Lawrence Family Development Charter School FY’17 was Lawrence Family Development Charter School District’s (LFDCS) twenty-second year operating as a Commonwealth public charter school. This year, LFDCS focused heavily on its dissemination and technology integration efforts in three significant ways: Saturday Academy— new blended learning pilot project Lawrence Family Public Academy— introduction of Schoology via intensive professional development offerings National Conference Presentations— dissemination to national audiences in new “Train the Trainer” formats for implementing digital learning, as well as a high-quality RTI (Response to Intervention) program As part of Saturday Academy in early 2017, new models of blending learning were explored for 5th and 6th grade students. This pilot project used 1:1 technology in a rotation-based format, which emphasized projectlearning. The pilot project yielded positive feedback from both students and teachers. LFDCS completed year three of its Lawrence Public Schools’ partnership. This year reflected new aspects of collaboration. Most importantly, Lawrence Family Public Academy (LFPA) adopted, via intensive professional development of teachers, Schoology, the online learning management system used by LFDCS. Schoology allows for effective and efficient sharing of curriculum between LFDCS and the Lawrence Public Schools. Two members of the school traveled to the EdMedia conference in June 2017 where they presented on LFDCS’ use of Schoology to enhance learning in grades 5-8 and three members of the school traveled to the National Charter School Conference to share RTI methods. Other highlights of FY’17 Added 191 new Chromebooks for all Upper School students (grades 5-8) to use 1:1 devices for instruction Achieved Level 1 School status on MCAS testing for the 5th year in a row (two students earned the first ever perfect scores on the Science MCAS) Expanded use of the new STEM Center by offering STEM-focused Girl Scouts and robotics and engineering with the Latino STEM Alliance Graduated 55 students from grade 8 and 82 students from K-2 LFDEF, INC FY’2016-2017 ANNUAL REPORT PAGE 11 LFDCS’ takes pride in its Response to Intervention (RTI) process, which it uses to effectively measure and support all students’ progress. This year LFDCS worked with the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association (MCPSA) to offer workshops about the RTI process. Nearly forty Massachusetts charter school leaders attended these workshops, held at LFDCS, where they were able to see the RTI process in action. LFDCS continued its partnership with Lawrence Public Schools through the Lawrence Family Public Academy (LFPA). This included adopting a common benchmarking assessment, NWEA’s MAP. The Lead Teachers at LFPA worked with the RTI Coordinator to ensure faithfulness to interventions based on RTI results. These results and interventions were tracked through the shared learning management system, Schoology. Lastly, three members of the LFDCS team were invited to present at the National Charter School Conference in Washington, D.C. in June 2017. The team held a wellattended two and a half hour workshop on the RTI process.
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