Chapel Lakes Elementary School - Lee's Summit, MO

Chapel Lakes Elementary School (CLE) focuses on an essential principle of American democracy: unity in diversity. This principle guides the school's staff in their decision to include every student by providing individual instruction based on each child's needs. CLE's focus on teaching the whole child-academically, socially, and emotionally-has enabled the school to individualize instruction in a diverse population of children from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and varied racial and ethnic backgrounds.

To focus on the whole child, CLE staff participated in trainings on inclusion topics, such as equity, unconscious bias, psychological safety, and cross-cultural awareness and conversation. Aware of the varied needs students bring to school, staff created a support plan for each student that includes academic interventions, behavioral goals, and personal needs assistance. Staff actively focus on including parents in their child's education, including the parents in the school's large foster child population and its English language learner population. To address the value of unity in diversity, CLE includes programs so that all students experience together. These includes a real-world simulation of entering Ellis Island and the contributions of immigrants to America; programs inviting parents to work with their children at curriculum nights on hands-on academic activities; and, monthly school assemblies in which students' efforts to support each other are recognized and celebrated by their peers. Through including the whole school community-students, staff, parents, and local community organizations-CLE educates each child as it builds a stronger community in the process.