Finding The Right School

Questions To Ask To Find The Right School For You

Every fall, the school hosts an Informational Night and Campus Tour in Omaha, NE for prospective parents. During this event, and at subsequent tour requests, we field many of the same questions. Here, we address these topics to help you better understand Legacy, our culture, and our teaching philosophies. If you have additional questions or concerns as you determine if Legacy is the right early childhood or elementary school for you, please do not hesitate to reach out: 402.884.2242

To be notified of the date of our next Informational Night, please sign up for our monthly newsletter HERE.

What Does Differentiated Learning Mean?

The most important element of this style of teaching is that it allows the teacher to adapt lesson plans based on the individual progression of her or his students. There is grade-specific curriculum that must be achieved by the end of the year, but how it is reached is based on how the classroom learns – not on state-mandated benchmarks or test scores.

How Large Are Your Early Childhood and Elementary Classrooms?

Classrooms at Legacy at capped around 18 students. With a teacher and Teaching Assistant assigned to each room, this creates an ideal 9:1 student to teacher ratio. Many times during a lesson you will find the elementary rooms divided into thirds: one section working with the teacher, one with the TA, and one independently. Then they rotate. This affords hours of dedicated, focused instruction for each student.

How Are The Outdoors Incorporated Into The Day?

Legacy School is situated on 11 acres of land that includes the main school building, the School House for Science Class and upper elementary classrooms, a barn with goats and chickens, a vegetable garden, playgrounds, a soccer field, a baseball field, a pickleball court, a gaga pit, two pools (for Camp Legacy use only) and more.

Nature fosters a sense of adventure and curiosity, plus outdoor play resets tiny bodies allowing them to refocus on the tasks at hand. Students go outside for recess once in the morning and again in the afternoon. Additionally, teachers are encouraged to bring the classroom outdoors when the weather allows.

Children are always supervised in specific, assigned quadrants while outside. They do not have free reign over the 11 acres.

Do You Have Extended Care?

With exception of preschool, we offer care before school starting at 7AM and after care that goes until 5:30PM for an extra fee. We also provide care on select days when school is closed for teacher training or holiday breaks. These are not drop in programs. You must enroll in the Extended Care program at the beginning of the year so we can staff it appropriately.

The Extended Care program is run by Mr. Joe and he encourages structured fun while your kiddo is with him. His team organizes several clubs the students can join such as Cooking Club, Nature Club and Chess Club, to name a few.

What Are Your Discipline Policies?

We have a zero bullying policy at Legacy. However, we attempt to steer clear of negative behaviors by consistently rewarding positive ones. Principal Mr. Grove created the PAWSivite program. Every month one positive behavior is selected as the theme, such as Following Directions, Staying Positive, or Being a Good Sport. Every time a staff member sees a student displaying this PAWSitive behavior, the student receives a PAWSitive slip that can be exchanged for a reward. Students witness other students receiving recognition and want to model their behavior to receive the same acknowledgements. For more details about our policies, you can view the Parent Handbook HERE.

What Security and Safety Protocols Are In Place?

The school follows current Standard Response Protocols and practices drills accordingly. Plus, Legacy School incorporates Run, Hide, Fight techniques that have been recommended by our Department of Homeland Security contact.

Additionally, after completing a security assessment through the Department of Homeland Security and the Douglas County Sheriff Department the following measures have been put into place:

• All exterior doors have alarms that sound when left open for an extended time
• A panic button with a direct line to authorities is installed at the front desk
• The stand-alone Science House is secured and locked at all times, and has direct communication with the main building
• All staff have a key fob entry to allow doors to remain locked but staff to move throughout the
  campus as needed
• Multiple security cameras are installed throughout campus and a feed is provided to the Douglas County Police Department in the case of emergency; recorded feeds remain on record for 30 days
• Security film has been installed on all windows

Technology in the classroom utilizes Mosyle Manager to limit access to applications and websites while students utilize laptops and iPads.

What Does Parent Involvement Look Like?

