
In 2015, the high school, Synergy Quantum Academy, was named a Best High School by U.S. Synergy has expanded over time and is now a small network that also includes a middle and high school. 1 charter elementary school in the state of California and the best urban elementary school in the United States. Meg and Randy had some tough conversations with families, set expectations higher, and kept working. 1, but 28% of kids reading at grade level isn’t great at all,” Meg said. Parents and teachers were proud, but Meg and Randy weren’t satisfied children in more affluent communities were scoring 200 points higher on standardized exams and only 28% of Synergy students were reading at grade level. At the end of the year, the students’ test results made the school No. In year one, Synergy served students in kindergarten through fifth grade. They wanted their school to play by the same rules (same length school day and year, same curriculum) but they wanted it to have completely different results - and they were determined to share what they learned with LAUSD to help all kids.Ĭarrie Walton Penner visits with children at Synergy Academy. The couple read up on charters and decided to create their own. In 2001, Randy read an article in Time Magazine featuring the Accelerated School in South Central Los Angeles and learned about charter schools. They weren’t people who naturally accepted the status quo. Meg and her husband Randy both left their first careers in education to become elementary school teachers in LA Unified School District (LAUSD). “We always believed what we could do in a charter school could be replicated and transferred to a traditional district school … We really wanted to share.”


“We were specifically designed with the intent of not just serving the kids who come to our school,” said Meg Palisoc, the co-founder and CEO of Synergy Academy.
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What’s not normal is what’s happening at Synergy Academy in Los Angeles: students from co-located charter and district schools are playing together at recess, and teachers have joined up for shared professional development.

Hundreds of public charter schools across the country are co-located in school buildings with district schools.
