Programs

The Community School’s program blends college preparatory academics with applied learning, often in multidisciplinary topics. Many classes apply lessons to real problems on the school’s 310-acre farm or in the surrounding community. Learning to do community service or to participate in weekly School Meeting are as important as mastering traditional academic subjects. Longterm projects such as restoring the school’s fields to productive use may involve the entire school and a variety of disciplines.

The program includes four elements: academics, essential skills, resources, and projects.

Academics
Students must obtain 21.75 credits to earn graduation. These follow fairly standard requirements for college entrance: 4 credits in English; 3 credits each in math, science and social studies; 2 credits in a foreign language; 1 credit each in vocational/home economics, physical education, and technology; ½ credit in the arts; and ¼ credit in health. In addition, students must complete 150 hours, one full credit, of community service and 150 hours of work on an independent senior project.

Essential skills include topics we think are necessary for success in the 21st century: Understanding of democratic process; appreciation of cultural diversity; facility with maps and geographic information; experience with creative and inventive thinking; skill in teamwork and problem solving. Resources in our program include the immediate school, the Doris L. Benz library, our shop, kitchen, geographic information systems, computer studio, 234-acre working forest, and 4-acre organic vegetable garden. The program also visits private forests, state and federal forests and wild lands, nearby communities, Boston, New York, and Washington, DC. Our comparative forestry program has taken students to Monteverde, Costa Rica, and the northern Bohemia town of Litvinov in the Czech Republic.

Projects involve students and groups of students in long term applications of their learning. Students help manage our white pine forest and have tracked its health for more than 10 years in a University of New Hampshire air pollution study. Students have literally changed the face of the earth in our gardens, turning barren fallow fields into extensive vegetable, herb, and flower gardens. Students have developed our geographic information systems program into a series of maps for school and community use.

Block Classes
History, social studies, biology, chemistry, environmental studies, physics, philosophy, technology, health, PE, art, shop, and home economics are presented in a block schedule. Each block lasts for three months. Blocks may integrate more than one subject, offering partial credit in several areas. The block allows for laboratory work, field trips and problem solving.

Core Classes
Students build skills in English, math, and foreign language classes, scheduled four to five days each week. The work done in these classes helps to enhance skills developed in block time, cover core information in essential subjects, and develop year-long relationships with teachers.

English classes are assigned according to skill level. These courses teach and reinforce basic reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing skills, allow students to immerse themselves in literature, provide opportunities for revision, and give students a consistent forum for their writing.

Math courses will include: pre-algebra, algebra I, geometry, algebra II/trigonometry, advanced math/precalculus, and calculus.

Foreign Language classes will include: French I, II, III, and IV; Spanish I, II, III, and IV; Latin with Tamworth Learning Circles.

Trip Weeks
This year we offer a trip week in October and in May. These trips may be an outgrowth of a block class but will be open to others. They range from canoeing to hiking, community service to city travel to historical exploration.

Stewardship
Stewardship classes are held once a week and rotate every two months. These enrichment classes often fill in credit needs such as health, PE, shop, music. Community members and students occasionally lead a stewardship class.

Art
In addition to block, core, and stewardship classes, all students take an art class once a week for an hour all year long.

Grading at the Community School is done on a Pass/Fail basis. A Pass with Honors grade indicates exceptional commitment or major learning breakthroughs.

The Community School does not compute grade point averages or class rank. Students are graded non-competitively. Multi-aged classes allow students to progress at their own speed. Frequent evaluations describe the information, skills and behavioral expectations of the course and specifics as to the student’s achievements and needs. Copies of these are presented in the college application.

Classes at the Community School range from 8 to 12 students in size. Four fulltime teachers and eight part-time teachers provide specialists for every facet of the curriculum. The staff also includes a business manager, librarian, garden manager and head of school. A community nurse fills out the staff. Each student chooses a fulltime teacher as his or her advisor. Advisory groups meet daily to talk, do daily chores, and plan group activities.

Extensive travel, numerous field trips and long workshop classes are designed for students who are highly motivated and self-disciplined. The school does not provide any special services. Tutoring is sometimes arranged on a private basis.

A unique feature of our program is our emphasis on the arts, contemplating nature, and community based learning.

Academic Excellence
Learning is the doorway to the wonders of culture, the natural world and community. Every student should hear the poetry of the ancients. Each one should trace the routes of the first explorers and learn the names of a dozen trees. These experiences in youth are the tinder that kindles a lifelong curiosity and delight in learning.

The Community School faculty strives to help every student learn to speak articulately, to write clearly, to read voraciously. We want every student to feel capable in math and science. Every youngster will be familiar with the U.S. Constitution, its history and its role in a modern democracy. Every student will be well schooled in world geography, cultures, literature and art. In addition to a strong foundation in traditional academics, Community School students explore a number of Essential Studies. Every student performs 150 hours of community service. Students travel extensively, learning how to learn anywhere in any condition. Classes call on students to work as a team, to think creatively, and to solve real problems in their communities. A weekly School Meeting teaches students how democracy works and how they may participate effectively in a democratic society.