Welcome back to school! Year 3 is going to be the best year yet!
As we wind down the dog days of summer, we are hard at work preparing for the upcoming school year. While we love the joy and energy our scholars, families and staff bring to the school year, summer gives us an opportunity to take a breathe and reflect on the past year’s activities, accomplishments and challenges. Our experiences in Year 2 truly do continue to inform and guide our work for the coming year. Focused on a vision of excellence, like our scholars, we continue to learn and grow.
Basics By the Numbers
Let’s start with some basic data regarding our growth in Year 2. It included adding over 100 scholars; expanding our school to grades K4-3 and 6-10; hiring over 20 new staff; and enrolling 524 scholars – all with a healthy waitlist of over 150 scholars. Additional scholar demographics included:
Accomplishments & Activities
Remaining focused on putting children first, The Lincoln Academy Governance Board and our dedicated, mission-driven staff continued the work of bringing our vision for TLA to life. Our three pillars of academic rigor, character development and career exploration continued to evolve and expand. Scholars demonstrated strong academic growth, maintained high character expectations, built a strong community, and learned about career opportunities available to them to help develop lifelong aspirations.
During our second year:
Scholars achieved strong academic growth, as reflected by: Spring 2023 MAP Assessments; 71% of K5-3 grade scholars demonstrating proficiency in foundational reading skills and 41% of 9-10 grade scholars on the 4th Quarter Honor Roll.
827 Character Awards were received by scholars.
99% of K5-3 and 6-10 grade scholars completed career curriculum lessons.
98% of scholars in grade 8 presented their Individualized Learning Plan (ILP).
Six dual enrollment course offerings resulted in 135 credits earned and $17,932 in scholar savings related to obtaining college credits.
160+ business partnerships supported career exploration.
100% of grade 10 scholars and 94% of grade 8 scholars completed Job Shadows
2,000+ Service Learning hours were logged by scholars.
Parent and scholar feedback indicated strong satisfaction related to learning, friendships & safety; opportunities for career exploration received high marks from both parents and middle/high school scholars.
We have worked on communication and connectivity of staff, families, and scholars and have continued to build out our website, our communication hub for the community. This year, we added monthly blogs on important and timely topics related to TLA and charter schools. We also engaged parents in conversation, through the Parent Leadership Council and newsletters, around our work during the state budget cycle towards equalized funding for all children attending school in Wisconsin.
To learn in more about Year 2 at The Lincoln Academy, we encourage you to take a look at the full 2022-2023 Year-In-Review report.
New Growth and Opportunities
Our vision of ensuring scholars lead happy choice-filled lives remained at the center of all we did in our second year and that will continue to be true as we move into the next school year. We still have work to do in all three pillars and we remain focused on communication and connectivity. We will continue to push ourselves in these areas and to always be our best in serving the Beloit community and making The Lincoln Academy the premier school in the state for our scholars.
We look forward to new growth and expanded learning opportunities this coming year that include: the addition of grade 4 and grade 11 to the school community; the completion of construction on our new cafeteria, multi-purpose room, weight room, Advanced Manufacturing lab, Design lab and third floor build-out; a new middle school science lab; the start of the NJROTC program; an Esports lab; Prom and Youth Apprenticeships among other activities.
Thank you, to everyone who has supported The Lincoln Academy and those who will join us in supporting scholars during the 2023-2024 school year. We are excited to see the growth and opportunities Year 3 brings. GO LIONS!
Dr. Kristi Cole is the Chief Education Officer at The Lincoln Academy, a K4-12 independent, 2x charter school in Beloit, Wisconsin.
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