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About Us

Falls Lake Academy is an accredited school that opened its doors in 2013 as a public charter school in Southern Granville County in North Carolina.  We currently serve over 1100 students in grades K-12.  Optimal class size for each grade level is 21 students.  Falls Lake Academy is a project based learning school.

At our project-based learning school, we believe in learning by doing. Here, students aren’t just preparing for the future—they are shaping it every day through hands-on, real-world projects that mirror the challenges they will face in the world beyond the classroom. 

If you’re ready to move beyond traditional learning, we invite you to join a community where innovation, critical thinking, and problem-solving are at the heart of every experience. Our students collaborate on projects that integrate technology, science, arts, and humanities, allowing you to build the skills that top universities and employers value most: adaptability, teamwork, and the drive to see a complex challenge through to the end.

Students are continually engaged and work alongside passionate educators and mentors who are committed to helping you grow not only academically but also as a leader and a thinker. In this environment, student ideas will have room to grow, their skills will be tested and refined, and their potential will come to life. Come make a difference, create lasting friendships, and become part of a movement that transforms learning. This is education with a purpose, designed for students who are ready to make their mark in our community, county, and nation with a growth mindset.

 

What is a Charter School?

In North Carolina, a charter school is a public school that operates independently of traditional school district governance, allowing it to have greater flexibility in its educational programs, curriculum, and operations. Charter schools are public schools, tuition-free, open to all students, and funded by state and local governments based on enrollment, similar to traditional public schools. 

Key features of charter schools in North Carolina include:

* Independent Operation: Each charter school is managed by a nonprofit board of directors, not by the local school district. This board oversees the school’s mission, budget, and educational approach.

* Flexibility in Curriculum and Instruction: Charter schools can design unique curricula, educational models, and learning environments tailored to their students’ needs. For example, our school is focused on project-based learning.

* Accountability: While charter schools have greater autonomy, they are still held accountable for academic performance and financial responsibility. North Carolina charter schools are overseen by the North Carolina State Board of Education and the Charter School Advisory Board, which review each school’s performance to ensure it meets educational standards.

* Parent and Community Choice: Charter schools offer an alternative to traditional public schools, giving parents and students additional choices within the public school system. Enrollment is open to all students in the state, and if applications exceed available seats, a lottery system is used to determine admissions.

* Focus on Innovation: Many charter schools emphasize innovative teaching methods, new technologies, or specialized programs to engage students in unique ways, sometimes experimenting with new approaches that may later inform practices in other public schools.

North Carolina charter schools serve as an option for families looking for specialized educational experiences within the public school system, all while remaining free and accessible.

 

What is a Charter?

What is a Charter School?

PBL

What is PBL?

QuickFacts

Quick Facts

History of FLA

History of FLA

NC Report Card

NC Report Card / Testing

Read to Achieve

Read to Achieve

AIG

 & 

EC

AIG & EC

handbooks

Handbooks

MTSS Logo
MTSS

 

 

 

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What is PBL?  

In Project Based Learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. While allowing for some degree of student "voice and choice," rigorous projects are carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help students learn key academic content, practice 21st century skills (such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking), and create high-quality, authentic products & presentations.

Rigorous, meaningful and effective Project Based Learning:

  • Is intended to teach significant content.  Goals for student learning are explicitly derived from content standards and key concepts at the heart of academic disciplines. 
  • Requires critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and various forms of communication.
  • To answer a driving question and create high-quality work, students need to do much more than remember information. They need to use higher-order thinking skills and learn to work as a team. They must listen to others and make their own ideas clear when speaking, be able to read a variety of material, write or otherwise express themselves in various modes, and make effective presentations. These skills, competencies and habits of mind are often known as "21st century skills," because they are prerequisite for success in the 21st century workplace.
  • Requires inquiry as part of the process of learning and creating something new. Students ask questions, search for answers, and arrive at conclusions, leading them to construct something new:  an idea, an interpretation, or a product.
  • Is organized around an open-ended driving question. This focuses students' work and deepens their learning by framing important issues, debates, challenges or problems.
  • Creates a need to know essential content and skills. Project Based Learning reverses the order in which information and concepts are traditionally presented.  A typical unit with a "project" add-on begins by presenting students with knowledge and concepts and then, once gained, giving students the opportunity to apply them. Project Based Learning begins with the vision of an end product or presentation.  This creates a context and reason to learn and understand the information and concepts.
  • Allows some degree of student voice and choice.  Students learn to work independently and take responsibility when they are asked to make choices.  The opportunity to make choices, and to express their learning in their own voice, also helps to increase students' educational engagement.
  • Includes processes for revision and reflection. Students learn to give and receive feedback in order to improve the quality of the products they create, and are asked to think about what and how they are learning.
  • Involves a public audience. Students present their work to other people, beyond their classmates and teacher – in person or on-line. This "ups the stakes," increasing students' motivation to do high-quality work, and adds to the authenticity of the project.


If we are serious about reaching 21st century educational goals, PBL must be at the center of 21st century instruction.  The project contains and frames the curriculum, which differs from the short "project" or activity added onto traditional instruction.  PBL is, "The Main Course, not Dessert."

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Quick Facts

 

Name of School

Falls Lake Academy
Doors Opened August 22, 2013
Mascot Firebird
Colors Orange, Black, and Gray
Grades Served Kindergarten - 12th Grade
Type of School North Carolina Public Charter School
Focus of Charter Project Based Learning
Location Creedmoor, NC / Granville County
Number of Students     1000-1100
Campuses 1
Buildings 2

Sub-schools 

Lower Elementary 
Upper Elementary
Middle School
High School
Leadership Executive Director:  Joey Johnson

Board of Directors
Athletics offered Yes

 

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Multi-Tiered System of Support for Families

What is NC MTSS?

Family engagement within an MTSS is defined as the active and meaningful partnerships that educators build and maintain with students' families for the purpose of supporting student learning.  It embodies the idea that all parties are equally invested in the value to the table to work together.

What is "support"?

NC schools that are implementing an MTSS may talk about support for students.  To further defined that support NC organizes these supports around the instruction, the curriculum, and the environment.  

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