For Parents : Parent Manual – Introduction
One of the original 13 charter schools approved by the New Jersey Department of Education in January 1997, LCCS is chartered to serve students in kindergarten through eighth grade. In September 1997, the school opened with 98 children in grades K-2 and added a grade per year to reach its full capacity. The school’s original charter was renewed in 2001 and 2006. The charter must be renewed every five years.
At Learning Community Charter School, we nurture each child's innate curiosity, build a solid foundation in all academic disciplines while integrating art and technology, and nurture each child's emotional intelligence.
We realize that intellectual activity cannot be isolated from emotional, social, and moral development, and students are taught the values of Community, Independence, Respect, Courage, Leadership, and Effort. These values spell out CIRCLE.
Our curriculum is based on the needs and interests of our children. It incorporates a wide range of learning experiences, materials and instructional strategies to accommodate children's differences in experience, maturation and learning style. Our curriculum also follows the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards and is based on in-depth projects that combine many skills and subject areas. Instead of covering many facts superficially, our approach is to "uncover" the subjects we study to show children how much there is to investigate and discover in understanding the world around them. We provide opportunities for students to question, experiment, and solve real-world problems.
At Learning Community Charter School, our children learn how to learn.
Two of the ideas that were important to the founders remain central to the school's philosophy: parent and community involvement. While the day-to-day operation of the school is left to the staff of professional educators, the school encourages the ongoing participation of parents in their children's education. One aspect of community involvement is the use of Jersey City as a resource for learning; another is to involved children in community service projects to help improve the quality of life in their city.
Parent involvement is even more central to the mission of the school. Studies show that children do better in school when their parents are involved in their education. Parents need to let their children know how important learning is. They must have high expectations for their children and offer them conditions at home that foster learning and school success.
The Learning Community Charter School is a place where parents are partners. For many parents, it means spending time at the school, being a volunteer, working on committees or helping out in other ways. Parents can be resources themselves. Many parents have important skills or interesting jobs or come from other countries. Parents are encouraged to share their experiences.
LCCS is a school where parents participate by attending meetings, working with committees, volunteering in the classroom, supporting their child's learning, communicating with school staff, reading school communications and electing representatives to the Board of Trustees.
