Our History

In 1961, Rutherford County consolidated its public-school district and closed the only existing public school in Lake Lure. At the time, the Lake Lure community was an outpost of Rutherford County, serving primarily as a summer resort community with few children and a large retirement-aged population.

Today, Lake Lure has been transformed into a thriving community of permanent residents, many of which are families with school-aged children. However, the community still lacked a local public school. The nearest public-school option that was available for parents of children in Lake Lure was nearly 30 miles away.

Some children in Lake Lure as young as six years old were riding a bus for as many as three hours each day, often boarding before 5:30 a.m. and finally arriving home after 5:30 p.m. Opening a school in the town of Lake Lure was essential for the families who currently live in the area, and for the many who wish to relocate there.

The town worked closely with the local board of education to plan for the construction of a school in Lake Lure, but it never came to fruition. The nimble nature of charter schools and their unique ability to serve a smaller population of students without the significant budgetary and infrastructure implications of the larger, traditional system created an alternative that fulfilled the need for a local, public school in Lake Lure.

LLCA provides parents and students the choice of a rigorous curriculum and high expectations of involvement by all stakeholders in the school. Parents are welcomed to become involved in their child’s educational experience as well as encouraged to volunteer in the school in capacities commensurate with the parent’s talents and available time.

The Core Knowledge Sequence, the main component of the K-8 curriculum, was carefully chosen by the LLCA founding board to enable teachers to partner with parents to guide their children toward a higher plane of academic achievement.

What we believe:

LLCA believes that if all children acquire a solid base of knowledge in the early years of their education, they will be best positioned for a high level of academic achievement when they attend college or begin a career. The LLCA High School Curriculum offers three Pathway Options: 1) The Traditional High School Track, 2) The Tech Prep Pathway, and 3) the College Pathway. The Tech and College Pathway courses are in collaboration with Isothermal Community College and free to students, except for books.

LLCA was awarded a charter contract and founded in 2010 to serve the families in the Lake Lure community who were denied a community school for 50 years. The LLCA Board and school staff strives to serve individual students and their families in creating well-educated, civic-minded citizens.