The Daily Herald (UT) - Charter school will be first in Utah to use new curriculum

July 27, 2007

The new C.S. Lewis Academy's leaders showed off their charter school curriculum by mimicking a game show at a meeting Thursday night.

Instead of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?", the question was, "Are You Smarter Than a K12 Student?" -- as in K12 Inc., the Virginia-based company that's providing the school's curriculum.

The answer was, mostly not.

More than 50 people gathered in Payson to learn more about the school, which is on track to open Aug. 21. About half of the school's 350 slots in grades K-6 have been filled, said Reba Vest, chief administrative officer for the school's board.

C.S. Lewis will be the first "brick and mortar" school in Utah using K12's curriculum, said Sue Furick, director of professional development for the company. The materials are already widely used in the state for home schooling.

Nationally, more than 70,000 students are using the curriculum, which has 8,000 lessons for grades K-9 in science, language arts, history, music and art.

C.S. Lewis has already contracted with the company for math, science, art and history lessons, and is set to add language arts to that list.

Furick said the lessons blend traditional learning methods with technology-aided instruction. She explained "smart boards," which display lesson materials from a teacher's computer but also allow group interaction with the material.

Class materials are also easily updated, since they're completely online, Furick said. For example, when the International Astronomical Union decided that Pluto would no longer be classified as a planet, the science curriculum could be updated within 24 hours.

Parents will also be given a username and password so they can check daily on what their children learned. Parents also have access to the lessons -- just in case they need to brush up on their algebra, for example.

"You can get ahead of your kids," Furick said, "... so that when your child does need some support, you have some idea what was done in the classroom."

Vest and other school leaders passed around registration forms Thursday and also urged parents to sign up to help with the millions of details that need to be attended to when opening a brand-new school -- carpools and the possibility of lunch service, for example.

"The strength of a charter school is the strength of involvement of the parents," Vest said. "A handful of people cannot make this school a success. It takes all of us."

The school building is almost complete and is located on State Road 198 in Santaquin. For more information, go to www.cslewisacademy.org, or call 465-1303 or 465-3277.