The Syracuse City School District is proud to announce that Expeditionary Learning Middle School (ELMS) has received the EL Education Credential for excellence in character and scholarship. The honor was announced at the organization’s first-ever Virtual Summit, What Matters Most: Moving Toward More Equitable Schools.
ELMS is one of just two schools nationwide to receive this honor in 2020 and joins a cohort of 42 credentialed schools that demonstrate remarkable results through continuous improvement as a model to inspire others.
The hallmark of EL Education’s approach is an expanded definition of student achievement that combines student character and high-quality work with mastery of knowledge and skills. The EL Education Credential recognizes schools that have attained remarkable achievement impacts with all students in each of these areas through deep implementation of the EL Education school model. The model is a blueprint for transforming instruction, assessment, leadership, curriculum, school culture and character, with the support of EL Education school designers.
“The EL Credential marks a milestone in our school’s journey to put Character and High Quality Work on equal footing with the Mastery of Knowledge and Skills,” ELMS Principal Kevin Burns said. “It is a five year process to become an EL credentialed school. As a school, we were able to prove that ELMS students demonstrate remarkable growth in EL’s Three Dimensions of Student Achievement (Mastery of Knowledge and Skills, Character, High Quality Work). With this credentialing, it opens opportunities for our students and teachers to lead others in how to demonstrate remarkable growth in all three areas of student achievement.”
ELMS will now also be available for EL Site Visits where EL Network Schools and protentional EL schools will visit ELMS as an exemplary EL School. To learn more about EL Education, visit eleducation.org. To learn more about ELMS, visit http://www.syracusecityschools.com/elms.
