CORE PRINCIPLES & BELIEFS

• We believe that today's graduates need to be critical thinkers, problem solvers, and effective communicators who are proficient in both core subjects and new twenty-first-century content and skills. We believe that promoting high academic standards will motivate students to achieve their highest potential.

• We believe that successful educational programs focus on activities that affect results. We believe that if we focus on learning, we will improve teaching. If we focus on student progress, we will work together to address the needs of individual students.

• We believe that demographics make a difference. We also believe that schools make a difference. We believe that students whose teachers focus on the latter achieve more than students whose teachers focus on the former.

• We believe that students succeed when they are taught by talented teachers who participate in continuing professional development and have high expectations of themselves and the students under their tutelage. We believe that when teachers are provided time for collaboration to assess and refine the impact of lessons and teaching strategies, their rigorous efforts will produce an increasing number of students who learn at higher levels.

• We believe that data provides necessary information to make decisions that positively affect our programs and lead us on a path to success.

• We believe that literacy comprehension is at the heart of every content area and that we are all teachers of comprehension. We believe that when students read and write across the curriculum, they are engaged in thinking, reasoning, and analysis.

• We believe that mathematical instructional practices that incorporate inquiry methods, classroom discussion, applications of knowledge, and the use of technology will help students to think intellectually and critically and to ultimately obtain knowledge that makes students viable in a global world.

• We believe that science and technology provide the opportunity to make significant positive changes in today's educational process. We believe that students who learn in an innovative and professional environment fostered by the use of advanced learning methods in science and technology will excel in an information-based, technologically advanced society.