SANDWICH COMMUNITY SCHOOL INC
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Mission Statement
We believe learning is a challenging and joyful pursuit which calls on each individual's talents and interest, builds a will and an ability to think critically and creatively, and promotes appreciation of the interconnectedness of people and places. At The Community School, we support students within a caring and respectful community where students and teachers collaborate in small, often integrated classes, on our farm and in our forests, to build healthy local human and ecological systems that contribute to a sustainable planet. In preparation for college and meaningful work, students learn by doing, develop an ethic of stewardship, and solve real-world problems while growing as leaders.
About This Cause
Founded in 1989, The Community School is a private, non-sectarian, co-educational day school serving students in grades 6 to 12. We are fully accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). Our students are largely motivated young people from towns in central New Hampshire and western Maine, who come to us because they crave connections–to people and places, to their learning, and to the broader world. Most come from families without financial resources or advanced education. We immerse ourselves in the very real work of learning through doing, of tackling problems that are affecting us all, on micro and macro levels. For this to be relevant, impactful, and truly useful to all involved, our model is largely integrated, blurring artificial boundaries between subjects and skills. By combining water and soil sciences, physics, chemistry, engineering, botany, aquaponics, and horticulture with advanced maths and introductory construction technologies, along with daily work in critical skill and disposition development, social justice understanding, extensive reading, and history, our students are tackling problems around climate change, economic parity, and social justice. Currently, we’re addressing these issues through project work to establish regional food security; to build stronger individuals and communities through supporting the basic human needs of food and shelter; and to develop scaleable regional models of sustainability and hope which can be shared throughout largely poor and rural parts of our country. This philosophy might be uncommon but is increasingly appreciated as essential to a vibrant and relevant 21st Century education. Think about how top colleges now seek their best and brightest: Trinity’s checklist for their admissions application readers contains the characteristics we’re nurturing here at TCS: curiosity, empathy, openness to change, ability to overcome adversity, risk taking, delayed gratification. Olin’s required two-day building challenge interview looks a lot like our integrated math and science class, focusing on problem solving and collaboration to bring to life science and math concepts while tackling real problems. MIT’s Maker Portfolio shares qualities of our new portfolio system, designed to have students showcase and reflect, over time, on their growth in areas above and beyond traditional academics, including critical thinking and dispositions. Yale includes the option to submit a short video on the prompt describing, “A community to which you belong and the footprint you have left.” While we’re maintaining The Community School’s founding commitment to hands-on, real-world learning, we’re definitely making sonic shifts to a completely modern way of educating the generations who will solve the myriad problems of our fine world. For the past 15 years, 100% of our graduates have been accepted at their first choice colleges, including such schools as Emerson College, Bard College, University of NH/VT/MA/ME, Penn, College of the Atlantic, Clarkson, Ithaca, Simmons, BU, and more. We believe that assessment and evaluation are tools to help learners plan, grow, and to record that growth. To that end, we assess in many ways–from extemporaneous conversations to formal presentations; journaling or lab notes to annotated plan; pencil and paper tests to problem-based projects. Students learn to assess themselves and to trust their own insights rather than to rely fully on extrinsic observation. Areas assessed include specific subject content and understanding; abilities to use skill sets to solve problems or do something; dispositions; and critical skills: leadership, creative thinking, organization, problem solving, communication, ownership, and critical thinking. Evaluations are narrative. We do not use a traditional alpha-numeric system, but instead note on individual transcripts whether a student has met basic class criteria (Pass), has done so in an exceptionally vivid way (Pass with Distinction), has marked some impressive personal growth (Pass with Personal Honors), has not met basic expectations in the most half-hearted of ways (Pass with Concern), or has failed to meet even basic expectations (Fail). We neither assign grade point averages nor rank our students, not only because it isn’t possible to translate our narrative system into letters and numbers, but because we, at our core, do not believe in ranking. We are happy to offer individual narrative recommendations for scholarship