Why We’re Starting LaunchPoint Academy (and Why We Hope You'll Join Us)

A new small-school option for high schoolers in Syracuse, NY

When we heard that PFLA—Syracuse’s only small public high school—was being shut down, it gave us pause. We know the stories of many of these kids. PFLA is the school students are sent to when, for one reason or another, things haven’t worked out at one of the city’s four main public high schools.

Why were these students sent to PFLA? Some got in trouble one too many times. Some were picked on. Some have learning disabilities, social anxiety, or other special needs. (One student, in an online petition to keep PFLA open, wrote, “In crowded places, my anxiety skyrockets and my anger gets unmanageable.“)

What will become of these kids?

To its credit, the Syracuse City School District (SCSD) has stated that accommodations will be made for each student at existing schools next year. And some students are genuinely excited about the options being offered. SCSD has experience supporting students with diverse needs, and we expect that reasonable alternatives will be arranged for most of the roughly 100 students currently at PFLA.

That said, many of the PFLA teachers and administrators we’ve spoken with anticipate that some students will not find the alternatives appealing. Returning to a school they were kicked out of, afraid to attend, or unable to keep up in may not feel like a solution. PFLA’s attendance rate was already around 30%. It would not be surprising if more students drop out of the system entirely.

To those of us who know these kids, that would be a shame. These kids may have issues — who among us doesn’t? — but they also have tons of potential.

That’s where the idea of opening a new school began.

Our goal, in a nutshell, is to provide an outstanding small-school option for any student who falls through the cracks in the closing of PFLA — and for any kid for whom the conventional schools are not working.

What kind of school are we planning out to create? A unique one! In the two months since PFLA’s closure was announced, we’ve spoken with many teachers, administrators, students, and parents, trying to imagine the type of school that would best serve these kids. We have lots of ideas, and we can’t help but think some of what we have in mind might actually work!

That said, we are also very conscious of our lack of experience in the field. That’s why we’re eager to connect with others who are operating schools with similar objectives, to learn and to share. As we being putting things into practice (God willing, in September), we plan to share what works for us, and what doesn’t, in the hope that others, elsewhere, may also benefit.

So if this is an area of interest for you, please subscribe and help get the conversation going. And please — and this is very important to our success — do not hesitate to share your advice and ideas. We want to hear from you, whoever you are; a student, teacher, parent, administrator, a person selling a product, or even just a person with an interest in the field. All input and feedback is welcome, and the more we learn from all of you, the better we’ll be able to serve these kids.

Thanks for reading this far. Now, please join us in building a great small-school option for the high schoolers of Syracuse!