Governance Crew

  • Mission: 

    Point of Discovery School is an innovative 7-12 grade public charter school designed to prepare students for a dynamic future through authentic academic experiences, character development, and community engagement.

     What are authentic academic experiences?

    • We utilize project-based learning where students are immersed in long-term, deep-dive, interdisciplinary learning expeditions that revolve around compelling topics and themes. Student work throughout the expedition is driven by guiding questions that shape a long-term project that is not only academically engaging, but also is of importance to our community.

    • Students regularly engage in fieldwork beyond the school walls, where they are empowered as learners by acting as historians, scientists, artists, etc., thus making connections between their school work and real-world experience.

    • We recognize that every area of academic study has multiple perspectives and requires students to seek to understand and be understood. Students not only learn content, but become lifelong learners, ask thoughtful questions, and consider multiple approaches to solving problems.

    • Students are explicitly taught what high quality work looks like and learn to persevere through the challenges that come with the process of creating authentic, complex work that displays a high level of craftsmanship.

    • We position students as leaders of their own education through frequent reflection, student-led conferences, and passage presentations to both appreciate how far they’ve come and to identify areas for future growth.

     How do we approach character development?

    • We interweave the Habits of Success into the entirety of school culture to emphasize the importance of character in all aspects of life, so that being a well-rounded person with compassion, integrity, and joy becomes the foundation of the school experience.

    • All students are a part of a Crew, where they focus on developing relationships, honing leadership skills, growing their character, and emphasizing the needs of the group over the wants of the individual. Each Crew is a close, family-like community within the broader school.

    • Students engage in a series of multi-day adventure experiences that stretch their comfort zones, develop their grit, build their resilience, allow them to experience the satisfaction of doing hard things, and revel in the power of shared experiences.

    • We intentionally foster collaboration across grade levels through appropriate experiences.

     How do we engage the community?

    • We develop leadership skills in all students and provide them with opportunities for authentic leadership. Students play a role on our Governance Crew, in Crew Council (our student government), and in planning and carrying out major events.

    • We engage our community through active parental participation and by relying on community experts to come into the classroom to enrich the academic experience and enhance student work.

    • All students create high quality projects that are displayed at Celebrations of Learning, which are held at the end of each semester. These events can be held at school, but, as much as possible, we seek to hold them off-site to raise awareness about the work our students are doing and collaborate with community partners.

    • Parents and families are actively engaged in our community through volunteer opportunities, engagement at student-led conferences, celebrations of learning, and through parent expeditions, where parents learn and participate in activities alongside their students.