Cobras committed to success
FOUNTAIN LAKE — The Fountain Lake School District had an enrollment of 1,384 students from prekindergarten through 12th grade in 2017 and continues to make strides in maintaining high levels of incorporating the newest technology, such as “Google Apps for Education,” throughout the district to enhance education.
The district’s goal is to focus on the individual student and their needs beginning in pre-K. The district is committed to using technology, along with research-based materials, that will help in preparing all students for success post high school.
Every student has a personalized success plan beginning in the fifth grade to be used to keep the individual focus on each student throughout high school and two years beyond. The district is committed to doing whatever it takes to support all students.
At Fountain Lake, each school is separated by buildings, but the elementary school, middle school and high school are all on the same campus. The mission of Fountain Lake School District is “Supporting Every Student Every day for Success.”
School board members are elected to serve three-year terms and are dedicated to serving the students of our community. Current members are Greg Frank, board president; Sheila Ford, vice president; Lisa Blankenship, secretary and disbursing officer; Bo Robertson, alternate disbursing officer; and Dana Greeson.
The vision of Fountain Lake School District is to partner with the community to inspire, motivate, and prepare every student to be a confident, productive, knowledgeable, goal-oriented citizen. Fountain Lake Superintendent Michael Murphy says he is excited to be moving into his second year at Fountain Lake. He enters the year developing two district goals creating a community relations plan with staff and community and focusing on literacy K-12. Murphy will focus on supporting, monitoring and expanding a culture where high expectations are present for students and staff.
For the 2017-18 school year, Fountain Lake’s school day schedule will be from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. four days each week. The district will implement an early release of students on Wednesdays to allow teachers extra time to utilize student data to guide professional development and training to better serve students.
Fountain Lake Charter High School will begin its third year as a conversion charter school and continue with the aim to help each student set and finalize a college and career goal beyond high school by making sure each student is engaging in career pathways. The school will work toward accomplishing this goal with personalized success plans that involve experiencing work-based learning that incorporates employable skills into everyday instruction.
The school will implement a new “Cobra Flex Schedule” to allow students the freedom to personalize their schedules, have a continued focus on the improvement of ACT test scores and an increase in career readiness indicators. Teachers can engage in professional learning communities on Wednesdays to continue to grow as educators and better serve students. By the time Fountain Lake students graduate, they will have the opportunity to have earned college hours and industry certificates.
Fountain Lake Middle School Cobra Digital Prep Academy enters its fourth year as the first conversion charter school in Garland County. The middle school focuses on a four-pillar approach to education with personal success plans, project-based learning, career exploration and character education. Students learn engaging, rigorous and relevant content and skills by exposure to many careers through one-on-one engagement to career action planning.
The middle school continues to provide culture to student leaders through the teachings of the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and by incorporating advisory classes for student ownership. By the time Fountain Lake students exit the middle school, they are better prepared for college and career planning.
Fountain Lake Elementary School continues with success programs, including a separate open house night for prekindergarten and kindergarten, a parent night for kindergarten and first grade, a daddy-daughter dance, grandparent’s day celebration, mother-son movie night, awards assemblies each week and other activities focusing on building the bonds between children, their parents and teachers.
The school’s community partnerships focus on community service and teamwork. Partners include the Humane Society of Garland County, Jackson House, Garland County Library and Mount Carmel Community.
The elementary school maintains a highly successful before- and after-school Faculty and Community Enriching Students after-school program, parent teacher organization support team and three thriving preschool classrooms starting at age 4. The K-4 classrooms have Chromebook computers to use in the classroom to acclimate the students with stateof-the-art technology at the beginning levels of school to better prepare them for middle school. The school also has a thriving Pee Wee sports program facilitated by the district.