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Our Framework

All students can learn with depth and complexity.

The fundamental belief of this charter is that all students can learn with depth and complexity, if provided meaningful learning experiences that tap into those areas in which students have a significant interest, passion, or talents. Therefore, this charter provides a basic framework for a challenging standards-based core curriculum that infuses technology into its daily work.

The core content area of English-language arts, mathematics, science, and social science will be standards-based, thus students transitioning from the charter to the feeder middle school, RVMS (Rincon Valley Middle School), will receive similar content as their peers.

The uniqueness of the charter is not only in the embedded use of technology in students daily learning, but in the following ways in which the charter believes learning best occurs:

  1. The teaching and learning of the core content standards will focus on breadth and depth of understanding of the overarching standards. Standards-based instruction will not simply be a covering of those standards on the part of the teacher, but of students working together to apply their conceptual understanding of those standards in various and meaningful ways.
  2. The lens through which students make meaning of that curriculum will be an area of focus that is determined by student needs and interest. At SRACS, each child is provided a rigorous challenging curriculum in a safe and affirming environment allowing children to form complex understandings of the subjects and gives a system to understand new content with depth and complexity. These increased options provide students with enriched educational opportunities far beyond the traditional elementary school setting while simultaneously providing the unique prospect of becoming true stewards of their own learning.
  3. Furthermore, this charter believes that learning in isolation is not a reflection of the society in which our students are contributing members. Therefore, program development will be based on collaboration, metacognition, and connectivity. Collaboration will occur between and among teachers, students, parents, and community stakeholders. Students will be provided myriad opportunities for self-reflection and assessment, through curriculum that values the learning process equally to that of finished products. As a result, students will develop the critical thinking and metacognitive skills necessary to guide their own learning. Whenever feasible, curriculum will be interdisciplinary and provide students with real-world application of their learning.
  4. In addition to the rich curriculum, real world application, community involvement, development of technological skills, metacognitive learning, and greater choice in educational program, students will also benefit from the setting, which is at RVMS. As a result, students may:
    • Participate in greater course offerings, clubs, and activities during their elementary years.
    • Comfortably and slowly acculturate to the middle school throughout their tenure at the charter so that their eventual transition to 7th grade is seamless.
    • Choose to enter, and be prepared for, the accelerated core classes while in 7th & 8th grades
  5. Not all students learn in the same way, nor equally well from the same sources so there will be a use of differentiated curriculum in content, process, and product.
  6. The school educational program recognizes that children are variously gifted, and subscribes that there are many learning modalities, such as linguistic, mathematical/logical, intrapersonal (self), interpersonal (others), bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, and musical.
  7. Instruction will be provided by highly qualified staff who will employ a wide range of instructional strategies that support attainment of high academic standards, and who embrace collaboration and ongoing professional development.