Ahwatukee Foothills Prep’s first high school class. Boys will have to wear belts and neckties. Students of both genders will be required to don light-colored shirts with collars and dark slacks or skirts and dark-colored shoes.

All the better to keep teenage minds focused on academics and what, for some, might be a long and difficult path to college, Principal John Breen said.

“I like the ideas behind this school,” said south Phoenix resident Celia Rascon, who plans to enroll her son, Benjamin, in ninth grade at Prep. “The teaching is much better than anyplace else I have found.”

Breen expects the charter school to enroll a minimum of 50 and a maximum of 100 by the start of school late in the summer.

The other three grades will be added year by year as the first class advances, he said.

Already, about 300 uniformed students are in kindergarten through eighth-grade classes in Ahwatukee Foothills Prep’s 66,000-square-foot building at 10210 S. 50th Place.

The building, a former call center, has plenty of room for a high school and is near South Mountain Community College’s Ahwatukee Center, where juniors and seniors may take college classes.

Six families so far have enrolled kids in Prep’s ninth grade, said Kristen Jordison, regional vice president for Mosaica Education Inc., a national charter school company. Just one, the Rascons, attended an open house for the school earlier this month, but Jordison expects more students to enroll by July.

The school will cater to students who want to earn college credits in the last two years of high school, Breen said. Students will be required to take a foreign language and at least four years of science and social studies, more than Arizona requires for high school graduation, he said.

“We are going to set kids up with Internet classes so they can learn the foreign language of their choice,” he said. “Latin, Spanish and French aren’t relevant anymore. Today kids need to learn Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese or Farsi.”

Jordison said Prep has not figured out how students will get to community colleges for classes.

Tuition for the classes would come out of student’s pockets, she said.

“The idea is that students will already have a lot of college credits before they graduate from high school,” Breen said. “For some students that will be a huge plus.”

Ahwatukee already has six charter schools in addition to traditional public schools run by the Kyrene Elementary and Tempe Union High School districts. Most of the charters have waiting lists.

Horizon Honors High School has seven students waiting for spots in next year’s 100-student ninth grade, community relations director Melissa Hartley said.

Skyline Technical, a school that takes only 25 students per grade level, has three students on a list for spots in the ninth grade and at least 10 waiting for openings in the higher grades, Principal Carl Hill said.

“Some kids need our low student-teacher ratio,” Hill said. “I get kids from Desert Vista and Mountain Pointe, which are great schools, but some kids struggle with the high number of kids they have in a classroom. We do a lot of one-on-one work with students.”

Jordison said just 60 percent of Prep’s elementary and junior high-level students come from Ahwatukee. The rest ride buses from Maricopa and as far away as Laveen, she said.

Benjamin Rascon, now in eighth grade at Prep, said he was bored in traditional public school.

“Here we learn something and then do a project on it,” he explained.

For instance, he said, after a science unit on electricity, he figured out how to power a light using copper nails, wire and citrus juice.

“I brought in lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruits and created electricity with them,” he said.

By Amanda Keim

2010-04-29 14:11:46

A new charter high school with a focus on Advanced Placement classes and helping students earn college credits is set to open in Ahwatukee Foothills this fall.

The school, Ahwatukee Foothills Prep Early College High School, is working to develop relationships with local colleges that will let the high school students use AP credits to fulfill all of their core college requirements, said Principal John Breen.

“The early college (program) is our emphasis, and hopefully that is what will draw students to us,” Breen said. “You’re going to get all of these college credits almost for free. By the time you’re done with us, hopefully you’ll be halfway through your college career.”

This is the first high school in the nation for charter school company Mosaica Education, which also owns the kindergarten through eighth-grade Ahwatukee Foothills Preparatory and two other schools in the Phoenix area, Breen said.

The goal is to align the three Mosaica K-8 schools with the high school’s curriculum, preparing students to jump right into calculus their ninth-grade year, Breen said.

It will be normal for students to take AP Biology as a freshman, AP Chemistry as a sophomore and AP Physics as a junior, then round out their senior year of science with an AP class of their choice or an internship for college credit.

“Our high school offerings will be AP classes. They (AP classes) won’t be alternatives or electives,” Breen said.

The high school will offer Mosaica’s Paragon curriculum, which focuses on hands-on learning in the arts and sciences. For example, when students study the history of Native Americans, they could make traditional inks as a part of the unit, Breen said.

Fee-based extracurricular activities will be available. Plans are to have boys’ and girls’ volleyball, basketball and track teams and drama and choir the first year, then add activities in subsequent years, Breen said.

Security is also a priority for Breen, whose more than 20 years in teaching most recently included eight years at charter schools in Chicago.

All students at the new high school will wear uniforms, and there will be a zero-tolerance policy for violence, he said.

“We are going to make it a very safe and secure environment for our kids. There are cameras in the hallways, there’s one access point into the building, doors will be locked all day,” Breen said.

While the high school only started its marketing effort when Breen came to the Valley last week, he already has some interested students.

Angelica Lopez, 14, attended a session for students and said she liked that Breen showed no tolerance for disrespect or bullying.

“I know kids can be bullied a lot,” she said. “And that’s one thing that can make a lot of kids afraid to go to school, is bullying.”

Lopez also enjoyed practice math and science lessons, which included tasks like testing foods with different chemicals to see if they contained fats or starches.

“We had practice lessons, and they were a challenge. That was good, because I like a challenge,” Lopez said.

Breen’s goal is to open the new high school with a freshmen class of at least 60 students, then add one grade each year. Breen plans to limit enrollment to 100 students per grade to guarantee small class sizes.

The high school will spend its first year in an empty wing of Ahwatukee Foothills Preparatory, and Breen hopes to lease a nearby building starting the following year.

Interested families can call the school at (480) 763-5101 or get on a pre-enrollment list at www.afprephigh.org to receive more information. There will be an open house for both Ahwatukee Foothills Preparatory and the new high school at 6 p.m. May 11 at the school, 10201 S. 50th Place.

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Open House/Information Session: Tuesday, May 11  6:00 pm

                                                                       Monday, May 24, 5:00 pm

at AFP 10210 S 50th Pl (Phoenix Tech Ctr)/Elliot Rd & 51st St right off of rt 10E

Since capacity is limited, it is imperative that parents submit enrollment application forms as early as possible. If the number of applicants exceeds the number of spaces, a lottery will be held. For more information regarding enrollment please call: (480) 763-5101