Academic Program

The LPS academic philosophy is built on three distinguishing characteristics: College Ready Curriculum, College Ready Supports, and a College Ready Culture.

College Ready Curriculum

All students participate in a curriculum that ensure college eligibility and prepares them for college success.

 All Leadership Public Schools campuses offer students a UC-approved A-G curriculum providing course-eligibility to enter the CSU or UC system. The biggest predictor of college success is the ability of students to begin college coursework without having to retake courses that were covered in high school.  For this reason, LPS has taken additional steps to make sure that these courses provide the content and “habits of mind” that will ensure success upon college entry. LPS has formed a partnership with CSU and are benchmarking our 12th grade proficiency standards on the CSU freshmen placement tests.  Because of the varying levels of readiness with which students enter, each student has a personalized path designed to take them from where they enter to college admission without remediation.  While this may vary the amount of time (4 – 5 years, with or without summer) it does not vary the rigor of the college preparatory courses.

College Ready Supports

“Every student by name and need”:  supports to bridge where students enter as 9th graders and where they need to be to succeed in college.

Many LPS students enter our classrooms reading between the second and sixth grade levels with 60% of our 9th graders well behind grade-level in core subjects. In order to bridge this academic gap, LPS campuses offer specialized reading classes for students at entering at the elementary reading level and develops college preparatory literacy skills through the Academic Leadership course all freshmen take. In addition, every student enrolled in Algebra 1 takes a companion Academic Numeracy course to back-fill missing skills.  At least every six weeks, staff review the academic, attendance and behavior data for each student to place them appropriately in after school tutoring and Saturday or vacation catch up Boot Camps.  Additional progress monitoring is provided in weekly Advisory sessions.  Finally, the LPS class size that, even with budget cuts, is still 10-15% smaller than average continues to provide a level of support not usually available to high school students in California.

College Ready Culture

All students develop a sense of personal efficacy and purpose and a wider world vision that will allow them to succeed in high school and beyond.

From the beginning, LPS’ vision has been to build future leaders with the skills, dispositions, and credentials to make a difference in their communities. By fusing academic habits of mind and leadership skills with real-world projects, the freshmen Academic Leadership course aims to operationalize that vision. The four-year Advisory group provides a venue for building skills in personal reflection, communication and conflict resolution that prepare students for the cultural challenges of college and future leadership.

In addition to the cultural supports embedded in the school day, a unique feature of LPS is the LPS Signature Experiences program. This begins with the Stanford Freshmen Retreat and the yearly Week Without Walls along with college tours and a rich program of clubs and activities.