Charlotte Lab School

About

Charlotte Lab School is a public charter school located in Uptown Charlotte. We opened in August 2015 and currently serve over 500 students in grades K-6.

Story

The Charlotte Lab School is designed to meet the needs of 21st century students and is built upon the following core values:

Authentic learning: Students learn best through meaningful, hands-on learning experiences that resemble the “real world”;

Individualization and Personalization: Students learn better when they are known by their teachers and when their school meets them where they are, enabling them to learn in different ways and at different paces;

Global Awareness and Bilingualism: Students must learn skills that will enable them to communicate and collaborate with diverse groups of people;

Metacognitive Skill Development: Students need to understand themselves as learners in order to adapt in today’s rapidly changing world; and

Innovation: Students’ needs must drive school improvement.

Our approach utilizes a small, nurturing environment, where students will have the opportunity to participate in:

Solving real-world problems, alongside experts, through Challenge Based Learning;

Getting to know each other and themselves through our Advisory Program;

Using the City and greenspaces as their expanded classroom through our Community Partnerships;

Learning a second language – Mandarin or Spanish; and

Exploring their interests and learning new skills through our Enrichment Programs.

Mission

The mission of the Charlotte Lab School is to rethink schooling for the 21st century. Acting as a true lab school where students, teachers, and local partners work in collaboration with one another to advance teaching, learning, and leadership, we will become an active community of learners and create a school experience that values authentic learning, individualization and personalization, global awareness and bilingualism, student metacognition, and innovation.