Mission
Mission Statement
Students are at the heart of Oak Valley and meeting their needs is our first priority.
I. Academic Excellence
- We expect high-quality work from all students and are committed to helping each student produce it.
- We challenge all students to use their minds well, providing them with the curriculum, instruction, assessment, support and time they need to meet rigorous academic standards.
- Students develop individual academic talents.
- Our core and encore programs engage and tap young adolescents’ boundless energy, interests, and curiosity.
- Students explore important concepts, develop essential skills, and use what they learn in real-world applications.
- Adults in our school maintain a rich academic environment by working in collaboration with colleagues and parents to deepen their own knowledge and improve their practice.
- Knowing that early adolescence is characterized by dramatic cognitive growth, we challenge students to think in more abstract and complex ways.
- Students have a voice in our school posing questions, reflecting on experiences, developing evaluation tools, and participating in decisions.
- Students engage in independent inquiry and learning in cooperation with others. They have time to be reflective and make decisions about their learning.
- Students’ social development includes school-wide citizenship, civility, character education and community service.
- Small learning communities support all students’ intellectual, ethical, emotional and social growth.
- Our comprehensive services foster healthy physical, social, emotional and intellectual development.
- We develop alliances with families to enhance and support the well-being of their children.
- We involve families as partners in their children’s education, keep them informed, involve them in their children’s learning, ensure participation in school-level decision making, and provide access to us.
- All students are in academically rigorous classes staffed by expertly prepared teachers to ensure college readiness.
- Our students use many and varied approaches to achieve and demonstrate competence and mastery of standards.
- All students have equal access to core academic standards.
- Students learn about and appreciate their own and others’ cultures.
- We continually adapt curriculum, instruction, assessment, and scheduling to meet our students’ diverse and changing needs.
- We acknowledge and honor our students’ histories and cultures.
- Members of our community--students, families, staff, partners, volunteers--model expected behaviors through courtesy, civility, positive attitudes, self discipline and lifelong learning.
- Our entire community is involved in shared decision making, to ensure all voices are heard and honored.
- Oak Valley teachers work together to create engaging, thinking curriculum focused on student needs.
- Oak Valley curriculum and instruction continually improves through the use of data analysis, common course assessments, teacher reflection, and articulation within our school, with feeder elementary schools and destination high schools.
- Student performance at Oak Valley is evaluated using standards based assessments. Progress reporting is tied directly to student mastery of academic standards.
- Student success is ensured through support, resources and other alternatives. Oak Valley is a school without failure.
- We use the community as a classroom and community members provide resources, connections and active support.
- We draw upon others’ experience, research and wisdom, and enter into relationships such as networks and community partnerships that benefit students’ and teachers’ development and learning.
- Oak Valley is organized in small learning communities to create an educational environment where students feel they belong to a community that cares about them as a whole person.