Enduring Understandings

Inclusion is a Right

Each student has the right to meaningful inclusion in a quality educational program. These rights include the freedom of students to learn and share their learning in their own way. Each student is entitled to feel safe, supported, and connected. We accept the moral imperative to intentionally design student learning, learning environments, and restorative practices which foster a sense of belonging, positive personal and cultural identity, and equity.

Diversity is a Strength

Biodiversity in the natural world creates stronger, sustainable, and more resilient ecosystems. Similarly, diversity in human life benefits everyone. All students contribute to deeper learning through their unique gifts, needs, life experiences, identities, values, attitudes, and perspectives. We will design for diversity to create natural extensions and enrichment of learning, binding students in their interconnectedness, while creating new understandings and values, balancing tensions and dilemmas, and collectively taking responsibility for forward action.

Personalization is the Way

Future-ready students will need to develop and exercise agency in their own education and throughout life. Agency is supported by a personalized learning environment focused on empowering students to design their own authentic learning projects and processes. Students and teachers co-develop individual and group learning plans to build on students’ interests, goals, reflections, and learning needs. Personalized learning also encompasses place-based, experiential learning influenced by the local environment, local protocols, and an individual context. We will strategically design for personalized instruction, assessment, and structures to include each student and enhance the benefits that diversity offers everyone.