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News 12 Staff

28spotlightnj2_2025-02-08-09-20-39

We are putting the focus on Queen City Academy Charter School in Plainfield. I have Danielle, I have Laura, and I have Doctor Ernest Dixon here with me. Let's talk about your successes and challenges of the high school program. You know, the high school program is still relatively new, but we are happy that we are in our 4th year now, so we have all of the grade levels. There have been many successes, but of course there have been opportunities for growth as well. One of the things that we really. Liss we were asking scholars to take on very heavy classes in terms of college algebra, pre-cal and so we needed to forge a support and a network around them. So Doctor Dixon and our high school guidance team really worked really hard to identify what that begins to look like and I think Doctor Dixon can share a little bit about what that looks like. Hugely important for us, providing an opportunity, providing access is one of the factors that you want to consider, but the other part is ensuring that Students have what they need to be successful because the one it's one thing to present this option, but how do you support students so they can have access as well as thrive in the program and so what we learned early on is the academic supports that need to be in place to ensure students can truly benefit from our program and so working closely with our counseling department as well as coordinating with supports from the college to ensure that students could have that academic support on site as well as social a social emotional support from our counseling departments. So they work closely with um our counselors to talk through some of the issues that they're experiencing whether it's emotional, because of the workload being really heavy and sometimes students feel a bit of anxiety being in a setting where there are adult students and trying to navigate that as a young student, as you're trying to also determine whether or not you are, you, you know, sometimes fit for this opportunity, but ensuring students have that emotional awareness of where they are and some skills and supports in place to really support them being able to Pick it up, pick, pick themselves up, probably bootstraps and move forward, um, understanding that they have a support system. They have counselors here. They have administrators here that's truly there to support them, to see them, um, be successful, those that can advocate for them to ensure that they have those things that they need, whether it's support from a professor, some of the academic deans on the on the um college end. Ensuring that those conversations are happening on their behalf so that we can make sure that as we're growing this program we're finding all the kinks and we'll respond to those things and ensure that our program is most beneficial for students who are joining us so we're learning from our seniors that are moving out. We've learned so much from them, ensuring that our program is efficient and effective in providing access and students being truly successful.

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28spotlightnj3_2025-02-08-13-17-21

Danielle West Augustin is the CEO of Queen City Academy Charter School in Plainfield. Laura O'eary is Queen City Academy High School student. Doctor Ernest Dixon is the Queen City Academy High School principal. Let us talk about programs that you offer to give students extra support. Yes, you know, on Saturdays we realize it's a great opportunity, so we have Saturday academies encompassed in that Saturday academy for our high school students, for our level. graders we provide the Princeton Review SAT prep course where our students are engaged over several Saturdays leading up to the SAT, about 15 Saturdays to be exact, um, and they come and they go through all of the ELA and the math portions of the SAT to get them ready. I think Laura could speak best to it um and just explaining what that was like since she just took those SATs last year to get ready for her college experience. OK. So beginning with the uh SAT courses on Saturdays we've when I did it when I took it, we first started with our English class and we went through grammar punctuation, capitalization and all that to prepare for the SAT and for the math section was mostly algebra, geometry and word problems and I feel like it really helped me taking in taking the SAT since I only took it once and I didn't have I didn't really get time to take it another time. I feel like this opportunity really helped me in getting a really good score now Doctor Dickson talked about the emotional support they provide as well. Do you find that beneficial? Yeah, I would say it's really beneficial because on some days where I feel really down I could just go see my counselor and speak to her about how stressful it is taking courses while still being in high school. Young people who are watching about the stresses you feel and how you deal with that. Uh, I would say it's very, it's very um nerve wracking when you're going into it because you don't really know what you're doing and when I first started I didn't know who to speak to because I've never met anyone who took dual courses while still in high school so what I did was I usually. I still focused on my hobbies like drawing and crocheting and stuff like that really helped me also I would say take time to yourself and make breaks for yourself also give yourself time to relax because it's not the end of the world when like you fail a class or you do not pass a test.

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29spotlightnj4_2025-02-09-06-18-32

We are putting the spotlight on Queen City Academy Charter School in Plainfield. Laura, Danielle, and Ernest are my guests today, and I want you all to talk about the fact that you tap into the genius and the resilience of your students. Yes, you know, I think too often, um. In American education we underestimate the power of our students and so we know at Queen City that every student that sits in our seats, they have a genius that we tap into daily and their resilience and that is why we opened the door for 9th graders to take a college course in their 2nd semester, um, because we know that they have the ability to do it. We know they may need some scaffolding and support, but there is nothing that they cannot do. Um, I think Laura is a great testament to that, um, she started with a in 8th grade, is now a senior at our high school and she has matriculated through our program, uh, just with such uh poise and grace that she's been able to secure not one but several college acceptances uh to some really competitive institutions. So you know, seeing that is just a testament to what not just Laura could do because we have several students that are similarly situated that are. Graduating over 20% of our senior class is graduating with their associate's degree. We're a small school, um, but that's intentional by design because we want to really make sure that all of our students have that personalized attention that they need in our cohorts. Tell me about your accolades, Laura. Uh, I wanna highlight specifically Howard University and UMass Boston. They both gave me merit scholarships to attend their schools. Congratulations. You must have been so pumped up about that. And I also got into the Union um Union College of Union County, New Jersey. The honors society program called the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. How do you feel this school has put you ahead like that to make the progress that you are to succeed? I feel as if I'm able to um understand and get a feel of what my college major is actually going to be like since I've already started taking credits for it and also it gives me like a head start in my career it also takes off like some portion. Of the financial burden, so instead of maybe going to school for the full 4 years, it could be cut down to um 2 to 3 years. What kind of career are you looking at? Um, right now I'm thinking of majoring in computer engineering and hopefully become a software engineer in the future.

