Founder / History

FOCUS Learning Academy was established to fulfill the vision of Leroy McClure, the school's founder (who is also the school's Chief Executive Officer and who serves as the school's Superintendent).  After watching his brother struggle through school with dyslexia and noting the staggering dropout and illiteracy rates among African Americans, the superintendent felt called to assist nonaffluent students with learning challenges who might otherwise not receive help.

Mr. McClure is one of the few African-American men in the country certified to teach Academic Language Therapy - a technique for teaching learning-disabled children how to learn.  Mr. McClure and teachers at FOCUS Learning Academy use methods that emphasize the relationship of sounds and symbols in teaching reading, writing and spelling.  More broadly, FOCUS Learning Academy is a charter school, which means it's a public school largely without boundaries, district or otherwise.  FOCUS Learning Academy offers dual learning tracks, one for children with learning disabilities and another for the more gifted.  For children with dyslexia, ADHD or other impediments to traditional learning, FOCUS Learning Academy will create personalized evaluations and learning paths designed to reach the potential of otherwise bright kids.

After receiving a Charter in 1998, FOCUS Learning Academy opened with 177 kindergarten through sixth-grade students.  For several years the school was housed in two Dallas churches. 

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By 2003 FOCUS Learning Academy was profiled by the Texas Center for Educational Research (TCER) as an example of a high-performing Texas open-enrollment charter school:
www.tcer.org/research/charter_schools/high_perf_charter/documents/focus.pdf

From the TCER Report:  "The Texas Center for Educational Research (TCER) conducts and communicates nonpartisan research on education issues to serve as an independent resource for those who make, influence, or implement education policy in Texas.  A 15-member board of trustees governs the research center, including appointments from the Texas Association of School Boards, Texas Association of School Administrators, and State Board of Education."

Also in 2003, through a Texas Education Agency renovation grant, the FOCUS Learning Academy began plans to purchase and move into a permanent building. 

Today FOCUS Learning Academy has largely completed the move into a two-story building formerly recognized as the old Kroger grocery store at the corner of Hampton and Ledbetter in Dallas.  The building has been renovated to provide a secure, bright, and well organized learning environment including classrooms, a kitchen, administration space, and a gymnasium.