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Academics Overview

Lakeville Area Schools offers a comprehensive district-wide curriculum. 

This curriculum is reviewed on a regular basis by committees made up of elementary, middle and high school teachers and administrators as well as by members of the Teaching and Learning Advisory Council. The curriculum consists of Essential Learnings, which define what students are expected to know and be able to do in each content area in each grade level or course.

The Every Student Succeeds (ESSA), signed into law in 2015, requires that each state, including Minnesota, create its own set of academic standards indicating what a child should know and learn at each grade level in math, science and reading/language arts. In addition the requirements set forth in ESSA, Minnesota has chosen to also develop standards in social studies.

The district continually reviews what students are taught and how they are taught. Student performance, as shown by a variety of assessment results, guides the district in deciding what needs to be done so that all students can be successful. 

This commitment to continuous review of curriculum and instruction has led the district to also require local standards and assessments for departments which do not have state developed standards. District-wide department meetings often are used to analyze current curriculum and determine which benchmarks and assessments are most appropriate for student learning.

Lakeville Area Schools believes that academic standards, when embedded into the curriculum, help ensure that students will be critical thinkers, communicators, learners, and responsible citizens. Students must know how to access, interpret and apply this information to solve the new problems an increasingly complex world will present.

Academic standards that have been approved by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and the Legislature can be found on the MDE website.