CELA has achieved the highest academic scores for K-8th grade institutions in Lake Country based on 2018 national test results.

How do we know this and how did we do it?

At CELA, we believe in educating the whole child; and we believe that education doesn’t just mean book or computer learning. We also believe that children absorb more and have a higher desire to stay engaged when they are having fun. When children are absorbing more and staying engaged, they learn more by default! Our students’ test results have backed up these beliefs and substantiate this claim.

We’ve chosen the NWEA (Northwest Evaluation Association) MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) testing platform for CELA students. MAP is a national testing database that is widely used in the United States and Wisconsin, including Southeastern Wisconsin, which makes it a good way for us to compare our students’ growth to their local, state, and national peers. Over 10 million students are tested annually with over 30 million tests administered. We test in reading, language arts and mathematics 3 times per year.

To measure our students’ progress, we use the RIT scale which is a consistent, precise tool that provides accurate measurement of each student’s academic growth. NWEA uses anonymous assessment data from over 10.2 million students to create national norms. We compare our students’ performance against the norms to evaluate our progress and improve instruction for the individuals, the individual classrooms, by grade level, and for the complete school. Overall, the average CELA student is above the 80th percentile nation wide; no other 3K-8th grade school in Lake Country ranks this high.

CELA caters to kids with average and above-average ability who have a family support system with a Christian basis and helps them to become better versions of themselves by constantly growing. As a school, in our inaugural year, CELA’s students grew an average of 8.5 percentile points in national ranking which is astounding when compared to NWEA’s expected range of change which is ± 1.0 point! The bottom quarter of our class in year number one grew in excess of 20 percentile points in national ranking. Which means if a student was in the 40th percentile when they entered CELA, at the end of the year they were above the 60th percentile and if the student was in the 50th percentile when they entered CELA, at the end of the year they were above the 70th percentile in the nation-wide comparison. Since that first year, we have continued to see exceptional above-average growth by our students. We strongly believe that this growth is due in large part to the fact that while motivating students to reach their highest potential, we encourage them to also have fun and we inspire our staff to create ways to make learning fun AND beneficial. We find that our students love school and love learning because it is exciting and enhances their self image!

There are many contributing factors to the science of creating an educational model that is strong enough and balanced enough to turn out great test scores while also offering an environment that is enjoyable, fun, and personally rewarding. Among these factors are loads of unparalleled elective classes for Middle School students to choose from, after-school clubs for abundant growth and fun new experiences, and extra curricular sports and activities. Couple those with our top-notch athletic facilities and a unique classroom/pod design to enhance the educational experience and you have created an environment where children enjoy learning and actually look forward to going to school. But one of the biggest ways we have been able to bring “fun” into the learning process and keep students engaged is through the use of our cutting-edge technology which is far advanced and creatively implemented compared to any other school. At CELA, we provide each student a laptop for use at school and another for home use, we’ve outfitted each classroom with its own Promethean board and each POD has its own ActivTable. We have trained our staff on the use of these unique educational tools and encourage them to use these awesome tools to enrich their lessons daily. Our teachers also use Lesson Capture to record lessons so that students can review or share them at home. We have found that our students feel like they are playing exciting games, when they are actually learning valuable lessons and acquiring knowledge constantly. To further your understanding of our unique uses of CELA’s technology and the multiple ways they significantly enhance learning, please visit our technology page. While we do not believe that book learning is in any way antiquated, we do believe that personal live teaching with the addition of creative use of technology helps to enhance the learning process, especially for today’s young, dynamic minds.

Seeing positive growth is a perpetual motivator and one that our students (and staff) thrive on continually thanks to the unprecedented environment and teaching techniques that CELA offers.

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