School Improvement

Lourdes Academy, like all Catholic schools in the province of Florida, is accredited by the Florida Catholic Conference Accreditation Committee. The Florida Catholic Conference (FCC) requires schools to engage in a continuous process of school improvement. The process is based on the research of the National Study of School Evaluation (NSSE), a national educational research group.

In the School Improvement Process (or SIP), each school creates a detailed school profile, which gives an overview of the school, its history, its context within the broader community, and a snapshot of the achievement of its students. The school profile was created last year and is updated every year thereafter. Much of the information from the profile is contained on the pages of this website.

The SIP then requires the school to review its mission and beliefs. Last year, all parents, faculty, and parishioners were invited to participate in a survey about our beliefs. Then everyone was invited to a workshop where our mission and beliefs were crafted. The mission and beliefs can be found under About Our School on this website.

The next step of the SIP is a determination of the school's priorities for improvement. Parents were invited to a presentation on research into student learning. After the presentation, the parents and faculty took a survey to help the school identify its strengths and weaknesses. Our weaknesses have become our goals for improvement of student learning, as required by the SIP process. These goals are addressed completely in our action plan.

Goals for Improvement...

Goal 1: Thinking and Reasoning Skills
Students will improve their ability to utilize, evaluate, and refine the use of multiple strategies to solve a variety of types of problems, as evidenced by a 5% increase in the percentage of students scoring in the “High” range of ITBS Problem Solving and Critical Thinking areas.

Goal 2: Personal and Social Responsibility
Students will take more responsibility for personal actions and demonstrate greater honesty, fairness, and integrity, as evidenced by an increase in stakeholder survey perception from 2.74 to 3.0.

Goal 3: Interpersonal Skills
Students will better manage and evaluate their behavior as group members while they deal more appropriately with disagreements and conflicts caused by diversity of opinions and beliefs, as evidenced by a 10% decrease in bullying referrals, a 10% decrease in disciplinary referrals to the office, and an increase in stakeholder survey perception from 2.67 to 2.90.

The faculty then identified our areas of strength and weakness as a school in the areas of instructional effectiveness (curriculum development, instructional design, and assessment) and organizational effectiveness (communication, school climate, and professional development). We focused on our areas of weakness as we created our action plan.

The action plan will identify specific actions the school will take to improve our effectiveness. We will identify baseline data (where we are now) and targets (where we wish to be in the future), along with a timeline and anticipated resources. The action plan will guide our work as we move forward over the next seven years until our next accreditation.

Once the action plan was complete, we conducted a standards review to ensure that we met all of the standards required by the FCC, which we did.

In December, 2011, we were visited by a team of educators from around the state, led by Sr. Joan Dawson. This "Quality Assurance Review Team" evaluated our work on the SIP, our adherence to the standards, and our effectiveness as a school in order to make a recommendation for continued accreditation. We are pleased to report that we were accredited again and that Lourdes Academy has been continuously accredited since the FCC began the accreditation process in the early 1970's.

If you have any questions about our school's accreditation, please feel free to contact Mr. O'Dell. You may also contact our Steering Committee Chairpersons Ms. Matzke or Mrs. Watkins.

Our Book Fair opens May 18 and 19 after all masses!

We are also open during the school day for the children

and after school until 3:30pm from May 20-23.

Encourage a love of reading and visit our Book Fair!

You can also visit us online.

Immunization Policy

Please visit this link to view the immunization policy for the

Diocese of Orlando.

Diocese of Orlando Immunization Policy

Volunteers Needed

Lourdes Academy is only successful because of the involvement of our families. To volunteer in Catholic schools, you must be cleared through our background screening process. Background screens conducted by other agencies cannot be accepted. Please visit the Diocese of Orlando website and click on Fingerprinting. Volunteers must also complete the Safe Environment training on the same site. Thank you for your service!

Lourdes Academy is a Super School!

We have partnered with the Rowland Reading Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to teaching your child how to read and write.

Lourdes Academy: A Catholic School of Excellence

Lourdes Academy changes lives by providing a high quality Catholic education infused with gospel truths within a safe, supportive, and challenging learning environment.

1014 North Halifax Avenue (Beachside), Daytona Beach, FL 32118 - Telephone: 386-252-0391

www.lourdesacademy.net

Duty to Report

Florida Statutes require that all school employees and agents report misconduct (known or observed) by an instructional personnel member or a school administrator and actual or suspected cases of child abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Forms for reporting misconduct are available to employees and agents in the school office. Instructional personnel misconduct is to be reported to the school Principal. Administrator misconduct is to be reported to the Pastor. Reports of child abuse, neglect, or abandonment are to be made to the Department of Children and Families at 1-800-96-ABUSE. Failure of school employees or agents to report misconduct or child abuse, neglect, or abandonment can lead to discipline up to and including termination of employment and revocation of Educator's Certificate. Employees or agents who make a report of misconduct or child abuse, neglect, or abandonment in good faith are immune from liability. Most importantly, misconduct, child abuse, neglect, or abandonment must be reported because it is the Christian, moral, ethical, professional, and RIGHT thing to do.