When students are not in apprenticeships, our staff of educators is leading activities designed to reinforce school-day learning with academic support, team-building activities, and a culture of achievement. Our staff communicates regularly with teachers and families about student's progress, analyze grades and set goals, and offer individual homework coaching. 

During our daily period of academic support time, known as AIM—Inspire, Invest, Make the Grade—staff members check students' assignments in their school agendas, and read feedback from their teachers about how they are doing in a given subject. Citizen Schools team leaders provide students with homework trackers so they can prioritize what they need to work on first. Students learn to organize and complete their assignments. Students who take their work seriously are celebrated during other elements of the Citizen Schools program.

In the sixth grade, our School Navigation curriculum teaches students the study skills that they need to improve their grades and to put their school performance on an upward trajectory. Students learn to organize their assignments and school materials, manage time, set goals, participate and take notes in class, prepare for tests, and ask for help. Over the course of the year they create a portfolio of their best work and come to recognize that school success is not the result of innate ability, but of effort applied effectively.

Beginning in the fall of 2007, Citizen Schools will partner with educational publisher ScholarCentric to deliver Success Highways, a researched-based motivation and academic confidence-building curriculum, to seventh grade students at many of our campuses nationwide. Through the program's unique assessment, classroom activities and interactions, students explore their current lives, motivators, actions, and goals.

Through our expanding 8th Grade Academy program, the oldest middle school students are challenged to look more closely at their future. Designed specifically for the needs and abilities of eighth grade students, this intensive model helps them reach their potential through high school and college visits, leadership seminars, leadership roles, and advanced lessons. Based on the pilot program in Boston, this bridge year between middle school and high school is rolling out at select campuses across the country with help from a grant from the Goldman Sachs Foundation.

All these program elements unite to reinforce a culture of achievement, signaled with visual, verbal and behavioral rituals like Circles, Choice Time and Value Stars. Apprentices open and close program days with campus-wide circles – high energy, fun gatherings that get students and staff energized for the day ahead. In Choice Time and Team Time, students build leadership skills, including teamwork, courage and responsibility, through fun, hands-on games and challenges. Within a small, diverse group of students led by a Citizen Schools-trained Team Leader, apprentices develop self-knowledge, identity and pride.

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8th Grade Academy