When was the American Indian Model Schools system established?
33025689#5
The AIM system was established in 2007, expanding to an additional two charter schools: another middle school and a high school. The schools were recognized for academic performance, but controversy was generated by Chavis's discipline system and treatment of both students and faculty. He resigned in 2007 but retained influence at the schools.
American Indian Model Schools
33025689#12
By 2002 the school's enrollment tripled, and its test scores were increasing. For the school year 2006-2007, Chavis and his board founded the American Indian Model School system, adding the American Indian Charter High School with the beginning of the school year in September 2006.
American Indian Model Schools
33025689#0
American Indian Model Schools (AIM Schools) is a charter school system based in Oakland, California. Started with the American Indian Public Charter School, a middle school in the late 1990s to serve Native American students, in 2007 it expanded to include another middle school and a high school. The main campus is in the Laurel area and includes American Indian Public Charter School (AIPCS), a middle school of grades 5-8, and American Indian Public High School (AIPHS), a high school (9-12). AIPHS students can also take select classes at Merritt College. American Indian Public Charter School II (AIPCS II) has grades K-8 at a second campus located in Oakland's Chinatown. By 2012 the student population of the AIM schools had become 90% Asian American.
American Indian Model Schools
23018630#11
In 2007, the AIPCS board expanded its operation, and founded the American Indian Model Schools system (see related article.) It opened a second middle school campus, AIPCS II, and a high school, the American Indian Public High School (AIPHS). In the same year, Chavis resigned as head of school after several controversies, but he was retained by the board in an executive role until January 2012.
On March 20, 2013, the Oakland School Board in a 4 - 3 vote decided to revoke the three schools' charters. This included the charter for the AIPCS elementary school attended by Chavis' own children. On July 15, 2013, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo granted the school system a preliminary injunction, allowing all three campuses to remain open.
American Indian Public Charter School
23018630#2
The American Indian Model Schools charter system developed from the AIPCS in order to expand the offerings to students. Since 2007, under new management, it has operated three schools in the city, two middle schools (one had grades K-4 added in 2012), and a high school, American Indian Public High School. The charter for the AIMS schools was threatened in 2012 because of discoveries of financial mismanagement and concerns about leadership. Although the Oakland School District voted to revoke the charter, the school system gained a preliminary injunction that allowed it to operate the three schools. With new leaders, it gained a 5-year renewal of its charter in 2013.
American Indian Public Charter School
23018630#34
In 2007 the American Indian Model Schools system opened AIPCS II, located in Oakland's Chinatown neighborhood; 67% of its students were Asian. In 2005-2006 the entering students came to the middle school almost exclusively from the nearby public Lincoln Elementary School. Its students have had high test scores and are predominantly Asian.
American Indian Public Charter School
33025689#2
Under the leadership of Ben Chavis (Lumbee), a Native American professor, AIPCS students made considerable progress in academic scores from 2000 to 2007, and enrollment increased at the school. The first middle school, AIPCS, received national recognition in 2007. Some of Chavis's disciplinary methods and his treatment of students and teachers generated controversy, and he resigned as principal in 2007. But the board voted to maintain him in an influential executive role at the school and with the model school system. In 2012 Chavis ended his ties with the charter system (although his children remained as students) and returned to his home state of North Carolina.
American Indian Model Schools
33025689#26
On July 15, 2013, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo granted the Model Schools system a preliminary injunction, allowing all three campuses to continue to operate. Since that time, in consideration of student scores and a change in management of the board and charter system, the AIMS charter was renewed for five years.
American Indian Model Schools
33074051#2
In 2004 Jorge Lopez took control of the school. At the time its Academic Performance Index (API) was 650. Lopez received guidance from Ben Chavis, head of the American Indian Model Schools, and established a system similar to the system of American Indian Public Charter School at Oakland Charter Academy. In late September 2007 the Oakland Charter Academy became the second public school in Oakland to win the National Blue Ribbon award. Oakland Charter High School opened in 2007.
Amethod Public Schools
20087599#8
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School, founded by the Civil War Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt in 1879 at a former military installation, became a model for others established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The Carlisle Indian Industrial School forced assimilation to Christian culture and lose their Native American traditions, as demonstrated by their motto, “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” Pratt said in a speech in 1892, "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead." Pratt professed "assimilation through total immersion." He conducted a "social experiment" on Apache prisoners of war at a fort in Florida. He cut their long hair, put them in uniforms, forced them to learn English, and subjected them to strict military protocols. He had arranged for the education of some of the young Native American men at the Hampton Institute, now a historically black college, after he had supervised them as prisoners at a fort in Florida. Hampton Institute was established in the 1870s and in its original form, created a formal education program for Native Americans in 1875 at the end of the American Indian Wars. The United States Army sent seventy-two warriors from the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo Nations, to imprisonment and exile in St. Augustine, Florida. Essentially they were considered hostages to persuade their peoples in the West to keep peace. From this funding Hampton was able to grow into a university, though over time the student population shifted to African-American students.
American Indian boarding schools
33025689#27
As of 2017, the system includes three schools, American Indian Public Charter School (AICPS), middle school with grades 5-8; American Indian Public Charter School II (AIPCS II), K-8; and American Indian Public High School (AIPHS), a high school (9-12).
American Indian Model Schools
33025689#28
The school system has two campuses. The original American Indian Public Charter School and the main campus of American Indian High School occupy a converted church located off MacArthur Boulevard, in the Laurel area of Oakland. AIPCS II is located on another campus in the city's Chinatown. Students at AIPHS who attend dual credit classes with Merritt College attend some classes at the Merritt campus.
American Indian Model Schools
33025689#55
In May 2009, American Indian Public Charter School had an Academic Performance Index (API) of 967. Mitchell Landsberg said that the other two AIM schools "are not far behind." The state API target is 800. The state average of public middle and high schools is 750. The state average of schools with underprivileged students is 650. Of the public schools in California, during that year four middle schools and three high schools had higher API scores than AIPCS; none of them had student bodies of mostly underprivileged students. Mitchell Landsberg of the "Los Angeles Times" stated that while critics of the school often said that the high number of Asian American students causes the test scores to be high, the African American and Hispanic students "do roughly as well -- in fact, better on some tests" so "[t]hat makes American Indian a rarity in American education, defying the axiom that poor black and Latino children will lag behind others in school." In 2008, Janet Roberts, the head of the AIM system, said that the speculation that the increased numbers of Asian students caused test scores to go higher demonstrated that the educational establishment has low expectations of low-income African American, Hispanic and Latino, and Native American children.
American Indian Model Schools