We are a private school with a public mission. This means we treat parents as partners, teachers as leaders, and students as individuals. We aim to be a model for what schools can be, both in terms of engagement with the broader community and in cultivating professionalism in the education field.
In everything we do at CLC, we incorporate our seven Core Virtues, adopted from Ernest Boyer’s The Basic School. They are:
Our Core Virtues can be seen in the classroom, on the playing field, and in our community of staff, students, and parents. They are the guiding principles by which we teach, learn, play, and communicate with one another.
Our Mission:
What does that mean? To us, it means everything.
To “inspire” learners, we meet them where they are, individualize instruction in an environment and with experiences that are developmentally appropriate to them, and create space for their voice to be heard.
To “empower” learners, we strive to balance structure and choice by setting high expectations while also giving learners the power and agency to make decisions. We engage learners in authentic and meaningful tasks that have real impact on the world, help them understand and leverage their own agency to positively impact their community.
Academic achievement isn’t our primary goal. It is a by-product. The real work is to nurture “compassionate,” humane, and caring people. The foundation of this work is made up of seven core virtues: compassion, giving, honesty, self-discipline, perseverance, respect, and responsibility. These core virtues shape our work and compel us to pursue both social and environmental justice in our service efforts.
By “global” we refer to an international-mindedness. Our project based curricula make planet-wide connections to help students see and understand our globalized world and know the people who shape it. However, we also focus on “global” as it pertains to the whole learner. Our community creates a safe environment (physically, socially, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually) for learners to take risks, make mistakes, reflect, and learn in real and transformative ways far beyond the limits of traditional subject areas.
“Learners” are the very center of our practice. Neuroscience tells us that all people learn. We create an environment where those learners thrive. Our academics are rich with novel experiences — field trips, projects, and integrated subjects.
Outcomes:
We asked our parents to think carefully about the characteristics they hoped their children would possess as adults, to write them down and to share them with us. Their responses served as a framework for our school’s Outcome Statement:
"As a parent of two at Cornerstone, I want my children to know what it means to be a part of a community, to be part of something larger than themselves. I want my daughters to be aware of their academic and social responsibilities, and to find joy and a sense of satisfaction from fulfilling those responsibilities."
