Curtain call for STARS Academy




PRODUCERS—Shayna Turk, left and Alexandra Yorke with STARS Academy, a new charter school with an arts-based curriculum. Courtesy photo

PRODUCERS—Shayna Turk, left and Alexandra Yorke with STARS Academy, a new charter school with an arts-based curriculum. Courtesy photo

Quitting their jobs in the middle of a pandemic might not have been the soundest idea, but two local teachers believe it was the right move at the right time.

Alexandra Yorke and Shayna Turk, longtime friends who grew up in Agoura Hills, gave notice recently at CHIME Charter Elementary in Woodland Hills so they could turn their passion for teaching musical theater into a full-fledged charter school.

The Calabasas-based STARS Academy is set to begin classes Sept. 8, offering an arts-based curriculum that follows Common Core standards while weaving in visual arts, dance, music and theater. Students are slated to attend classes in person and online.

STARS Academy, which will operate as a home-school program until its charter is approved by the Los Angeles Unified School District, has its roots in a children’s theater program Turk started in 2003 when she was 11 years old. Called STARS (the name is an acronym for Shayna Turk’s Academy of Rising Stars), it has created more than 40 productions over the past 17 years.

Yorke joined STARS as an assistant director in 2004 and she and Turk have been overseeing the program ever since, even as they both embarked on teaching careers. In 2014, they brought the STARS program to Heschel Day School in Northridge and later to CHIME Elementary.

The duo was discussing how to open a STARS charter school when the pandemic hit. In the ensuing upheaval, the idea was placed on the back burner.

“But then this summer, we had parents coming to us and saying, ‘What are we going to do for distance learning? We need your school now.’ So that propelled us to just get started,” Yorke said.

STARS Academy, according to its Facebook page, employs state-credentialed teachers who use arts as the vehicle to help students develop “focus and attention, work ethic, active participation and a commitment to excellence.” In-person enrollment is limited to 15 students while 20 online spots are available for virtual learning.

“(The academy) engages students in an academically rigorous, equitable education program through arts integration and interdisciplinary study,” Turk said on Facebook. “We saw that parents were looking for something more from their online learning and home-schooling experience and created STARS Academy to deliver just that.”

Rooted in friendship

Yorke and Turk have been pals since childhood.

“Our moms met in college,” Yorke said. “We were basically raised like sisters. We started doing theater together because our moms were looking for the cheapest camp where they could get rid of us for the longest time. That’s how we ended up falling in love with theater.”

Yorke graduated from San Diego State with a degree in elementary education; Turk majored in psychology at USC with a minor in Spanish. Both earned their teaching credentials at Cal State Northridge. The two friends had been working at CHIME Charter—Turk taught third grade, Yorke taught second—but they gave notice in order to map out STARS’ fall semester.

Given all the changes COVID is bringing to education, Turk and Yorke decided it would be wise to be in charge of their own destiny.

“We thought that if we’re going to have to reinvent the wheel, let’s do what we want for our own school and get out of a system that is clearly broken,” Turk said. “We had been thinking about the challenges of the education system for a long time so we thought we’d better do it now while we still can.”

Yorke, who has an 8-monthold baby, is handling STARS business from home while Turk helms the academy’s summer in-person program.

Scholastic alternative

STARS Academy is open to kids in kindergarten through eighth grade.

“We are using a different model called the ‘open classroom system,’ which uses flexible age grouping,” Yorke said. “It’s an idea we got from the Renaissance Arts Academy in Glendale. We wanted to see what was out there and went there to observe. Right now there are very few arts schools, especially for elementary school-age kids. Open classroom is a less rigid system where older children can become mentors or leaders for younger students and children who are advanced learners won’t have to be held back because of their age.”

For some classes, such as history and language, STARS will use historically-based Broadway musicals like “Hamilton” as a framework for lessons.

“Math and science are more of a challenge, so those subjects will be a little more traditional,” Yorke said. “But our history and language arts classes will be drawn directly from musicals.”

The academy’s instructors have a long history with STARS.

“All of our employees . . . were raised at STARS,” Yorke said. “One of our teachers started working with us when she was 6 years old and she’s now getting her teaching credential and helping us start our school. We have other girls who started with us who are now our choreographers and stage managers, so everything is in-house.”

COVID safety measures will be observed for in-person students, with rigorous cleaning before and after classes begin each day.

As time goes on, Yorke and Turk hope to expand their online program, taking on new teachers as the need arises.

“We take it incredibly seriously,” Yorke said. “We’re the ones doing it so we want it to be done right.”

For more information, go to starsacademycharter.org.