Poudre Global Academy

Updated May 15, 2019

Poudre School District Global Academy (PGA) is one of 59 schools in the Poudre School District, which has a total enrollment of almost 30,000 students. PGA occupies a traditional school building in a residential community of Fort Collins, Colorado, and serves students in grades K–12. The student population includes 85.2% Caucasian, 12.4% Hispanic, 1.8% mixed race, and 0.6% Asian, and 38.9% qualify for free/reduced-price lunch. PGA began as an all-virtual K–12 school in 2009, focusing on students who were struggling in a traditional school. From 2010 through 2013, PGA evolved into a school for any student who needed or wanted a non-traditional educational experience, attracting advanced and accelerated students as well. In 2014, PGA moved away from the all-virtual instructional model. Their purpose now is to offer personalized and blended learning as a flexible alternative to traditional school schedules. Learning occurs both at home and in the school building, i.e., on campus. Students are on campus two days per week and study online from home the other three days.

The on-campus experience provides students and teachers opportunities to meet and interact in dynamic and flexible individual and group settings based on needs and progress. Students also engage in individual online learning on campus, where they are face-to-face with teachers and other students for mentoring and collaboration. On-campus schedules vary by grade level. The following table illustrates a more detailed view of the schedule.

PGA’s on-campus teachers enhance and customize the online curriculum, develop offline curriculum, use actionable data to guide student paths and personalize the learning experience for each PGA student, and provide suggestions, encouragement, and learning strategies. On campus, students and teachers re-organize the furniture to accommodate students on the move with laptops in backpacks participating in dynamic study groups. Approximately 60% of all instruction for K–8 students is online, and 80% is online for 9th–12th grade students. During the three days when students are working at home, learning coaches are required to mentor their students as they are working on their assignments. Learning coaches access assignments online, communicate with teachers, and sign off on work students complete at home. PGA developed a training program to teach learning coaches how to be effective. Often, a parent is the student’s learning coach. PGA is a learning community in which relationships are central to student success.

This profile was developed using a profile developed by Evergreen Education Group for Fuel Ed.

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