Our Future

Our work has been recognized nationally and internationally as a “school after school” for students in kindergarten through high school where children come to learn and develop the skills necessary to be successful academically and in life.

After a long period of introspection during which we thought deeply about our ability to influence the lives of children, we reached the conclusion that we must evolve in order to broaden our impact both in scale and in scope. With this realization comes a new vision for our organization and a renewed sense of purpose behind our mission. Doing so requires changes to our programming, the biggest of which is the creation of a full-day school serving grades six to twelve. We call this initiative TAF Academy. Our existing programming will continue in various forms.

TAF Academy will entail partnerships with public school districts, in which TAF will assume substantial control over the daily operations of the schools including definition of the curriculum, scheduling of the school day, and input into staff selection and evaluation. In return for these accommodations, TAF will provide substantial private funding to the schools which will be used to support an array of supplemental services designed to ensure the academic success of our students. Our emphasis will be science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects, delivered in a unique manner tailored to the children we serve.

Our decision to start a TAF Academy is heavily influenced by the continued history of poor academic outcomes in the communities of color that we serve. These children are underserved by the school system and the results are clearly reflected in standardized test results which are substantially below state and district averages. Other indicators of stress, such as on-time graduation rates, are also depressed relative to benchmarks. This situation demands the urgency that we at TAF feel to redefine the delivery of education.

We expect to open three TAF Academies over the next six years in communities of color in Washington State. In doing so, we will have an indelible impact on nearly 1,600 students every year within this program alone. We expect to serve an additional 800 K-8 students in an after-school environment through our TechStart program. This is a substantial expansion of the program.

Realizing Our Goals

Realization of our goals requires that we execute effectively and hit our milestones efficiently. Over the next five years we will focus our efforts to:

Revise and Expand TechStart: We are in the process of revising the TechStart curriculum to bring an academic mastery emphasis to the program, which is a departure from our historical roots as a technology exposure program. We view this shift as essential in order to develop a pipeline of academically-prepared students to enter a TAF Academy. Simultaneously, we are expanding the scale of the TechStart program by opening four new locations in White Center in the
first quarter of 2008.

Negotiate TAF Academy Co-Management Agreements with Targeted Districts:
We will continue to discuss the co-management agreement necessary to make TAF Academy a reality in select districts. These discussions are ongoing at multiple levels. This is a political process that requires time to complete.

Capital Campaign: Our staff is growing. TAF is an anchor in the communities we serve. To accommodate our growth and establish permanence in our community, we will build a new facility. In this facility our staff can research, develop, and test the best teaching strategies, train our every growing staff of TechStart teachers, and offer classes to the children of the community.

Build a Top Notch Development Organization: Given the ambitious scope of our plans, it is critical that we create a development organization capable of raising the funds necessary to support our program goals. We have begun this process, but will be investing heavily in this area in the months and years to come.

Click here to read the details behind the business plan.