COLORADO SPRINGS — The Tesla Educational Opportunity School unveiled its new home on the second floor of 2560 International Circle today. The school will have room to support 60 to 100 middle school students.
The middle school currently has 25 students enrolled and has been bouncing around properties before settling in their building.
They typically serve students who have struggled with traditional education and hope to be an asset to those with learning or disciplinary problems.
Chantelle Szczech-Jones has been with the math department at Tesla since 2006. She says the only reason she would stop teaching at the school is if she retired. Szcech-Jones believes in the way the school is helping students.
"I see a different level of resilience due to the struggles that they probably have in their own life that they come to us. I see also a different level of critical thinking. I think they just use it in the wrong direction but I think Tesla gets some of the brightest and the most gifted kids in the district. They just don't know where to channel those energies," she said.
The school focuses on smaller class sizes, rotating between teachers in other grades, and offering flexible class times, and trimesters instead of semesters. Szczech-Jones thinks that this learning is beneficial, especially in the age of post-COVID.
"I think we're behind emotionally because of COVID, we're definitely behind academically.. big class sizes with technology don't work, it's hard to keep smartphones away from kids, so I think small class sizes are needed," she said.
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