One of Osceola County’s most innovative and inspirational charter schools is now enrolling students in Pre-K through fifth grade for the upcoming 2020-21 school year.
Creative Inspiration Journey School, a publicly funded, tuition-free, charter school in St. Cloud is inspired by a learning method that encourages children to explore and seek out answers for themselves. This approach, called the Reggio Emilia Approach, allows children to direct the learning process according to their own needs in a less-structured environment that gives them the chance to grow at their own pace both as individuals and community members. The model has been in practice at the original CIJS campus for three years in Winter Springs.
The extraordinarily impressive facility located at U.S. 192 and Old Hickory Tree Road opened this school year near or at capacity, and had an impressive first year before virus prevention forced the students home and the curriculum to go online like the rest of the county.
“The year has gone great,” CIJS Patty Marquis said back in April. “We’ve had a lot of amazing events, ran a wonderful music and ag(riculture) program,” she said. “We’ve done an intense amount of work in one year.”
Project-based learning is at the heart of CIJS’ curriculum. The school adheres to the same standards of the public school system, but the standards are integrated into teacher through projects. Through those projects, students master the skills of reading, math, writing, spelling, social studies and science, and they also develop the experience and confidence to succeed in both school and life.
The school is approaching capacity again, so the time to think about the fall is early this summer. For more information on enrolling your student or other aspects of CIJS, the charter school, visit www.cijsstcloud.org or call 407-949-0056.
