Leader In Me

Locust Grove Elementary School first opened its doors for the 2007-2008 school year.  Named for the plush locust trees covering the farmland on which it was built, our school was opened to help alleviate overcrowding at Centerfield and LaGrange Elementary.  Students and staff came from many different schools, both inside and outside the district to form a new family at Locust Grove. Despite our best intentions, several years in we found ourselves struggling to let go of what was comfortable and familiar from our prior school communities. We needed a paradigm shift in order to forge OUR WAY as Locust Grove Lions. It was clear that two things required our attention: 1) We needed to establish our own identity as a school, and 2) We needed a way to empower students. Under new leadership, our staff began looking for “programs” to fit our needs. After searching, we realized a “program” wouldn’t change anything for our students and would only add more to our “overflowing plate.” What we needed was something new to BE THE PLATE. It was then that we stumbled upon The Leader in Me. In the summer of 2013 we began reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens and The Leader in Me.  We quickly recognized the impact Stephen Covey’s habits could have on even our young Locust Grove Lions, and empower them to seek out the leader and unique potential in themselves.  

Locust Grove staff spent the 2013-2014 school year researching Leader in Me schools, traveling to more than 10 Leader in Me schools across the state of Kentucky.  Every single staff member attended a Leadership Day, and Grade Level Team Leaders attended the Symposium in Bowling Green.  At the end of the 2013-14 school year, Locust Grove applied for and received a grant from the I Am A Leader Foundation. Our first year of implementation found us focusing on how to personally live the Seven Habits ourselves so that we could authentically embed them in our daily classroom practices in order to teach them to students. In 2017 we became a certified Lighthouse School.  We most recently completed our third recertification for Lighthouse status in the spring of 2023 and are setting our sights on Legacy recognition! Locust Grove Elementary, like all other schools across the country, faced significant challenges in 2020 with the COVID pandemic. We worked hard to continue the work with Leader in Me as we have been known to do. Through leadership changes and staff changes, we recognized we needed a full-staff reboot and had all staff re-trained on Leader in Me in the fall of 2023. This has led to a refreshed (and in some cases fresh) look at how we incorporate Leader in Me habits and paradigms into our daily instruction.

We continue to see the benefits for ourselves and for our students. We are constantly asking ourselves as the adults in the building, “Are we doing things that students can and should be doing?”  

Implementation at Locust Grove has been a game changer for our school community. We have truly come together in creating an identity that is uniquely us. No longer do we rely on trying to replicate traditions or history that belong to someone else. We know who WE are and we know WHY we are here. We think beyond the walls of our classrooms and our building and look to the future that lies ahead for our students. The most exciting factor in this journey for us is the unknown that remains to be seen. We have come a long way, but we know we still have so much more we can achieve and we can’t wait to see what that looks like!

Locust Grove is a large school, filled with amazing students, faculty and staff.  We want to make our large community feel small and the perfect way to make it feel smaller is by having a “HOUSE” in which each member of our Lion Community belongs.  The goal of our house system is to promote positive relationships between students and staff.  Being part of a house allows students and adults to connect with each other, celebrate others achievements and invest in the growth of our students.  Our House System is a way to do all that and help build stronger relationships not only between adults and students but between students and other students in and across grade levels.   

The lighthouse represents the thought;

be a lighthouse rather than a lifeboat. I do not rescue, but instead help others to find their way to shore.  

We have six houses named after famous lighthouses found across the globe. Our lighthouses are;

Hercules, Waugoshance, Jeddah, Eldred, Andros, and Hatteras. 

Click here to learn more about our houses!