LEADERSHIP PREP SCHOOL
IDEAL GRADUATE
Leadership Prep School’s graduates are empowered to take purposeful action as they confidently enter their postsecondary future. They possess the skills needed to collaborate, innovate, and critically think, impacting their community through a life of positive leadership. Leadership Prep’s graduate statement was derived from our mission statement, vision and core values so that it would encompass the heart and culture of LPS. We provide opportunities that are open for all high school students to develop their leadership skills, include student voice and make an impact in their school and community. Students will defend their learning in all learning outcomes in front of a panel of school and community members, by presenting a portfolio of projects, accomplishments, reflections, and student leadership competency development.
ADULT CULTURE
As a school, we set the tone for the year at our annual vision casting day. We reaffirm our purpose, norms, and processes and set goals as a staff. LPS has multiple early release days built into our yearly schedule devoted to adult learning, collaboration, and reflection. We reengage teams through team building practices in order to work as a cohesive unit and model collaboration expectations for students.
STUDENT VOICE
There are dozens of committees in which all students are able to participate, such as community outreach, leadership development, peer mediation, district improvement, faculty hiring, and student events. Within the PBL process, students provide feedback on projects in order to help facilitators refine projects and improve the relevancy and engagement for future students. Advisory groups provide students a safe “family” atmosphere through Circle Time, in which peers share questions or concerns, and celebrate positive events happening in and out of school. The weekly podcast provides a platform to highlight student voices on different issues and events both in the school and our community.
STRUCTURES FOR PROJECT BASED LEARNING
Before the start of each school year, new teachers attend a PBL residency program, hosted by LPS New Tech certified PBL facilitators, in which they learn how to develop and implement projects, grade according to the five learning outcomes, participate in staff critical friends, and develop their first projects for the upcoming school year. All staff continue to participate in critical friends and project development throughout the year and are encouraged to complete the NTN Badging course.
ASSESSMENT AND ECHO PRACTICES
Teachers are given a required minimum of grades for each learning outcome and are regularly reminded to ensure that assignments are weighted fairly, so that students’ overall averages are not unfairly skewed due to an unbalanced number of assignments in each category. New students complete an ECHO 101 course and teachers are required to complete ECHO 101 and 201. We have in-person meetings for parents to train in ECHO twice every quarter as well as online tutorials easily accessible from our website and regular emails available at all times.
ONBOARDING
The beginning of each school year starts with Pride Camp, in which all new students are introduced to LPS culture, PBL and the 7 Habits. Returning students refresh their knowledge and understanding of these same concepts. Pride Camp includes team building activities, interactive lessons taught by their peers, and competitions between advisory groups. Students who enroll after the start of the school year shadow current students for the first few days in order to fully comprehend the PBL process, and are required to complete the PBL 101 course in ECHO.
