Charter School Facts

Mythbusters about Charter Schools
  • Charter schools are public schools.
  • Charter schools do not charge tuition.
  • Charter schools use non-discriminatory enrollment processes.
  • Scholars do not test-in to attend a charter school.
  • Charter schools participate in the state assessment tests.
  • Charter schools are subject to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
  • There are more than 6,800 charter schools serving nearly 3 million children across the country (as of February 2016 – Reference www.edreform.com).
  • Charter schools give families an opportunity to pick the school most suitable for their child’s educational well-being.
  • While charter schools must adhere to the same major laws and regulations as all other public schools, they are freed from the red tape that often diverts a school’s energy and resources away from educational excellence. Instead of constantly jumping through procedural hoops, charter school leaders can focus on setting and reaching high academic standards for their students.

“Building a culture of trust frees people to act on their leadership intuition and the ability to move at a faster pace.“

 Angela Arhendts

Frequently Asked Questions

Art class

The Grande Innovation Academy is in session Monday through Thursday. School starts at 7:30 AM and concludes at 4:00 PM.

Kindergarten scholars must be 5 years of age by September 1st.

Charter schools are public education facilities and do not charge tuition. We are funded by taxpayers and are regulated by the Arizona Department of Education.

Open enrollment starts in December and ends in January. After January, enrollment is on a first come basis depending on availability.

At Grande Innovation Academy, every instructional minute counts. Our teachers have a specific plan from the first greeting at Morning Meeting until the final bell of the day. The last half an hour of the school day is considered protected time on campus. No scholars may be picked up during this time. If at all possible, scholar dentist and doctor appointments should be scheduled for Fridays, and should never be scheduled during protected time. Parents should wait outside the gates until 4:00 to pick up their scholars from school.

We encourage our elementary scholars to take part in one or more of our varied after-school sports. Information may be found on our Athletics page.

We encourage our elementary scholars to take part in one or more of our varied after-school clubs.

We do provide full day kindergarten! You would be amazed at what our exceptional educators are able to accomplish with your little scholar during the school day. Our Engage NY Math and Reading Horizons Phonics Program and rich Core Knowledge content give our Kindergarten scholars the foundation they need to be successful.

Tying your shoes is one way to promote the development of fine motor skills. These skills are very important in the early years of school. Due to daily PE, tied shoes are safer and provide better support. In addition to promoting fine motor skills, tied shoes just stay on little feet better!

At Grande Innovation Academy we use the Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) Amplify curriculum.

At Grande Innovation Academy we never use homework as a punishment, busy-work, or to introduce new concepts. We have designed our instructional blocks to allow for both introduction and practice of new material each day. Scholars may be assigned homework to either remediation skills or extend classroom learning with long-term projects. Scholars will have a math fluency page and nightly reading practice Mon-Wed.

You may contact the front office staff by calling (520) 381-2360. For scholar absences to be considered excused they must be recorded as such by the office staff. Please understand that a scholar who misses more than 10 percent of the school year, (in our case, this is 14 absences) is considered truant by the state of Arizona.

As a charter school, we are a school of choice. That means you may choose to apply for admission to Grande Innovation Academy, regardless of where you live in the state of Arizona.

We make every effort to hire teachers who are certified. Our expectations for our teachers are as high as those we have for our scholars! Teacher resumes are kept on file and may be viewed at the front desk during regular office hours.

The money raised from school fundraisers is funneled directly into the purchase of technology for our classrooms and subsidizing field trips for all grades. We choose our scholar’s field experiences based upon their overall contribution to our curriculum, not based upon price. Because of this, we work very hard to raise money throughout the school year to make these a possibility for every scholar.

Yes. Grande Innovation Academy has partnered with MySchoolAccount.com for the managing of lunch preorders and payments.

The state of Arizona requires that every scholar be immunized or fill out a waiver before starting school. We take this very seriously and ask that all scholars be up-to-date on all immunizations. Please contact the school nurse at your campus if you have any questions on this.