Our Mission
Our Mission & Core Values
Mission: Inspire curious minds to think deeply and live courageously.
Core Values
- Academic Achievement: We help our students build good habits like asking questions, thinking critically, being creative, and loving learning.
- Developing Character: We teach our students to be honest, responsible, kind, and respectful to themselves and others.
- Intrinsic Motivation: We encourage our students to find joy in learning and doing their best because it makes them happy, not just for rewards like grades or prizes.
Our Approach
The 16 Habits of Mind are ways that smart people solve problems when the answers aren’t easy to find. We teach our students these habits in both academic and social settings.
The Three-Ring Model says that gifted students have three special traits: above average intelligence, creativity, and task commitment. We use this model when choosing students for our school. Our students use their creativity, commitment, and intelligence to succeed in learning.
The SAMR Model (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition) helps our teachers use technology to impact teaching and learning. Instead of using technology to do things the old way, we help our students do new things that they couldn’t before. Substitution and augmentation enhances learning, while modification and redefinition transforms the process.
Social and emotional learning at our school is rooted in the CASEL Framework. We help children grow these skills by helping them to understand their feelings, care about others, and make good choices. We use lessons and meetings to help our students learn things like empathy and courage to do what is right.
Thinking Maps are visuals that help children think and learn. There are eight different types of maps. Each one helps with a special kind of thinking. Everyone learns in their own way, but studies show that pictures help us learn better than words alone. These maps give everyone at school a shared way to show their ideas.
The Understanding by Design (UBD) Framework helps our teachers plan lessons that meet the needs of our students. It helps them figure out what students need to learn, how to check if they have learned it, and the best ways to team. UBD focuses on six ways to understand: explain, interpret, apply, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. Learn more.
- Studies show that the amount of homework in elementary and middle school does not impact success. Academic gains from homework are found only in the high school years, and they are slight.
- We do not give homework on weekends. We also do not give homework on Thursday that would take more than one night to finish.
- We believe that children need time to rest, reflect, be creative, and sleep at least 9 hours a night.
- If weeknights are busy, our students can use time on the weekends to complete their work.
- For more information, see Five Hallmarks of Good Homework.
