Lindley Academy

Lindley Academy at General David B. Birney Charter School (Lindley Academy) focuses on building communities within each classroom, each grade level and school-wide through the use of class meetings, buddy classes and monthly scholar assemblies.

Class meetings provide teachers and scholars with a forum to get to know one another, discuss issues, identify and solve problems, and make decisions that affect the classroom and school climate. Conducting daily class meetings and monthly scholar assemblies will create an environment in which scholars’ learning, opinions, and concerns are taken seriously—and in which scholars participate as valued and influential contributors to the classroom community. As scholars learn to listen and talk to each other, they begin building a safe learning environment.

Teachers focus on fostering classroom organization and creating clear expectations about daily routines. Teachers will model and practice all expectations with scholars. The entire Lindley Academy staff will focus on consistent follow-through with the understanding that responding to the seemingly smaller issues helps scholars understand the specifics of daily procedures and classroom expectations, therefore preventing larger issues from occurring.

Child development is taken into account when choosing effective and appropriate consequences for scholars. This means that because developmental levels vary greatly in the earlier grades, discretion is used when working with our early childhood scholars (K-2). Sometimes, scholars in this age group will receive modified or more gradual consequences as we work with them to build the skills needed for self-control and responsibility.