The mission of the Achievement First Brownsville Charter School will be to provide students with the academic and character skills they need to gain admission to top colleges, to succeed in a competitive world, and to serve as the next generation of leaders in their communities. The school plans on maintaining two teachers in every K-2 classroom, and all of the administrators - principal, dean of students, and academic dean - will teach at least one class.

To achieve its mission, Achievement First Brownsville intends to focus on the following:

• More time on task – school day running from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with tutoring and enrichments opportunities available after school and on Saturdays.  The school proposes an annual calendar that contains 201 instructional days, including a required Summer Academy.  The instructional schedule will include 3 hours of daily reading instruction in the elementary grades and three hours daily for reading and writing instruction in the middle school grades;

• Character education – focus on the REACH (respect, enthusiasm, achievement, citizenship, and hard work) values;

• College focus;

• Rigorous, standards-based curriculum ;

• Powerful use of ongoing assessments – internal interim assessments every six weeks with the results being used to inform instruction and target students in need of remediation;

• Excellent teaching – thirteen annual professional development days and weekly 2-hour sessions as well as an on-site Director of Operations handling non-instructional issues to free up the principal to spend almost all of his or her time focused on instruction.  Student performance will be the lead factor in school, principal, and teacher evaluation; and

• Parents as partners – including a parent representative on the school’s board of trustees.