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Core Principles
The founders of the North Oakland Community Charter School developed ten principles that anchor and guide our community and its work, and provide a vision to which we aspire.
1. Respect for children and their learning
At the heart of our school is a profound appreciation, attentiveness, and respect for children's ideas. Our teachers learn by looking closely at children's understanding, and how their questions and curiosity lead them to explore their world. The insights they garner from these observations inform their practice in a powerful way
2. High expectations
We believe that this attention to children's thinking goes hand in hand with the high expectations and rigorous academic standards we hold for children's work. Sharing, critiquing, and reflecting on student work help our students improve their work and performance. In this way, our school encourages children to reach beyond their limits.
3. A caring community of learners
Our school seeks to be a place where teachers, parents, and children create stable, warm, supportive relationships. We believe that the social climate is as important as the academic subjects taught in our classrooms. It is within the safe harbor of caring, compassionate relationships that children and adults are inspired to produce their best work.
4. Valuing diversity
We are committed to ensuring that the diversity of North Oakland is represented in our school -- its students, faculty, and governance. Our learning community seeks to be a dynamic exchange of the perspectives, talents, and ideas of all its members. Students, parents and faculty are encouraged to draw on, value, and respect the richness of their own and each other's cultures and histories, together with those of other communities
5. Connections to the world
Our school seeks to bring the world into the classroom and the classroom into the world to create a vital exchange between the two. When children connect what they learn to the world they live in and the problems they face, they come to see their lives in a new way.
6. A commitment to equity
Our school believes that all children can learn at a high level and that any child's intellectual and social growth can be developed through practice and effort. Race, culture, income, and ethnicity will not be predictors of achievement. Instead, our school holds uncompromisingly high standards for all of its students, while providing active and flexible support to ensure their success.
7. Families' contributions
Families are their children's first and most important teachers. They create the bridge between the culture that children bring from home to the one they create at school. Parents and caregivers understand their children -- their passionate interests, their character, and their learning styles. When they share their wealth of knowledge with teachers both are better able to support children's social, academic, and intellectual growth.
8. Respect for teachers and teaching
Our teachers bring a deep understanding of subject matter, children and their learning, and the craft of teaching. We respect their knowledge and support their growth and development as professionals and learners.
9. Creativity
Our school seeks to be a place where learning is graced with the creativity and inventiveness of children. Art in all its forms -- painting, dance, music, drama, poetry, and storytelling -- are routes for children to examine, interpret, and render the world. Art is a tool of the imagination. But it is also a vehicle of the intellect that allows children to demonstrate and construct their knowledge across the disciplines.
10. Teaching for understanding
In our school, teachers seek to design thought-provoking tasks that call on students to demonstrate a deep understanding of important subject matter. Using various forms of inquiry that engage their curiosity and wonder, students ask probing questions, conduct research, test their theories, make inferences, connect what they learn to the real world, and ultimately, apply their understanding on their own.
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