Who We Are
Since its founding in 2010, Challenge Preparatory Charter School (Challenge Prep) has provided students and families with a successful academic program in Far Rockaway, Queens. We currently serve over 1200 scholars from Kindergarten to 12th grade across 3 sites. Our school’s mission is to prepare students from the greater Far Rockaway community to excel academically, to demonstrate mastery of the NY State Learning Standards, and to achieve their career aspirations. Challenge cultivates and supports the intellectual, aesthetic, social, emotional, and ethical development of its students and prepares them to be responsible 21st century citizens. To accomplish its mission, Challenge offers a rigorous instructional program in a safe, supportive, technology-infused and data-enriched and social-emotional learning sequence, authentic field experiences, career counseling, and college coursework. It is understood that we are one organization with multiple sites, and it is expected that all members of the team collaborate to support all of our scholars. Educational Culture at Challenge Charter Middle School:
Our school’s mission is to cultivate the intellectual, social, emotional, and ethical development of our students and prepare them for long-term success both inside and beyond the classroom. We aim to accomplish this mission by building a culture among students, faculty, staff, parents, and community members that conveys excitement about learning; fosters creativity and collaboration, and celebrates success. Specifically: Educators at Challenge Prep share a common understanding of what quality teaching looks like by adopting the Danielson Framework for Teaching. Challenge Prep educators believe that how children learn is as important as what they learn and that academic success is inextricably tied to building social-emotional competencies. All members of the Challenge Prep community take full responsibility for the academic progress of our students, and this is reflected in our methods of evaluating the effectiveness of faculty, staff, and school leadership. We conduct annual professional evaluations that use multiple measures to determine effectiveness, including classroom observations and student outcomes. We provide intensive support for new teachers to help ensure their success.