SAQs (Should-Ask Questions)
Certainly you’re familiar with the term “FAQs” (Frequently Asked Questions), but have you heard of SAQs? SAQs are “Should-Ask Questions.” What questions should you ask when searching for the perfect school for your child? Try these:
- “How can you make this education affordable for me?” Instead of asking how much it costs and writing off a high-ticket education, ask instead how it can be made affordable. Some schools are free… and you get what you pay for. Some educations cost as much as a new car, and they expect you to pay every penny. But some schools, like ours, provide an excellent education that, while expensive, works with every single budget to make it affordable for anyone.
- “Are your graduates prepared for college and career?” Don’t merely ask about graduation rates and GPAs. Those are deceptive. Rather, find out if graduates are prepared for life after high school. At LCS, we don’t try to make ourselves look good by handing out as many A grades as possible. Instead, we teach our students what is needed to succeed beyond high school.
- “Can you help my child catch up or move ahead?” If your child is in elementary school, you’ll want to know how to either bring your child to grade level or how to help them excel farther. We have documented proof that we have been able to close academic gaps for students who come to us already behind, and many of those who are on grade level are propelling ahead!
- “How invested is your staff?” It’s likely that at any school, the teachers will have experience and talent, as ours do. But beyond that, you’ll want to know if the staff is invested in their jobs and if they truly care for their students. Most of our staff attend our church and serve in some way, like AWANA or youth group. This means they choose to not only teach their students throughout the weekdays, but also choose to spend additional time with them some nights, teaching them even more important spiritual truths. Our staff cares not just about each student’s education, but more importantly, their soul.
- “Will my child be safe?” There’s no way to guarantee with 100% certainty the safety of anyone. But you’ll want to know if your child will be both physically and emotionally safe, to the best of the school’s ability. At LCS, we do not tolerate bullying, either in school or online between our students. Teachers strive to stay aware of social interactions and the climate of their classrooms in order to keep their students safe.
These five questions will give you a good indication of a school’s heart, and whether or not they’d be a good fit for your child. We encourage you to schedule a personal tour with Lakeside Christian School today and ask these very questions!
Online Schooling < LCS
There are a number of options from which each family can choose the school that will best meet their needs:
Public school
Private school
Charter school
Online school
Home school
We’ve already discussed the perils of Florida public schools, the expense of private schools, and the cons of charter schools. If you missed those posts, check them out here. Home school is great, if parents feel up to the challenge. This leaves online school.
Whether from home or another location, whether one student or a handful, online school is where students complete their education in front of a computer screen. For some, they consider this ideal. They can home school without learning how to teach the material to their child. But online schooling is simply not a good option if you hope your child will become college and career ready by the end of their time in high school.
Consider this:
Jason Burns wrote an article for Michigan State University last November. This article outlines a Stanford study that determined online schools to be ineffective. He writes, “According to this report, the academic growth of students who attend “online charter schools,” where a majority of instruction takes place over the internet, falls far behind the growth of students who receive their education in traditional settings.”
The article details the fact that students who attend online schools are often an ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR behind in math, and about HALF A SCHOOL YEAR behind in reading. These facts cannot be shrugged off. How will your child be college prepared when they may be an entire year behind their peers?
This is just one article of many that highlights the ineffectiveness of online schools. Think carefully about your child’s education. Convenience and low price might be appealing, but in the end is like buying a cheap, old car. This car might look like it will do what you need for much less than other cars. Yet if it doesn’t get you where you need to go, it’s worthless, and a waste of money. In that way, your child’s education needs to get them where they want to go. An online education won’t do that.
We encourage you to take a look at Lakeside Christian School. Unlike public schools, we have high-quality academics. Unlike other private schools, we can make it affordable for you. Unlike charter schools, we have control over what we teach and how money is spent. Unlike online schools, we use best practice teaching. Unlike home school, we offer the complete school experience- including sports, fine arts, and chapel.
Your child’s education is of utmost importance. Call today to set up a tour of Lakeside Christian School, and let us show you how we are different.
To read more about the failure of online schools, read the original quoted article here.
Stuck Like Glue
Parents are happy with what we are doing at Lakeside Christian School.
How do we know this? We have an over 90% retention rate. Perhaps it’s purely academic: we are closing learning gaps among our elementary students. This means we are bringing most of those who were behind, up to and above grade level. Or it’s our desire to prepare all students for college and career, starting LONG before high school begins. Maybe it’s the fact that we teach each class and every subject from a biblical worldview. Or it could be the environment- safe and secure, with loving staff and a family feel. It could be any number of things, like our athletics or drama program, for example. But we believe it’s most likely the unique combination of all these things that makes Lakeside Christian School such a special place.
Schedule a tour today to find out what’s different about Lakeside Christian School, and why our families don’t just attend; they stick around.
Aligned Curriculum
Next on our list of things on which Lakeside Christian School focuses in order to prepare our students for college and career is
Aligned Curriculum.
Another name for aligned curriculum is coherent curriculum. According to edglossary.org, aligned curriculum “refers to an academic program that is (1) well organized and purposefully designed to facilitate learning, (2) free of academic gaps and needless repetitions, and (3) aligned across lessons, courses, subject areas, and grade levels.”
Simply put, an academic program with aligned curriculum would be one in which all assessments, lessons, instructions, tests, assignments, textbooks, and the like are matched in such a way as to meet standards and cohere as a whole. The purpose of this is that the students’ knowledge builds on itself naturally and doesn’t repeat unnecessarily.
When teachers work together within a school “using developmentally appropriate and well-defined learning expectations (source),” students will have a better chance at eliminating and/or closing academic gaps, therefore becoming more college prepared.
This makes sense, especially when you understand that there can be a four-year gap in academics between the best and worst state standards. This means a senior in one state might find himself at the academic level of a freshman in another state. Consistency is important.
Beyond consistency within the school is alignment to education standards that measure college readiness at grade level. Lakeside Christian School has therefore aligned with ACT Aspire testing. College and career readiness standards are their basis for measuring student improvement (grades 3-10). Aspire tests grade-level knowledge as defined by the standards of the largest states in the US.
ACT Aspire provides three types of tests: classroom assessments, interim assessments, and summative assessments. All three work together to provide insight into each student’s progress and readiness, which then guides instruction.
Why is this so important? It’s important because our goal is to work from day one to help your child become college and career ready. One way we do that is through aligned curriculum with ACT Aspire.
“ACT solutions are explicitly designed and empirically validated to assess student progress toward college and career readiness” (source).
No other organization can link student test scores and actual post-high school performance, plus the ability to then determine what must be learned to be ready for college. Our alignment with the evidence-based ACT Aspire Benchmark testing gives students, parents, and teachers the information they need to determine the right educational path and possible interventions needed to prepare them for college and career. There is no guessing or hoping; there is no pulling for grades high enough to simply graduate; instead, each student is given the opportunity to become truly prepared for life after high school.
For more information about ACT ASPIRE, please visit their website. Consider scheduling a free tour with Lakeside Christian School. We’d love to show you how ACT Aspire works, and what makes LCS different from other schools.
