About Odyssey School
Our Mission is to prepare students, families, and educators to lead lives of intention and purpose with an authentic sense of self.
Our Vision: Our students, families, and faculty will communicate directly with brave kindness, lead with authenticity, and create positive change with an awareness of the spiritual evolution of the individual, society, and our environment. Through mutual respect and personal responsibility, we will strive to be a strong, diverse, inclusive, and equitable learning community.
We will model educational leadership and innovation.We will teach from a rich curriculum with cultural, developmental, and integrated awareness. We will challenge students and teachers to meet academic and personal goals, to hone lifelong essential learning skills, to cultivate mindfulness, and to embody empathy. We will create and maintain facilities that provide warm, inspiring learning spaces that are well-balanced with access to technology and the natural world. We will expand our learning and service beyond our walls with a local and global reach. Odyssey School members will relate to life with confidence, hope, joy, compassion, creative imagination and leadership.
Our Core Values
Exploring an authentic sense of self, our world, and the relationship between the two
Leading the field of education with dynamic educational philosophy
Honoring the love and accomplishments of learning
Nurturing a safe and inspiring community
Cultivating Life-long learning skills
How we demonstrate our dedication to exploring an authentic sense of self, our world, and the relationship between the two:
- Low-student teacher ratios in every classroom.
- Structuring classrooms of multi-age, continuous progress learning that encourage each child to progress at his or her optimal rate of challenge.
- Incorporating interpersonal and intrapersonal reflection into the context of learning.
- Using the six strands to incorporate a variety of skills, addressing students’ strengths and challenges in multiple learning styles.
How we demonstrate our dedication to leading the field of education with dynamic educational philosophy:
- Engaging students, parents, and faculty in the Integral model of education, which holds within it the holistic paradigm, the spiritual evolution and maturation of the individual, human society, and the greater field of life on the planet.
- Applying Design and Design thinking to solution-oriented and innovative project-based learning.
- Meeting and excelling core competencies including critical thinking and reflection.
- Researching, publishing, presenting best practices for the local and national professional learning community.
How we demonstrate our dedication to honoring the love and accomplishments of learning:
- Creating integrated, meaningful learning experiences in every classroom
- Introducing our Independent Research Projects in Kindergarten through 12th grade, engaging focused, passion-driven mastery of a personal topic of study chosen by each child.
- Providing our students the freedom to explore personal passions.
- Assisting our upper grades students in creating internship and apprenticeship opportunities for real world exploration of disciplines.
- Providing opportunities for public presentation and publication of student work in the local, national, and global community.
How we demonstrate our dedication to developing a safe and inspiring community:
- Creating a school without borders through contextual, experiential learning experiences in real world settings.
- Fostering mentoring relationships between faculty and students.
- Engaging in service learning opportunities.
- Celebrating as a community through annual festivals.
- Teaching students, families, and teachers compassionate communication, collaboration, and mediation skills through contextual learning, class meetings, parent workshops, and professional development.
How we demonstrate our dedication to cultivating lifelong learning skills:
- Educating students, families, and faculties about Odyssey’s nine essential learning skills.
- Cultivating reflective metacognition about the learning process for each child through Six Strands.
- Modeling lifelong learning by faculty and administration.
- Creating leadership opportunities for students to pave the way for their individual path of learning.
