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School-within-a-school career academy structure with sustained student-teacher clusters

Design · All designs
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 causal), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description

This pattern organizes a small learning community inside a larger high school. "A small learning community is formed within the larger high school by clustering three to five teachers and 50–75 students per grade." Teachers are drawn from academic and career-related disciplines and remain with students from year to year, with one lead teacher administering the academy and liaising with administrators and employer partners. Students take two to four academy courses a year, with block-scheduled academy classes in the morning followed by regular classes in the afternoon.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

  • Clustering three to five teachers and 50–75 students per grade
  • Teachers remaining with students from year to year
  • A lead teacher with responsibility for administration and employer liaison
  • Block-scheduled academy-oriented classes

Constraints

  • The report describes this structure as implemented in the evaluated academies; the comparison group attended regular high school classes, and 7.2% of comparison students enrolled in an academy at some point

Target Learners

  • High school students in grades 9–12 in urban districts

Learning Goals

  • Integrated academic and career-technical learning
  • Personalized attention from teachers and peer collaboration

Claims

Examples

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Key Sources

  • U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, What Works Clearinghouse. (2015, September). Dropout Prevention intervention report: Career Academies. Retrieved from http://whatworks.ed.gov
Page metadata
Field Value
type design
id career-academy-school-within-school-structure
title School-within-a-school career academy structure with sustained student-teacher clusters
description This pattern organizes a small learning community inside a larger high school.
status review
generated by process:settle-candidates on 2026-10-09
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — us-department-of-education-institute

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