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Commitment to Belonging

 The LILA Community (students, families, and staff) includes people of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds, home languages, belief systems, socioeconomic statuses, gender identities, sexual orientations, political affiliations, and abilities. We endeavor to see each child as an individual and to recognize their strengths and needs, in order to provide an equitable education to each student. We are grateful for our diverse LILA Community, and welcome all to join us in our mission:

To prepare tomorrow’s critical thinkers and global citizens 
through language acquisition and inquiry-driven study.

As a public school, LILA follows Minnesota education standards to make sure our students have a solid basis in the standard academic subjects. As an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School, we strive to present these subject areas in such a way that students gain an understanding of their own places, cultures, and ways of looking at the world. We also want them to recognize that others’ experiences may be different from their own. Our intent is to share facts, history, perspectives, ideas, and a strong sense of enthusiasm for inquiry and lifelong learning.

From preschool to graduation, we incorporate the ten IB Learner Profile attributes: Balanced, Caring, Communicators, Inquirers, Knowledgeable, Open-Minded, Principled, Reflective, Risk-takers, and Thinkers. We teach, elicit, and reinforce these attributes each year to build and maintain a learning environment where all students feel welcome and safe.

A LILA educator’s role is to expand students’ views of the world in a developmentally-appropriate way by helping them understand its people, their ideas, and their varied perspectives. While LILA educators work to expand a child’s basis of knowledge and understanding, we also encourage families to continue discussions at home, to enhance a child’s understanding of the world and how they fit in it. We believe that families are our students’ first teachers and the most important influence on their education. We partner together to guide students in exploring knowledge, facts, and an understanding of ideas alongside their families’ core values. 

As the LILA community, our goal is to foster our children's growth into open-minded, caring adults who can think critically while considering multiple perspectives. We want them to be able to form clear ideas, express their thoughts with confidence, disagree with dignity and respect, show empathy to those who are and are not like them in various ways, and graduate from LILA prepared to make a positive difference in the lives of others and the world.