Our Academic Philosophy:

We recognize that as human beings we share a wealth of commonality such as our bearing God’s image, our sinful tendencies, and the reality that God has given his Son, Jesus, who has atoned for all of our sins. Yet, we also acknowledge that the Lord has made each individual human being unique in the combination of characteristics each one possesses.

Since we believe in the unique character of individual people, we do not expect every child to have equal capability or potential in every area of academics (nor to possess the same social skills, physical abilities, emotional dispositions, and so on). Our academic standards are as rigorous as those of the public schools, but we realize there will be a spectrum in which some children do not fully meet the standards of a given academic area, others meet them, and others exceed them.

Our primary goal is not necessarily “high achievement levels” for every child in every academic subject (although some will fall into that category). Our primary goal is GROWTH for every student. Whereas so many public and private schools stress high achievement levels as the goal for every student, we find that approach to be counter-productive and demotivating to student learning. We believe we should approach people the way Jesus did. He accepted every person for who he or she was, but he did not leave any of them where they were. We believe that challenging and supporting children to continually be making GROWTH in each academic area is an approach in which all children will be motivated and experience long-term academic success.

Perhaps an example will help illustrate our philosophy. If we have a child who is below the standard in his or her grade level for math, by stressing the goal of GROWTH, we can challenge and support the student to make progress, that is to perform better on a math assessment next month than he or she performed today. If the goal is reasonably set, and the child is given teacher and parental support, he or she will succeed, and thus desire to achieve more. By the same token, we can challenge a child who is already performing above the standard for grade level to GROW further. We do not want advanced students to sit on their laurels and think, “I am already advanced, so why put forth more effort?” (That is the attitude an emphasis on arbitrary standards tends to create). We want students to measure their success in terms of how much they have learned, not in how much they happen to know. We want every child to reach his or her full God-given potential, and we believe an emphasis on GROWTH, rather than an emphasis on arbitrary achievement levels will bring about this reality for every child.

Standardized Testing

In keeping with our academic philosophy of continuous growth for every student, we regularly assess our students three times per year (fall, winter, and spring) with regard to our academic standards. We use the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments published by the NWEA to evaluate student growth (particularly in the areas of math, reading, and writing).

The MAP assessments provide parents and teachers with detailed data about how the student is progressing with regard to each standard. The assessments also provide excellent advice and resources for teachers and parents to help the student continue to grow. These assessments enable our teachers to provide individualized guidance and differentiated instruction for every student. The fact that we keep our class sizes small allows our teachers to meet the individual needs of all students regardless of where they stand with respect to the academic standards. The MAP assessments also provide a foundation for students to see how they have grown as individuals, and they provide motivation as students, with teacher assistance, set individual goals for further academic growth.

DIBELS

Reading is, without question, the most foundational skill students must have for academic success. We put forth extra effort to ensure that each of our students is assessed early and often to track each component of reading ability. Students who are below standard on one or more reading component skills receive timely remediation and coaching to build the important skills. In addition to our standardized testing protocol, we also use Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) screening at the start of every year, and one to two additional times per year. This enables us to catch and address reading deficiencies early so that the student can reach his or her full potential in all academic areas.

Curriculum

Our teachers use curriculum from a variety of resources depending on the subject and grade-level being taught. Much of our curriculum comes from Bob Jones University Press (BJU), which is a strong Christian-based curriculum. But our teachers supplement this with the most effective resources available. Our religion curriculum is from Concordia Publishing. At the elementary school level, the Concordia curriculum focuses on the biblical narrative and on basic traditional Christian doctrines.

Chapel

FLSB holds chapel services twice per week (on Tuesday and Thursday mornings). Our chapel services are led by Pastor James Burns who has an especially positive rapport with the students. Students sing worship songs, are led in prayer, and interact with Pastor Burns in his captivating teaching style. They learn many Bible verses and become highly familiar with the biblical narrative of both the Old and New Testaments. Our students enjoy and look forward to chapel services. Though not required, parents are always welcome to join their children at chapel services.

FLSB is a ministry of First Lutheran Church Benton