Congratulations to Deer Valley’s Business Tech Academy for being awarded the “Distinguished Academy”.
Message from Deer Valley High School
Of the 406 registered California Partnership Academies (CPA), less than 25 schools have earned this award over the past four years.
While the Career Technical Education (CTE) classes are taught by fantastic teachers, it was the students who stole the show and impressed the visiting team from the California Department of Education.
Please join us in congratulating Business Tech Academy Lead Mr. Kristofor Freeman along with the Business Tech teachers and students for being recognized as a Distinguished Academy!
Letter from the California Department of Education
It is my sincere pleasure to congratulate you and your team, as your Academy has been determined to be among the very select group to be named a 2019 California Partnership Academies Distinguished Academy. After over 30 years of commitment to the implementation of high quality educational programs mixing core academics and career technical education for the benefit of tens of thousands of California’s at risk high school students, this is the fourth time that this honor has been bestowed, and will be imparted to less than 2% of the CPAs currently implemented. All of our 406 CPAs were scrupulously reviewed in order to determine programs which had earned Distinguished Academy status, then each of those which made the first cut were visited by experts in the Partnership Academy model to review and certify each component of the model for quality of implementation.
In order to be selected as a CPA Distinguished Academy, the California Department of education team responsible for oversight of these programs, along with our esteemed partners at the Career and College Academy Support Network, Graduate School of Education, UC, Berkeley, exhaustively reviewed reporting documents, then visited sites, to certify the following:
- Complete compliance with California Education Code Sections 54690-54699;
- Articulation and/or dual credit with post-secondary institutions;
- Industry certifications earned by students;
- High quality, effective partnerships with industry;
- Low attrition rates, particularly among the required majority of at-risk students enrolled in the CPA;
- Exemplary graduation rates
The dedication, professionalism, and compassion required to develop and implement a program achieving all of the above requirements is without parallel in education, and I congratulate every stakeholder involved with your Academy for the work that you do. I often say that California Partnership Academy teachers and administrators are the best in the world based on the unique work that they do and the success they achieve. For the quality of the program you are implementing, I believe it’s fair to say that you stand among the best of the best. Truly an accomplishment worth celebrating!
Sincerely,
Jerry Winthrop, Lead Consultant
California Partnership Academies
