Fourth in a series
So much at Leflore Legacy Academy this school year is new but not new.
For example, the public charter school has been housed at the home of First Baptist Church on West Washington Street since getting classes underway three years ago. However, Legacy bought all of the church’s property in May and now is leasing the sanctuary and office space to the church. Eventually, the church will move to a new location.
Then, as soon as the sale was closed, interior renovations began to create classrooms for an extra 100 or more students because Legacy’s enrollment was expanding from 200 to 300. And that’s because Legacy has, as it did in the previous school year, added another grade. This time it is the eighth grade. Last year, it was the seventh.
In the first year, 120 sixth graders were enrolled.
Of course, some of the first sixth graders became seventh graders and now are eighth graders. There are new students in all grades, says Tamala Boyd Shaw, Legacy’s founder and head of school.
At Legacy, students are called “scholars,” so she referred to them in that way when speaking about enrollment.
“Each of the grades is scheduled to serve 100 scholars, with a total enrollment of 300. We can, however, serve up to 360 scholars,” Shaw said.
“With the expansion to the eighth grade, we definitely had to hire more teachers. At full staffing, we will have 25 classroom teachers, two SPED (special education) assistants and three academic interventionists that make up our instructional team,” she said. Shaw is working with a leadership team consisting of LaToya Spurlock-Fluker, dean of curriculum and instruction; Jessie Walker, dean of operations and scholars; Coretta Vance-Green, professional school counselor; Markita Smith, scholar support coordinator; and Tulana Vance, family support coordinator.
Classes, which started Monday, are being conducted virtually for the time being, but only because construction is ongoing. Shaw said, “We met with our Legacy families (last) week to let them know that due to renovations and the progress of our building, we will implement virtual learning from Aug. 1 through Sept. 2, welcoming scholars to the building if the entire time is not needed.”
Teachers and the administrative staff are working from the school.
“We are committed to excellence in learning, so we have supports in place during this undesired but necessary mode of learning for the first few weeks of school,” Shaw said. Families who need support during this time are being asked to contact Legacy officials at 662-455-3697 or info@leflorelegacyacademy.org.
Meanwhile, eighth graders have been offered the chance to take Algebra I, and all eighth graders are taking Spanish I. Also, she said, the school will continue ACT Prep and Project Lead the Way courses. The latter are characterized by hands-on education, such as computer science for sixth graders, flight and space app creation for seventh graders and biomedical robotics for eighth graders.
“With the addition of the eighth grade, we wanted to hold true to our promise of providing these scholars with skills and experiences that would benefit them in high school,” she explained.
Much is underway in producing those benefits.
“We knew going into this we would have to do renovations,” Shaw said. “We just didn’t anticipate running into a few issues.”
The project’s general contractor, KT Builder of Greenwood, “is doing a commendable job on the work — getting us to the number of classrooms and school accommodations we need while still assuring that the building is of good and acceptable use for First Baptist Church to continue to work from there,” she said.
Progress is continuing on outfitting Legacy with 10 more classrooms, five office spaces and “pullout” rooms for small meetings.
Meanwhile, Shaw and Legacy’s staff are looking at not just the present but the future. “We are happy to have reached our full charter commitment of serving grades 6-8. This brings great excitement for the school year,” she said.
And then Shaw added: “As parents continue to show interest, we are learning more about what it would mean to add grades 5 and/or 9 as early as possible.”
- Contact Susan Montgomery at 662-581-7241 or smontgomery@gwcommonwealth.com.
