Beehive Science & Technology Academy is an open enrollment, tuition-free public charter school which opened on August 29, 2005 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Academy distinguishes itself among neighboring educational offerings with its college preparatory program that focus on math, science and technology. The curriculum at BSTA is designed to provide students with a solid foundation in humanities and social science as well as math, science and technology with the aim of preparing them to become responsible and educated members of the society who have the skills and understanding to participate and work productively in our increasingly technological, diverse, and multicultural society.

Grade Levels Served

Beehive Science & Technology Academy opened in  2005, and currently serves students in grades seven through twelve.

• Home Visits
• Tutoring
• Life Skills
• Coaching
• TIE
• AMSP

Beehive Science Technology Academy encourages its teachers and parents to make home visits to their students to establish a better communication between home and school. Home visits are voluntary for both Beehive Science Technology Academy teachers and parents. We make home visits for the following reasons;

• Promote partnership between parents and teachers.
• Encourage parent involvement.
• Parents gain a better understanding of school’s educational policies.
• Provide new understanding of students’ learning style.
• Understand emotional and social needs and behaviors of students.
• Identify students’ latest interests and concerns

All students receive free tutoring from the faculty and from volunteers from area universities. Tutoring will be available as part of the Beehive Science Technology Academy after-school program and will be adjusted to fit individual student needs to maximize each student’s potential. Thus, some students may require tutoring one afternoon a week, whereas others may require daily tutoring. Because tutoring does not occur during the regular class time, it is not considered as part of the instruction requirement and will not be used to support the apportionment claim.

The free tutoring program will also benefit students who are not classified as low achievers. Tutors will be available for students performing at or above grade level upon request. These free tutoring sessions generally will occur after school, but some may be scheduled on the weekends, depending on student and parent preferences.

Beehive Science Technology Academy will encourage teachers to increase their level of attention to each student individually. Twice a semester, teachers will fill out a student progress report form and discuss student progress with other teachers, parents, and tutors. They will also provide a brief summary of their methodology and supplementary efforts, such as after-school tutoring and meetings with parents, that they are using to help students reach their maximum potential. In some classes, whenever appropriate, tutors will help individual groups (or individual students) to increase the degree of individual attention. Labs can be good examples in this context. While students are doing experiments in groups of two, tutors and the teacher will deal with each group as needed.

MagnoXP: Our Online School Information System

• News, schedules, staff contacts, class info, etc
• Access to homework, announcements, grades, and discipline records
• Student status portal
• Approximately 80% of students and 40% of parents logon at least once a week.

Character Education Program
The purpose of the Life Skills program is to encourage students to take responsibility for their actions, to familiarize them with good character traits, to introduce them to role models, and to help develop good citizens with high moral values.
The United States Congress, recognizing the importance of this concept, authorized the Partnerships in Character Education Program in 1994. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 renews and re-emphasizes this tradition, and substantially expands support for it. The family is the most important place for character and moral education, but the public schools are partners with the family. We share, as public school educators, the responsibility to reinforce the shaping of moral behavior that families are trying to encourage.

The Life Skills course offered at Beehive Science Technology Academy is one hour per week in each grade of middle school. The objective of the Life Skills Class is to encourage students to take responsibility for their actions, to familiarize them with good character traits, to introduce them to role models, and to help develop good citizens with high moral values.

Each month, a character trait (i.e., honesty, responsibility, respect, and integrity) is announced. Some other traits will also be included for student participation throughout the entire year, in order for students to be frequently reminded of these values and be given the opportunity to make connections between various concepts.

The curriculum for the Life Skills program at Beehive Science Technology Academy is built by using widely-used and approved resource guides.

BSTA builds an educational environment that involves both in-class and after-class individual attention. After-class individual attention will occur as part of our free after-school tutoring program.

Students with a D or F grade in core subjects are classified as low achievers.These students will attend obligatory after school programs concentrating on the subjects in which they are weak.

Besides the recreational clubs, there will be tutoring groups on advanced math and science available for high achieving students. Tutoring programs will also help high achieving students prepare for statewide and nationwide academic competitions. The number of students in each tutoring group will not exceed eight. Volunteers from local universities will also help with tutoring programs under the guidance of teachers.

An improvement plan will be prepared for low-achieving students with the involvement of teacher, parent/guardian and dean of academics. Improvement plans will include additional homework, readings and mandatory after school tutoring. The student’s progress will be evaluated by the teacher in a timely manner.

To narrow the achievement gap for the low-achieving students, catch-up strategies such as free tutoring and homework clubs will be implemented during after-school program. Mandatory free after-school tutoring program tailored towards each student’s needs by the school staff will provide the opportunity for those students left behind to master the content standards for the relevant subject.
These students will be monitored on a regular basis through in-class assessment. Parents will be notified during this process through meetings and online grading. Students will adhere to their prescribed individualized program until they meet the grade level expectations.

Use of multimedia devices and other technology resources in all classes enable powerful learning situations that aid students in extracting meaning out of complexity. Technology Integrated Education (TIE) is the distinguishing program of Beehive Science Technology Academy, which integrates Math, Science, Social Science and Language Arts classes with technology education in a fun and comprehensive way.

Technology Integrated Education (TIE) aims to teach basic knowledge of computers and teach skills while integrating computers with core classes. Students gain an understanding of how computers operate and learn basic skills to successfully use programs such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Furthermore, they learn how to design websites and effectively use the Internet. Through the development of computer skills ranging from typing skills to using the Internet, they are able to take advantage of technology available for them today.

At a minimum, students spend 5 hours a week in front of a computer at Beehive Science Technology Academy. Computer classes are integrated into core classes. Each student is provided his/her account and domain, keeping the privacy of each individual intact. Netsupport (www.netsupport.com) school program is utilized in the computer labs to enhance the interaction between the students and teacher.

AMSP is a program at Beehive Science Technology Academy for its gifted/highly gifted students. Students prepare for the International Olympiads in which a group of 4 or 6 students represent each country. The International Olympiads are the most prestigious and most difficult competitions in which high school students can participate. They are also prepared the most prestigious math and science competitions such as Math Counts, Science Olympiad etc. in the Nation by our coaches.The Beehive Science Technology Academy students are prepared for the following competitions:
· International Mathematics Olympiad
· International Olympiad in Informatics
· International Physics Olympiad
· International Biology Olympiad
· Intel Science Talent Search
· Utah State Science Fair

We believe that each student has an inherent curiosity and love of learning; and that each student has a unique intelligence, level of capability, and learning style. Therefore, BSTA has an educational program that engages and motivates students from various academic and cultural backgrounds to invest their talents, energy, and enthusiasm in their own education. We also believe that students should gain life-long learning skills in order to be successful in an ever-changing society. Hence, BSTA adopts an engaging learning environment where students obtain the required skills to collaborate, locate, analyze, organize, evaluate, and internalize new information in the light of their own needs and based on their academic and cultural backgrounds.

School Mission

Moreover, we believe that an educated citizen in the 21st century must have the skills and understanding to participate and work productively in a multicultural, globally-oriented environment, including the skills required to use technology to its full potential. For that reason, BSTA is committed to ensuring that all students acquire full computer literacy at an early age.The mission of Beehive Science & Technology Academy (BSTA) is to provide an active learning environment for students from diverse backgrounds in order to enable them to develop the intellectual, linguistic, cultural, interpersonal, and advocacy skills needed to succeed in high school, higher education, and their future career.