I would like to thank the Elizabeth Education Foundation for putting on the STARS (Students Taking Accountability and Responsibility Seriously) banquet again this year.  It was a tremendously successful event in recognition of many outstanding students.  Each year teachers nominate students from Legacy Academy that have had a positive impact on their school and community.  This year the EEF recognized Kelsey Page and Adlai White (5th Grade), Sarah Marks (6th Grade), Stetson Littlejohn (7th Grade) and Nathaniel Klein (8th Grade).

During the event it was brought up that the Elizabeth Education Foundation is looking for board members to serve next year. This is a really great organization and if you are looking for a role to play in the enhancement of the education opportunities for students in Elizabeth, this might be a great fit for you. If you are interested in working or supporting the EEF, please contact them at: info@elizabethef.org. They also hold regular meetings the 2nd Thursday of the month at 7:00 pm in the Elizabeth C-1 District Administration Board Room (634 South Elbert Street). 

Please be careful in the Tuesday weather and have a wonderful rest of your week.

Thanks,  

Jason Cross 

Legacy Academy has been experiencing some tremendous success and growth over the last couple years.  I wanted to take a moment to cover how this has impacted the budget, while also covering the impact that Senate Bill 13-213 could have on the bottom line of charters schools all over the state.

Charter Schools are funded with per pupil state funding.  District schools are funded with the same per pupil state funding with additional funding coming from local sources.  Local revenues (sales tax and mill levy) are not currently available to charter schools.  

 Despite these obstacles, Legacy Academy has been able to find some success with the budget.  We have been increasing our program offerings each year while balancing the budget.  This has not been by accident.  Legacy Academy families, School Board and staff have been running a tight ship.  We are excited to see that for the last two years, and for all foreseeable future years we have a positive cash flow to our cash reserve fund.  Last year we were able to introduce iSchool to our students, give teachers a small bonus and pay increase while still netting a positive $83,365.  We are currently projecting that through the end of this year, we will have another positive year of $60,620 after investing money in new classroom furniture, building repairs and staff positions. Simply put, Legacy Academy is becoming a better place to go to school and to work. We are in a better financial shape today then we have been in a good number of years.

 If we were able to balance our school budget in these tough times, imagine what the future could hold for schools like ours if we could close the gap on the financing inequality that exists between charters and districts. Senate Bill 13-213 provides additional revenue to all state schools, while changing the school funding formula. These changes could have a very positive net impact on our ability to fund and create more opportunities for all students.  No matter how you look at it, the future looks very bright for Legacy Academy, and I will do my best to continue to make sure that our school continues to run efficiently while providing more opportunities for students to become creative critical thinkers.  ~ Jason Cross

Authors, Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler, sum it up best in the book Abundance when they wrote: “Moreover, our current system is built around fact-based learning, but the Internet makes almost every fact desirable instantly available. This means we’re training our children in skills they rarely need, while ignoring those they absolutely do. Teaching kids how to nourish their creativity and curiosity, while still providing a sound foundation in critical thinking, literacy and math, is the best way to prepare them for a future of increasingly rapid technological change”.   The image of eight years of technological progress demonstrates more than ever that we need to continue to move away from memorization and recall and into creative critical thinking.   

This has been our goal for the last year at Legacy Academy.  I am continually encouraged by students that amaze me, not by what they know, but by how they were able to understand and adapt to challenges that they have.  A second grade student this week explained in great detail how they wanted to install a plug-gin for the popular game Minecraft on their computer at home.  This plug-gin was additional software code that allows the game to have more features than it came with originally.  When I asked this eight year old how they accomplished this task, in a very matter of fact way, I was told that all you need to do is “look it up”.   When I asked Collin O’Malley, our IT director what is involved in installing one of these plugins, I was ensured that it was not as simple as this eight year old had made it out to be.  I am so excited for the future because I know this next generation is going to do amazing things.   

Sincerely, 

Jason Cross