consideration, college course prerequisites, or in other areas which typically rely on standardized norms. As part of our mission of local stewardship, we believe in bringing awareness to the availability and need for locally-raised food. For almost a decade, The Community School has been a social destination, serving up weekly Farmers’ Table lunches and summer dinners made from the most lush and delicious local foods we can find, supporting not only our own farm but more than 70 local food producers. We believe that nutritious and delicious foods raised by people, not corporations, should be a right and not a privilege. Our meals are served on a by-donation basis, with few notable fundraising exceptions: our annual On the Banks of the Bearcamp Music and Smoked Meat Fest and Slumgullion Dinners. As part of our over-all efforts to build food awareness, students and staff preserve the local harvest to be shared with the community through the colder months when we still crave that particular freshness but can’t nip out to our gardens to find it! Food is integral to our school programs, with students growing and tending seedlings, caring for our birds and animals, planning for pasture rotation, using the sciences of breeding to manage our animal reproduction, and understanding the fundamentals of four-season growing in the Northeast through building of a bioshelter. Local food production is one antidote to the complex issue of global climate change. When the old Perkins Farm was purchased by The Community School, the historic property was immediately put under conservation easement, with only a small percentage of buildable land left out for expansion. The easement allows agricultural uses, including the construction of farm-related structures, like our new farm stand or animal housing. We maintain trails for public use, permit hunting and fishing (though the areas directly surrounding the school house are posted as a reminder to hunters that kids may be out and about), and encourage animal trackers, Nordic skiers and other winter enthusiasts to enjoy the property. The easement does restrict recreational, non-farm related motorized vehicles–atvs, snow machines, and the like–from the fields and forests. We currently have just under 340 acres, 316 of which are protected in perpetuity. Local conservation organizations have determined that our parcels are essential to a vital movement protecting a mosaic of habitat between the Ossipee and Sandwich Ranges, allowing wildlife to move freely between two wild zones and minimizing the dramatic destruction of natural resources by regional development. The grow/cut cycles we’ve established help to maximize the potential for species’ health and protection. Properly managed field borders increase plant diversity and the availability of food sources, such as seeds and insect prey, for Bobwhite quail, rabbit, wild turkeys, fox and many other birds and mammals. Field borders that are part of a network of habitat which included forested areas, grasslands, and a variety of crops are likely to attract a wider range of wildlife. Because our field edges have reached a peak efficiency for the type of habitat we’re cultivating, over the next three years we’ll be doing some work to cut back the edges; do comprehensive mowing; plant native edibles, like elderberry; maintain our young heritage apple orchard; transplant native low bush blueberries into our spent gravel pit; and work on timber stand improvement cuts. In late 2010, a group of active citizens with deep roots in the Bearcamp River Valley banded together to purchase the Beaver Brook Parcel owned by local farmer, Bob Floyd. The land was donated to The Community School, which will act as its steward in perpetuity. This rich habitat, with frontage on Routes 25 and 113, is home to many species of interesting plants and animals, and adds to the protected land forming a natural by-way for migration between the Ossipee and Sandwich Ranges. The terms for use of this land remain consistent with TCS’ agricultural easement on the Perkins Farm. Our school sign, a beautiful timber frame built by the Varney family, holds pride of place along the road side on the Beaver Brook Parcel. For years now, we have partnered with NRCS to tackle conservation projects which improve our land, while providing habitat for native flora and fauna. We clear trails, make timber stand improvements, mow our fields, plant native species to tempt wildlife (who share with us), build bird and bat houses, and reclaim spent sections of terrain. Some of this work is subcontracted by professionals, but much of it is done as part of our science curriculum, elective classes, or community service. The students gain a real love of place when they not only watch the patterns of growth and change over time, but work hard to keep Mother Nature in check! White Pine forests account for approximately 260 acres of our property. Students have, through our forestry programs, worked with the state cooperative extension office, local foresters and sawyers, and local universities to identify species, monitor growth and disease, map and rebuild habitat, and harvest wood for use in various school building projects, including a timber frame farm stand classroom and a traditional Piscataqua Wherry water taxi.