Level Up Academy

Level Up Academy (LUA) presents a ground-breaking educational model that is organized around how kids actually learn. The school uses multiple strategies -gaming, small groups, individual tasks, but very little lecturing – and blends them together in the same learning space to personalize the learning experience for each student. Personalized learning such as this assures challenge without frustration, lots of practice without tedium, and the immediate gratification of knowing what has been accomplished during a learning activity. Unsurprisingly, this approach has yielded greater growth and learning for students in Minnesota…and around the world.

The school takes its name from the gaming concept “level up,” which allows a user to advance to more difficult levels only after they have mastered their current level. In this way, learning is cemented through mastery and built upon through progression that propels each student to continually learn more and engage in greater challenges in each subject area, resulting in a far higher degree of motivation for learning.

Level Up Academy shatters these important conventions often seen at other public schools:

• The emphasis on personalized learning allows teachers to honor where each child is in their learning, and to guide them to mastery at their own pace. Our students will continually “level up.” This differs from the calendar and age driven model of social promotion.

• The use of gaming software and devices allows for immediate and daily feedback and assessment on performance in reading, math, spelling and vocabulary…and all other subjects. Gaming is also inherently geared towards leveling up, and it will reinforce the need for mastery. This immediate and consistent performance feedback allows teachers to know their students personally and drive towards mastery.

• The school will be led by its teachers. Level Up is organizing as a Teacher Professional Practice in order to allow teachers to have greater say in decision making at the school. This approach honors the teacher’s unique relationship with their students and helps to ensure that school decisions are centered around student learning, growth and social development. Thus, teachers will be engaged in a manner unrecognizable to the current public school system.

LUA will open its doors to 90 students, ages 5-10 in fall 2015, and the school will continue to grow to serve 150 students ages 5-14. The school’s site has not been determined, but the founding board has concentrated its search in Maplewood, White Bear Lake and North St. Paul.

We invite you to join us in this journey towards personalized learning for all.