Voy Spears, Jr. Elementary School - Lee's Summit, MO

Voy Spears Jr. Elementary (VSE) is a close-knit, student-centered, family-friendly, parent supported school. Opened in 2002, it houses 544 diverse and capable students, including the district's K-5 Deaf and Hard of Hearing program. Due to strong growth within its attendance boundaries, VSE has experienced facility additions, including classroom space, a multipurpose room, and an artificial turf playground surface. VSE also features a walking/running track, which supports its commitment to community outreach, health, and wellness.

As a historically high performing school, VSE strives to increase student engagement, teacher capacity/competency, parent participation, and stakeholder satisfaction, and has made a concerted effort to optimize educator strengths, enhance professional development and effectiveness, fully maximize academic potential, and ensure the most productive learning environment possible. Within the context of a Professional Learning Community (PLC), VSE staff members demonstrate a vision of shared ownership, two-way/open communication, high expectations, and commitment to school excellence. This has led to a common theme -- SFA (Success for All) -- and resulted in the collective decision to throw open classroom doors, confer and collaborate, speak a common language, and work toward the mutual cause of higher student, teacher, and school attainment.

In sum total, the VSE school improvement approach emphasizes essential, inquiry/project-based learning skills embedded in practical, application-oriented experiences that are technology-supported, corroborated by research, substantiated by data, and implemented both logically and sequentially. It's for these reasons overall school performance has improved, and the future at VSE is a bright one indeed for students and staff.