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Winter 2008 www.charterschoolstoday.com

CST CHARTER SCHOOLSTODAY

INLAND LEADERS CHARTER SCHOOL

Making a Difference in the Community

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Inland Leaders Charter School

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Making a Difference in the Community Produced by Todd Rodgers & Written by Prem Desai

Inland Leaders Charter School doesn’t end at the school gates. “We’re involved in just about every little community project that’s going on,” says Mike Gordon, the Executive Director, “we just planted 80 trees at one of the local parks as part of make a difference day - our students get highly involved.” The 250 students in kindergarten through to grade six, 20 staff and countless parents help out at the Braille institute, local pet adoption agencies, collecting food for the homeless and graffiti abatement. The school is almost brand new - it was opened in August of 2007. “It was developed as a community-based school,” says Gordon, who

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Inland Leaders Charter School

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their grade levels to discuss how to implement what they’ve learned. They work on the curriculum too: “We just got our first API this year. We’re at 840. We looked at our data, and local data we use too and we distinguished the fact that writing was our greatest weakness and we decided to focus on writing and literacy specifically.”

They decided to look at extensive after-school lessons, which cover 22 topics, and scale back the number of subjects to target problem areas more specifically. “But in other

worked in the district for over 12 years as a teacher, administrator and assistant principal after completing his education at the University of California Riverside and Cal State San Bernardino. “We had the intention of training students to be leaders in the community.”

Gordon uses the $1.6 million budget to try and adapt to each child: “Our methods are results-based. We try to provide as individualized a program as possible for each student. Every student learns differently and at different paces, we believe.” He takes some issue with standardized tests: “I have a problem with them as the main measure. We don’t mind accountability - we do very well in this district. Our first year scores were higher than any other scores in the district. But I think it does become problematic when you use it as the only, or the prioritized accountability measure.”The school manages to limit the impact the tests have on curriculum. And even the Average Yearly Progress measure has little sway over what his teachers do in the classroom. But Gordon would like more discretion in his choice of those teachers than the definition of highly qualified allows. “As a charter school I think the freedom and flexibility should be allowed because I think we can do some things that would be good for kids that No Child Left Behind won’t allow. We have a program here that does do some flexible groupings with students. We look at models of not just a multiple subject teacher but single subject teachers for elementary students and NCLB can limit some of that freedom and flexibility that we look for.”

His staff is his most important assets. “The environment here is highly collaborative,” explains Gordon. All teachers get together on Tuesdays with consultants or administration to learn new methods, and then again on Thursday with

areas that we’re looking at actually implementing more,” says Gordon. “We teach Spanish during the school day so we’re looking at expanding that program. We also teach French after school and Chinese but we’re looking at improving our Spanish during the school day and actually teaching some subjects in that language.”

The school as a whole has very few disciplinary issues: “the most common things we have here are gum chewing and making a mess of their tables,” says Gordon. Occasionally a child will bring a penknife to school - accidentally or otherwise - but no major violations. In those cases “We hold conferences, pre and post, and discuss the intervention. Most of the parents here are highly involved so we have a good communication going on between the home and the school. We develop

behavior plans and clear expectations of what will occur if the behaviors continue. So we let them know that if they come to school with a dangerous object, and they return with it, the next time they will be sent to an expulsion proceeding. We also have some parenting classes that we recommend parents attend if they’re having struggles and issues with their child.”

Parental involvement is a huge factor in the school’s success. “Our parents here recognize that the educator is not the only one involved in the child’s education. We

We find that students that are

self motivated and want to

push themselves master the

standards at a quicker pace.”

"

- MIKE GORDON

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look at them as equal partners in this game. We’re definitely not a drop-off school - parents are made to feel welcome, made to feel like they need to be involved at every level and we give them a voice. It’s a complete partnership here.” As a result, “it’s not uncommon to see four or five volunteers in a classroom at one time.”

ILCS created a program called PACE acceleration that the school developed for itself. The whole student body has the same classes at the same time. So if a second grader is performing in math at a third grade level, he or she moves to the more advanced class for that period. “About 15 per cent of our school right now is rotating up in either math or language arts,” says Gordon. “We find that students that are self motivated and want to push themselves master the standards at a quicker pace.”

In five years he hopes they will move out of the shared buildings they are currently in and into their own facilities. “I see us with about 350 students at an elementary site and with another 200 students at a middle school site. We have about 150 students on the waiting list already with very little marketing. I think in five years we’ll be ready to replicate ourselves in some more high need areas in the urban populations.” What keeps him awake at night though is “what keeps most principals up - ways of improving.”

www.inlandleaders.org

Established : 2007Staff : 20

Students: 250Executive Director : Mike Gordon

COMPANY AT A GLANCE

Hosaka, Nagel & Company is an accounting firm founded in 1977. We have been in public accounting for over 30 years and have special-ized in financial audits of governmental enti-ties.

We pride ourselves in keeping our staff current and our policy is to have our firm maintain an average of 200 hours in continu-ing education in auditing and accounting each year. Together, our professional staff possesses over 65 years of combined auditing experience.

Winter 2008 www.charterschoolstoday.com

CST CHARTER SCHOOLSTODAY

Inland Leaders Charter School13456 Bryant StreetYucaipa, CA 92399

United States