Colorado standards are utilized to design Expeditionary Learning curriculum, along with student-teacher-parent expectations that emphasize student personal responsibility for learning.

     In addition, Polaris employs unique and interactive assessment tools such as student portfolios, Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) testing, self-assessments and presentations of learning for students to demonstrate their own learning and development. As with the rest of Poudre School District, students are required to take state assessments and meet the district goals for achievement.   

     When you walk into the Lab School, there are art and pictures lining all the walls and even parts of the ceiling in the lobby, the students are friendly and will smile and hold open doors for you. The students of the Lab school call their teachers by their first names because they aren’t really teachers, but more of “co-learners.” The teachers and students both participate in learning activities that connect them to the world outside of the classroom, and help them develop transferrable skills, such as problem solving and critical thinking.

 

-Support Structure –

At the LAB School, parent and community involvement is highly encouraged through intensives, adventure and fieldwork and the Parent Action Crew. Parents can be active participants through the Site Based Management Team, which is essentially the parent/ community voice for input on how well the structure and culture of the school is maintained. They also have a School Accountability Committee where parents and faculty discuss academic goals and improvement strategies. 

 

-Demographic Characteristics –

Polaris School houses grades K-12, at the LAB school for Creative Learning there are students in grades K-5. In the K-5 grades there are roughly 129. Reflecting the majority of the Colorado population, students are predominately White. Most students come from middle class families. According to the latest PSD public school review, 2% of the student population is Asian, 7% Hispanic, 0% black, 4% unknown, and 87% White. ELL learner’s make up exactly 0.0% of the school’s population. 33.65% of students are on free or reduced lunch. 8.65% of students at the LAB school are considered “gifted and talented.”

 

 

-Classroom Environment and Students –

Tom’s room, the room I teach in, is located in the northwest corner of the building. When you walk in the door, situated in the middle of the south wall, to the left in the southwest corner of the room is a little reading nook with beanbags and bookshelves. Along the west wall are a few computers set up for the students to use, a cabinet for storage, and a television. Tom’s desk is housed in the northwest counter of the room, directly behind his desk is a door that goes out onto the lawn/playground. The north wall is lined with student cubbies and more storage cabinets, these cabinets have a sliding door in front of them. The class has it’s own sink and counter, located southeast part of the room, to the right of the door directly when you walk in. Student seating varies, generally there are tables scattered across the room, facing the east wall. The smart board is in the middle of the east wall.

Student one is bright and eager to please the teachers, she comes in with a smile on her face and ready to participate in art. Her art is advanced in the traditional sense and she draws well, however she doesn’t put her personality or expression into her art.

Student two is very quiet and soft-spoken, however, she’s very observant and watches everything. She is enthusiastic about her art making and has very original and expressive ideas.

            Student three is charming and studious; he wears dress shirts, ties, and fedoras almost everyday. He has a passion for art and architecture and is very focused.

            Student four is quiet as well, he only contributes when really excited by something or he has a question. He is witty and smart and when it comes to his art he is excited and engaged.

            Student five is very sweet, warm and eager to please, however she demonstrates a bit of a pack mentality. In her art she struggles to originate her own ideas, though she showed excitement in experimenting with materials.

            Student six sometimes struggles a little socially, and she always describes herself as being upset, sick, or tired; generally unenthused. However, whenever we get going in the class, she perks right up and works happily on her art. She draws/creates nothing except cats, but it’s been fun and gratifying to challenge her to approach cats in her art in different ways.

            Student seven struggles a little socially, while friendly with all the students, she doesn’t really seem close with any of the others, and in a couple of instances I’ve had to interfere when there have been instances of mild bullying. She genuinely enjoys art class and tries very hard.

            Student eight is another slightly cat crazy girl. Her love of cats is prominent in her art and just about everything she says. She’s very outgoing and fun and a joy to watch work as she challenges herself to create more in depth art.

            Student nine seems unenthusiastic and quiet, yet when he’s working he is very engaged and creates very creative and unique three-dimensional sculptures. He has a close-knit group of girls he enjoys working with the most, and prefers mostly to be left alone when working.

            Student ten started the class happy and enjoyed creating art, but wasn’t really invested in hr projects, she didn’t really seem to care. However, the farther into class we’ve gone, the more invested she became in the latest project, and she really branched out and created something very unique.

            Student eleven is very shy and quiet. He is bright and creative, but prefers to quietly work and brainstorm. He is a serious planner, and will do multiple sketches and lists with various materials before he starts working.

            Student twelve is deeply insightful, intuitive, and empathetic towards his classmates. When looking at other students writing, art, or anything else he sees, h asks deeply insightful questions. When creating his own art, he creates an entire personal background and story to the art.

            Student thirteen is sometimes a challenge. He is very smart, and because of this he finds school and most art boring, and prefers to do what he wants and play mind games. However, with a bit of differentiation and patient, we’ve managed to get him engaged in art and create some great pieces.

            Student fourteen is a quiet focused learner. She doesn’t require or desire much interaction with other students, and can sometimes be insensitive when talking with the other students.

            Student fifteen is very bright and engaged. He regularly makes insightful connections in class when we are having discussions. His art is well thought out and his ideas are very creatively expressed.

            Student sixteen is the explorer of the class, he loves to make new discoveries and try new things, when he discovers something new with materials, he is eager to share and teach his classmates. He is eager, kind, and joyful in the classroom, a joy to work with.

            Student seventeen is often a bit of a challenge. He has great creative potential, I’ve seen him create unique and interesting things, he grasps the prompts and motivation and clearly expresses them in his art. However, he is often lazy, and is constantly asking myself and the other teacher if we will erase something for him, write for him, cut for him, glue for him, etc. We try to encourage him to do things on his own, because we know he can do it by himself.

            Student eighteen is active, enthusiastic, and full of energy, which she brings to class everyday, and expresses through her art. She is engaged with or without group work, and doesn’t hesitate to ask questions when she needs guidance.

 

-School-wide Policies for Management, Safe Schools, Conflict Resolution and Student with Special Needs –

The LAB school follows with the PSD district wide safety policies. Each school has a four step emergency plan: mitigation, prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. As well as having Security officers and Campus officers at every school. Campus Security Officers work at all school sites as the “Eyes and Ears” of the whole district. CSO assignments and duties include: “Site security and safety; Vehicle, bicycle and foot patrol; Special event coverage; and Crisis response and assistance.” School Resource Officers are certified police officers based at district middle and senior high schools. The goals of the School Resource Officer program are to: “Provide a safe learning environment and help reduce school violence; Improve school law enforcement collaboration; and Improve perceptions and relations between students, staff and law enforcement officials.”

Each classroom has its own conflict and management procedure established by the classroom teacher. When students act up while Tom is teaching, he pulls them to the front of the room on the floor close to him, and continues teaching. In my experience, I’ve only seen him pull students to the front of the room, and occasionally pull a student off to the side to find out why the student is misbehaving. One student, however, Tom has had for a year and a half now, regularly misbehaves, Tom told me the only effective way he’s been able to manage getting this student to work is by calling his parents whenever he misbehaves.

For special needs students, Tom provides noise excluding headphones for ADD students and any other students who have trouble concentration. In the school special need students learn in the same classrooms as the rest of the school, other than that, there aren’t really any extra programs providing support.