At Lindsay Unified, education is based on performance. Teachers are "learning facilitators" and students like Ikonkare Khalsa are "learners." She's in 7th grade studying at an 8th grade level.
Khalsa said, "When I came over here, it motivated me to go higher and higher."
The district is also motivated and a $10 million grant is helping. It's coming from the Race to the Top, a national education contest. Lindsay is one 16 schools sharing $400 million.
Superintendent Tom Rooney said, "We're glad they had that extra $10 million."
The money will help train staff and improve the performance based system. It'll also give kids access to education on line 24/7.
"We were going to do this work anyway, we were already on the path, Rooney added, "we believe this is the best system for our learners, the ten million dollars accelerates it exponentially."
Luis Gonzalez is a 4th grade "Learning Facilitator," he's already seeing success in the classroom. He says learners are focused and willing to help others.
Gonzalez said, "They'll be better prepared, better prepared for taking college courses or even in our case, being in elementary school taking high school courses."
Ikonkar is on her way to finishing early and she says it wouldn't have at any other school.
The district says it will spread the money out over the next few years.
TXT 24
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