International School of Louisiana wins Achievement Gap award

The Diverse Charter Schools Coalition Board, members, staff, and partners honored International School of Louisiana with the Achievement Gap Award for demonstrating exceptional commitment to successfully closing achievement gaps. The inaugural awards were presented during the DCSC Annual Convening on Sunday June 11.
 
The International School of Louisiana (ISL), receiving the Achievement Gap Award, was founded in 2000 by a group of parents who envisioned a public school offering a foreign language-based academic program with a global perspective. Students are taught core academic subjects in either French or Spanish through everyday conversation and classroom instruction learn a second language naturally. Their unique school model has produced achievement gap-closing results. In both the 2014-15 and the 2015-2016 school years, ISL has had a greater percentage of its minority and economically disadvantaged students scoring at “Mastery or above” than the district of New Orleans or the state. Within the school, almost two-thirds of ISL students qualify for free and reduced lunch and have an average of 92% in Basic or Above on the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program assessment. Head of School Melanie Tennyson attributes their academic success to the hard work and dedication of ISL teachers and staff implementing the language immersion program through the ISL experience.

“This achievement reminds us once again that language immersion education is accessible and beneficial to students of all backgrounds and at ISL, has effectively been the key in closing achievement gaps,” said Tennyson.
 
Also at the convention, Blackstone Valley Prep (Cumberland, RI) won School of the Year for best exemplifying the Coalition’s value and Valor Collegiate (Nashville, TN) won the Best Newcomer School.
 
“I want to congratulate our three member schools for their commitment to excellence and exemplifying what is possible through a diverse-by-design school model,” said the Coalition’s Executive Director Sonia Park.  “They have done extraordinary, thoughtful work in their approach to diversity. ”
 
About the Coalition:
The Diverse Charter Schools Coalition is a charter advocacy and membership group that seeks to support the creation and expansion of high-quality, racially and economically diverse public charter schools. Founded in summer 2014, the coalition has grown from 14 founding charter schools and networks to include more than 100 member schools located in 14 different states and the District of Columbia. For more information please see our website http://www.diversecharters.org, or contact the Coalition by email at info@diversecharters.org