After completing a third successive contract to provide targeted educational supports to the Lawrence Public Schools, FY’20 was the last year for Lawrence Prospera’s long-standing relationship with the Lawrence Family Public Academy. Never intended to be a permanent partnership, both sides agreed that Lawrence Prospera had successfully provided its expertise and met the goals laid out in the contract. The project began in September of 2014 with the Lawrence Family Development Charter School sharing staff members with Lawrence Public Schools’ early education demonstration project at the Lawrence Family Public Academy. They shared resources by providing assistance with teacher preparation, academic skills, language acquisition and social advancement of young children as well as Response to Intervention (RTI) and English as a Second Language services. During school year 2020, LFPA introduced play-based groups to the curriculum. These groups engaged students in explorative play based on lessons they were being exposed to in math and in the new literacy curriculum, CKLA (Core Knowledge Language Arts). CKLA has two distinct parts to its curriculum. The first part is skills, which engages the students in learning how to form the lines that make letters, learning about the letter sounds, blending the letter sounds to form words and finally learning letter names. The second part of CKLA focuses on language and literacy and immerses students in stories that are rich in language and vocabulary on a variety of topics including fairy tales, farms and kings and queens. A great deal of research has concluded that play-based learning is genuinely and positively impactful on student learning and development. LAWRENCE PROSPERA FY’2019–2020 ANNUAL REPORT PAGE 13
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