Is Explorer a Good Choice for Your Family?
Considerations for Parents and Children
When parents choose Explorer Community School, they join a community whose common beliefs drive our choices in everyday decision making and guide our methods of teaching and learning.
Some values we have in common are:
- Process and not merely the end result is acknowledged and valued. Mistakes are recognized as a natural part of the learning process.
- We appreciate and expect children to grow at diverse individual rates academically, physically, emotionally, and socially.
- Rich academic, social, and emotional growth is achieved through experiential learning in multi-age situations.
- We make conscious daily efforts to nurture mutual trust and sustain a non-competitive learning environment.
- Our cooperative work promotes a sense of responsibility to the community and to ourselves.
- Teachers and parents ultimately aim to build children's self-esteem, self-empowerment and internal motivation.
- Our parents are actively and visibly involved.
Logistical Considerations for Prospective Parents
Important Considerations
- Choosing to attend Explorer Community School comes with some logistical considerations. For instance, your child will attend Kindergarten and perhaps other grades at a different school and need to make the switch to Explorer in first grade or later. Is your child emotionally prepared for such a change?
- You will need to arrange to drop off and pick up your child daily since there is no District busing for Explorer. We encourage carpools.
- Parents contribute volunteer hours to assist with learning, enriching excursions, and the well-being of the student body. While there is no set minimum per family, it is widely accepted that parents and children benefit from additional adult presence on and off campus.
Explorer Students
Some common characteristics of children who prosper at Explorer:
- Enjoy interacting with children of all ages and backgrounds
- Thrive without competition or external rewards
- Work toward personal responsibility
- Prefer to learn by doing
- Set goals for their growth
Parent Participation
Parents play a crucial role at Explorer Community School: They participate by working cooperatively with teachers to sustain a cohesive learning community; they provide enriching experiences; and they promote the love of learning.
Without the help of parents, Explorer, as we know it, could not survive and thrive.
VOLUNTEERING: Enriches Student Learning & Fosters Our Sense of Community
There are so many ways to volunteer and the school needs you! We need and really appreciate our volunteers. Without volunteers there would be no Explorer Community School.
- Help in our classrooms
- Drive and chaperone students on field trips
- Attend one parent meeting each month
- Work outside of the school day (committee work, classroom material preparation, correcting papers)
- Participate in school events
- The list goes on!