Excelsior Artz Preparatory School (EAPS), one of South Florida’s oldest and accomplished private schools, is blazing a new trail with its bilingual program.
Founder, Kayann Baugh-Toney, had a dream over 20 years ago to remove academic limitations on children and expose them to a variety of lessons in fun, engaging ways. She envisioned standards that change people’s view of students’ abilities, raise expectations, empower parents and shine a light for God. As a result, Excelsior’s students have achieved excellence in academia and beyond. Evidence of that is their performance in local competitions, such as last year’s Spelling Bee.
Excelsior made a clean sweep, taking first place in all grade levels (one to five), above grade level performance on Standardized Tests, such as the Stanford Achievement Test, and more.
Expanded education model
Realizing that the global workforce and society is constantly evolving, Excelsior recently expanded its educational model to include a bilingual program focusing on Spanish. It officially launched the initial stage of the program last academic year, when it changed instructional methods and frequency of its classes for students in all grades.
The success was measured by student’s level of enthusiasm and performance.
Committed to producing bilingual learners
EAPS is fully committed to its goal of producing bilingual learners. Recently, it got a license to educate two-year-olds.
Classroom discussions and activities in this and all preschool classes will be facilitated in Spanish for half of the daily program. Students from Kindergarten through grade eight will receive Spanish instructions three times per week.
Baugh-Toney, whose parents are Jamaican, is confident the program will be successful. “I used the same instructional model on my own two kids. As a result, my three-year-old and five-year-old are fluent in their Spanish speaking skills and emerging in their Mandarin speaking ability. They have expanded their familiarity with many cultures outside of the USA. No one can tell that they are not from a Latin speaking home,” she said,
