Student Growth

How We Do It.

We’ve been open for four years now, and we’re doing great. According to the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in 2015, we showed the greatest year over year gains of any school in Fulton County. On the Georgia Milestones, we are outperforming neighboring schools in south Fulton. In every single subject, Chattahoochee Hills Charter School is showing amazing growth for our students, and is the top school in our region.

We don’t teach to the test, we teach to the child. We have a great, dedicated staff and faculty that loves children, and we treat the outdoors like it’s both a classroom and a member of our faculty. Children spend a lot of their time outside on our campus, learning about the core subjects through the lenses of agriculture, arts, and the environment. In short, we think children are better learners when we cultivate a spirit of curiosity and exploration in them. We want them learning about trees by climbing them, not by looking at pictures of them on a computer.

We built our campus to accomplish this mission. At our school, kids aren’t lumped in a giant building with cinder-blocked rooms day-dreaming through a tiny window about the time they get to spend outside. Instead, our campus is dotted with small buildings with natural light pouring inside of the windows, and our teachers are encouraged to take our children out on the miles of trails that surround our campus to teach class.

The results are pretty astounding — we have high achievers at our school. Our kids get sick less. We have one of the lowest absence due to illness rates in the region. It’s because they get plenty of fresh air, and because our kids like coming to school. And because they come to school more, they get more of an education. It’s that simple.

Our curriculum is a bit different, too. We teach through integration — that often means that your child is learning Math without even knowing that they’re learning math. They may be learning math through playing a game in the woods, or through an art project or even a community service project. Do you remember in school, when you asked yourself “why am I even learning this?” We try to show our students why they’re learning it as a means to teach first.