Mission & Vision
Finger Lakes Classical Academy Charter School’s mission is to train the minds and improve the hearts of young people through a classical, content-rich education in the liberal arts and sciences, with instruction in the principles of moral character and civic virtue in an orderly and disciplined environment.
A classical liberal arts education's aim is human excellence. It is traditional in the ends it pursues, the materials it uses, and the methods it employs. It cultivates virtuous habits of thought and action in order to orient students’ hearts and minds to the true, the beautiful, and the good.
Core Knowledge is a proven content-rich and cumulative approach. Content is integrated across subjects by grade level and builds upon itself at each successive grade. The content is dense, specific, and sequenced. It meets and exceeds the needs of students with disabilities, ELLs, the economically disadvantaged, and accelerated students.
The Access Literacy program promotes the mastery of language, first in reading and spelling, using an explicit phonics approach and focusing on phonemic awareness skills. It has demonstrated success in ELL and students with disabilities through multisensory instructional approaches. Explicit grammar, building upon itself with increased complexity, will also be covered.
The highly-structured language of Latin will be taught. Latin is a foundational language for half of English and nearly the entirety of the Romance languages. Latin trains the mind in clear, orderly thinking and provides a background for the vocabulary of the sciences, law, and medicine.
Exceptional biographies and primary sources help students relate to the past as a series of human events. Chronological history in geographical context helps students to understand how people, places, ideas, and events are connected. Story format is a powerful way of communicating ideas; highlighting our experiences, and creating continuity.
The language of mathematics brings order to the physical universe. It teaches logic, reasoning, and problem solving. Singapore math ensures a complete foundation of concepts and facts. Being ability grouped will help focus on the needs of individual learners. Sustained reasoning will be the preferred method, rather than calculators.
Biology, chemistry, and physics will begin in the lower grades. Familiarity with terminology and concepts will prepare them for the demands of high school sciences. Students will observe the wonder and beauty of nature, with as much hands-on practicality as possible, exploring the world around them.
Just as the great people in history and works of literature are essential, so are the great compositions in music and visual arts. They connect present to past in order to convey the story of what it is to experience the world as a human understanding and appreciating beauty.
As the benefits of cursive handwriting have been demonstrated by recent brain science, the practice of cursive handwriting will be used. Studies show that cursive uses both hemispheres of the brain at the same time and increases learning.
Studying virtuous behavior, along with a uniform dress code, will produce an orderly, respectful environment, fostering academic excellence and the perseverance to work through difficult tasks. School and parents will partner. Parents have the duty to educate their children and schools have the obligation to assist with this great responsibility.
