Nearly four years ago, when Discovery Charter School was approved to receive students, the founders knew precisely what they wanted for our children: hands-on, active learning that would provide real-life experiences to propel them toward, what else? “Discovery”—just like the school’s name implies.

Today, the school is closing in on attaining the highest standards in experiential learning—having been compared to more than 150 schools nationwide which use similar standards.

Discovery Charter School is an Expeditionary Learning School.  The philosophy is simple: use a model for teaching and learning which challenges students to think critically and take active roles in their classrooms and their community.  The goal is to achieve higher academic achievement and greater engagement in school.  And it’s working.

Each school year, Discovery is put to the test by the nationally-acclaimed Expeditionary Learning organization. For spring of 2014, EL rated DCS on a range of dimensions which include curriculum, instruction, assessment, culture and character, and leadership.

Discovery surpassed the EL target score for schools in their third year of operation, exceeding expectations by 14 points.   This represented a 10-point increase from a year ago, and exponential improvement since year one.

This characterizes the complete dedication of school leader Joe Saia and his entire team at DCS, each of whom takes ownership and feels pride in the strides Discovery students are making every day.