Lakewood City Academy Among Top Performing Charter Schools In State Subhead: Invited To Columbus To Share Success Strategies

LCA Coordinator Terri Bornino-Elwell (right) and staff member Renee Kolecki were in Columbus Nov. 10 to share with legislators the successful strategies LCA has used to become a top performing community/charter school.

Lakewood City Academy, the district-sponsored community/charter school housed at the former Franklin Elementary School, has done such a good job in getting its students on track toward graduation that legislators in Columbus invited some of the staff down to the capital to share their strategies for success.

State Senators Peggy Lehner, Tom Sawyer and Nina Turner invited 10 of the top performing community/charter schools in the state to attend a discussion centered on appropriate and successful operating standards for drop-out recovery schools as changes in legislation regarding charter schools are in the pipeline for Spring 2012. Ohio Department of Education representatives were also participants in the discussion. The participants offered suggestions and input as to how student academic performance beyond the performance index can be accurately compared as well as measured.

LCA Coordinator and Principal Terri Bornino-Elwell and drop-out prevention agent Renee Kolecki represented LCA and brought their thoughts on operating a successful community school to the table.

“We shared with the group various assessments LCA has used over the past few years, counseling techniques, teacher interventions, professional development and student progress,” Bornino-Elwell said.

“Renee and I were pleased to be a part of the discussion on what changes need to take place in legislation in order for testing in community/charter schools across Ohio to be equally accurate and consistent,” Bornino-Elwell said. “It was an honor for us to represent Lakewood City Academy and pleased that our students and academy our among the top 10 performing community/charter schools out of 407 in operation.”

The invitation was an affirmation of the outstanding work that Bornino-Elwell and her staff have done with LCA and its students.

Senator Lehner was so impressed with LCA’s story and the staff’s presentation that she has asked to come visit the school to see for herself the success taking place, Bornino-Elwell said.

LCA opened its doors in 2005 as an answer to students in the district disenfranchised with the “traditional” instructional delivery models enrolling in charter schools outside the district and taking their state dollars allocated to the district for each student with them. The district would now have an alternative option for schooling for these students.

For the next six years, LCA staff fine-tuned its curriculum, teaching methods an support system offerings to find a formula that gives the students there the best chance at success. The results have shown in the school’s 73 graduates and its ever-improving Ohio Department of Education performance ratings. The school’s Performance Index, which measures how all students fared on all state tests taken for a school year, has steadily increased from 73.6 to 90.6 in 2010-2011 and LCA received its first “Effective” rating for the 2010-2011 school year, climbing its way up from “Continuous Improvement.”

Many of those enrolled at LCA are at-risk students, which makes the rating and Performance Index results even more impressive. The results are accomplished with a variety of services tailored to individual students such as flexible hours, small group instruction, career internships, community work options and online learning options and the necessary social support services.

With this winning combination, Lakewood City Academy is meeting the needs of each and every student it has enrolled and working to help students become productive Lakewood citizens and succeeding beyond graduation.