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29spotlightnj5_2025-02-09-09-18-12

Queen City Academy Charter School is located in Plainfield. I have Danielle, I have Laura, and I have Ernest here with me. You have a mantra you follow in helping the students tell us what that is. So I recently heard someone say something that was very poignant and I thought about it as it reflected on my role as a principal supporting students like Laura. Um, the, the, the, the saying was that brilliance exists everywhere but opportunity doesn't, and so as a principle it is important for me as I support these students is to identify where the barriers are and determine how can I strategize, work with my colleagues to ensure that those barriers are removed so that students have true access to programs, but not only access, also the ability to be successful in those programs and so. Working with our students, having those sessions where we just talk frankly about their experiences because you don't get to remove barriers without having true transparent conversations getting to the root causes of issues where the barriers might exist and then being able to be an advocate for our scholars and that's what our scholars need the opportunity as well as advocacy and I think that's what we do here at Queen City. We advocate for our students that have the most optimal options for. Success access to programming, access to post-secondary planning so that they know that their steps are ordered and so as students are deciding which schools they're going to, we've done the uh the other work to ensure that they are aware of what their interests are, what their abilities are, and they're ready for that next step. Do you find the support is there in the principal and of course in the CEO? How does that make you feel? You better say yes. Uh, yes, um, I feel as if sometimes I could just go to Doctor Dixon's office and tell him how I really feel about taking these courses and how stressful it is and instead of like brushing me off and it's like, oh just do it, he's like going to encourage me that I'm gonna make it through and I'm going to be able to pass and I think that's really helpful and this is what you wanna hear isn't it Daniel? Uh, we definitely do. We wanna make sure that all of our scholars know that they have a village around them, and our school is truly that village, whether it is the principal, the guidance counselor, the teacher or the custodian. Everybody is here to see you succeed, uh and the and the students each other, yes, and the students each other building a natural cohort. For each other and I think Laura and her colleagues have done really well at that being that support when you know that someone doesn't understand something and or they're having a challenging time, uh, you know, we have made sure that our students and our scholars from grades 4 all the way through 12 have exposure to mentorship because you can't be what you can't see.

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29spotlightnj6_2025-02-09-12-21-14

Danielle West Augustin is the CEO of Queen City Academy Charter School in Plainfield. Laura O'eary is Queen City Academy High School student. Doctor Ernest Dixon is the Queen City Academy High School principal. Let's talk about your growth and your plans to expand. Yes, uh, just last year, uh, we received our expansion, uh, from the NJDOE. We will be growing, uh, in 2026 once our new facility is finished being built, um, so we are. Breaking ground this spring, this summer or spring or summer, um, depending upon our zoning, but we are in the process of breaking ground on a new facility. Uh, that new facility will house our high school state of the art labs, um, flex spaces, outdoor learning spaces, as well as a new middle school. Um, we will be moving from 484 students to about 936 students. We're really excited about that, but we Been very intentional to make sure that our cohorts remain small. So while our overall population is growing, our classroom size will still not exceed 18 to 20 students per class. So when Laura spoke earlier about really feeling like she can walk to Dr. Dixon's office and get that individualized support, she can walk to a guidance department and get individualized support that will still exist because we're also ramping up our staff to accommodate that intentional. small feeling so like right now we don't have a high school coordinator, high school, early college coordinator role. Dr. Dixon really coordinates everything with the college, but as we are growing out, that is one of the positions that we're adding that will be someone dedicated just towards helping our students on the college and and coordinating all of those pieces along with the college um and making sure that scholars see themselves from day one. to the end of college and following and tracking our students as well that have left us and now will be in college so Laura will be the first class that will be tracking through college and that is something that we're really excited to see because not only do we want to track a student through college, we wanna be there to provide supports. Right, whether it's just a once a month check-in, hey, how's it going? Do you understand what classes you need to be picking, you know, do you need to prioritize this class versus this class, you know, being a first generation college student, as some of our students are, not all of them, um, it poses a special set of challenges sometimes.

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CEO Danielle West-Augustin, student Laura Oware and principal Dr. Ernest Dixon joined News 12’s Della Crews to discuss the educational services the school has to offer. 

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