Fulton County Board of Education

Lake Forest Elementary School is a partnership of students, teachers, parents, and community all working together to provide a challenging educational experience for our students. Respect for oneself and others is fostered in an atmosphere of cooperation and mutual understanding. Our goal of providing experiences and opportunities that lead Lake Forest students to become contributing members of the community and lifelong learners in the process is echoed in our motto, "Excellence through education." Our curriculum emphasizes the use of science and technology as we prepare students for the future. Science is integrated in all subjects wherever possible in our curriculum. A thirty-five workstation PC computer lab, Internet connected, serves the technology needs of our students, as well as computers in the classroom. Students participate in active learning experiences and cooperative learning techniques are strongly supported. The staff Lake Forest Elementary School have embarked on a journey to become a professional learning community ( PLC ). We have the fervent commitment, courage, and desire to change the status quo, to grasp the opportunity for our school program's improvement, to move our school from good to great. To get to the tough work of school improvement, teachers in each grade level must work as a collaborative team to analyze achievement data, set educational goals, identify and ensure essential standards are being taught and share assessment results to improve the quality of their lessons. They must identify best practices and teaching strengths of each grade level member and then capitalize on those strengths to best serve the needs of each student who attends our school - the average learner, high achiever, gifted student, struggling student, special education student, English learner, etc. The ultimate purpose of forming an effective PLC is for just that single-minded purpose: to improve ALL students' success in school. We desire to work within each grade level and with the entire staff to close any gaps in teaching that might exist, to ensure best practices are utilized in every classroom. One of the critical tasks to be done is to assure essential standards are identified and thoroughly taught in each of our classrooms. Unfortunately, the curriculum covered in the United States is large and cumbersome ' it must be narrowed down to the important standards that are needed at each grade level to master content standards for each grade. Educational researchers agree that the single most effective way to achieve sustained school improvement is for the staff to work collaboratively and to have time to do so. Our staff recently voted and approved a modified day schedule that would allow this collaborative time on a weekly basis. We are currently awaiting district approval of our modified day schedule and will advise you as soon as we hear regarding any changes in the schedule for next year. Please rest assured that any schedule changes have been considered from several perspectives, including what would work best for our parent community. Please also know that our Lake Forest School staff truly desires to strive for greatness and cannot and will not accept the status quo. Each teacher, staff member, administrator, student, and parent is a member of our Lake Forest Elementary School Professional Learning Community and can play an important part in helping our students. Thank you for your support as we venture together and proceed on this exciting, challenging journey in truly becoming a professional learning community. We appreciate your interest in our school and welcome you. We look forward to getting to know you better!