Central Michigan University honored Nora Laho, director of Copper Island Academy, as the 2026 CMU Charter School Leader of the Year during a ceremony held last week.
The award recognizes exceptional leadership that creates school cultures rooted in excellence, resilience, and determination.
“Growth in enrollment, growth in our programming, adding additional grades. Each year we’ve also had a campus expansion project where we are adding facilities to accommodate the increased number of students that we’ve had year over year,” Laho said.
Copper Island Academy has partnered with Central Michigan University since 2021 to guide its development. The charter school program helps education leaders develop curricula aligned with state requirements and oversee district development.
“As we’re expanding and growing or implementing new programming, we submit a charter amendment request, and then we go through the process of getting their approvals and review to make sure that we have sufficient plans and that everything is viable and feasible with the resources that we have or that we have planned,” Laho explained.
The academy enrolled nearly 300 students in its first year and now educates the fourth-largest district within the Copper Country Intermediate School District. The school is working on paperwork to submit a new amendment to add a 12th grade to the high school.
Copper Island Academy has integrated the Finnish education model, emphasizing outdoor learning and hands-on experiences, into traditional school programming. The school is also planning expansion projects for next year, including additional space at the center campus to strengthen the connection between forest and classroom.
“Our 11th graders will be moving up, so we’ll be needing to add an additional grade. With that, we’ll have some additional early middle college programming and other educational programming that they’ll need to review and approve,” Laho said.
Laho credits the school’s growth since 2021 to the entire team effort, thanking faculty for helping establish Copper Island Academy’s status in the Keweenaw Peninsula.
