These are the essential characteristics of our secondary Montessori program:
1. We allow for individualized pacing where possible and appropriate.
2. Our program allows students ample opportunities, interwoven throughout the curriculum, to move around and work with their hands.
3. We do not emphasize academic competition among students.
4. We encourage students to learn from their mistakes without anxiety.
5. Our program provides a wide range of experiential learning opportunities interwoven throughout the curriculum to allow students to learn through experience and practical application.
6. We evaluate students on a logical, objective basis.
7. Our curriculum is oriented toward the development of high-order ?formal? thinking ? not simply memorization.
8. Our curriculum offers students a broad view of the world, emphasizing the historical development of ideas and things, and an international perspective.
9. We consciously strive to help students to develop maturity, high self-esteem, independence, responsibility, compassion, an openness to new experience and learning, patience and self-discipline, acceptance of others, and effective and satisfying social relationships.
10. Our program provides for a multi-disciplinary approach to learning and an inter-disciplinary approach to program planning.
11. We consciously strive to create a sense of community among the faculty and students, allowing many opportunities for student participation in the planning and operation of the life of the school community.
12. We introduce students into the broader life, functions, and social issues of the community in which they live, both through the curriculum and through field experiences, volunteer efforts, and work projects.
13. We facilitate our students? transition into adulthood through supporting the development of effective and responsible interpersonal and social skills, particularly in the areas of the relationship between the student and his family, relationships with peers, relationships with the opposite sex, and the development of a capacity for financial independence, responsibility, compassion, strives to introduce students into the broader life, functions, and social issues of the community in which they live.