Legacy Lions are as involved as they would like to be in their child’s educational experience. The school utilizes SchoolStatus to communicate with families so there is always an open two-way dialog between the staff and parents. Throughout the year, we host events allowing families to witness everything their child is doing in school. These are heavily attended and welcomed by our parents.

What Are The Fundraising Expectations?

Unlike other private schools, we do not set a donation requirement for our families. The Parent Advisory Board hosts a fundraiser every fall that helps fund field trips, special classroom activities, and school scholarships. Families are asked to participate if they can.

EARLY CHILDHOOD

Discuss A Typical Day

Each classroom is assigned a teacher and TA that rotates with the children throughout the day. They start in their assigned homeroom, then the classroom moves to a new location for a new lesson approximately every 20 minutes. The locations include drama, science, music, art, gym, discovery, and library. This movement allows the kiddos to reset and refocus their attention on absorbing the skills at hand.

All Legacy School’s Early Childhood Education classrooms are theme-based and adhere to accreditation guidelines established by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and Nebraska’s Department of Education Standards.

What Is The Difference Between The Pre-K and Jr-K Classrooms?

Pre-K is developed for children who will be 4 years old by October 15th of their enrollment year. And Jr-K is for children who will be 5 years old by November 15th of their enrollment year.

The Jr-K classroom was developed when Nebraska set the Kindergarten cut off date at July 31st. This left a group of kiddos that may have been ready for Kindergarten, but just missed the deadline. The Jr-K has a more advanced lesson plan than Pre-K and starts to incorporate some of elements of Kindergarten into the day. Without adding afternoon Enrichment, Jr-K is a half day program that meets five days a week.

What Is Afternoon Enrichment?

Some parents are looking for a full day of learning and activities for their Pre-K or Jr-K student. That is where afternoon Enrichment come into play. It runs from 11:30am to 3:15pm Monday through Friday and provides another learning opportunity. It is a multifaceted program involving STEAM, Book Club, Healthy Kids, Life Skills, and Art.

ELEMENTARY

What Are Your Elementary Test Scores?

Unlike current educational trends in which students learn, test, and then forget the material they learned, Legacy School focuses less on testing and more on each child’s educational journey. To cultivate continual learning, teachers draw on various resources to best support each student’s learning capabilities.

Elementary students at Legacy School take only two standardized tests a year-one in the Fall and one in the Spring-to map the strengths and weaknesses of the individual child and to analyze student growth. Teachers then use this information to create differentiated, hands-on learning experiences to launch each child forward in their educational journey. While test scores are not the focus at Legacy, our students’ NWEA MAP Rit Scores consistently rank above the national average.

How Much Homework Is Assigned To Elementary Students?

Research has shown that homework does not increase curriculum absorption and understanding. Insead, it starts to create the precedence for a future workforce that work doesn’t end at the end of the day. Teachers attempt to keep classwork in the classroom, however there are some cases where outside work is needed. If this does happen, it is kept to a minimum.

Are Your Fifth Graders Prepared For Middle School?

While no one can promise or predict how each student will perform, Legacy prides itself with how prepared our 5th graders are to transition to middle school. Former parents continually reach out to inform us that their students were on-level or above once they reached 6th grade.

Will You Expand To A Middle School?

While we are honored that our families enjoy the Legacy experience so much that they want it to continue into middle school, we will not be expanding past 5th grade. The founders’ expertise lies in Early Childhood and Elementary. They want to continue to make the current grades be as strong as they possibly can be.

How Do You Register?

Private school enrollment for new families opens to the public in February each year. Please watch the website for details or sign up for our NEWSLETTER to be notified when the dates are announced. Simply click on the REGISTER link in the upper right corner of the website at 7AM to complete the process.

Does Legacy Provide Scholarships?

The Legacy Parent Advisory Board provides scholarships to those families in need of financial assistance. Application deadline is May 1st each year. Initial scholarship amounts will be awarded in July prior to the deposit due date, allowing scholarship funds to be used to pay the deposit, if needed. Scholarship amounts are based on family income and are no more than 30% of total tuition fees. The number of scholarships available is based on total fundraising efforts and additional funds may be available later in the year.

About Legacy School