Changing public education by emphasizing creativity and utilizing a fully inclusive model that educates the whole child
Essential Elements Video Podcast
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Our Four Pillars
Empathy
We believe in empathy because it's essential in students' cognitive development to have the opportunity to learn how to identify with someone different from themselves.
Community
Community is a call for students to recognize that they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Schools are intentionally placed within a larger community context and take full advantage of the resources that a community has to offer.
Balance
We believe in offering balance in education, focusing on the social-emotional and character development of students as well as the cognitive and academic. We believe in a blend of humanities, math, science, art, and technology to create a complete educational experience
Thinking
thinking encourages students to focus on depth of knowledge rather than breadth of knowledge and to develop higher-order cognitive skills that focus on ways of thinking and learning rather than rote memorization.
Our Vision
We believe all students have the right to high-quality educational experiences that develop their unique needs and passion.
Our Mission
The Mission of the Partner Schools is to change public education by emphasizing creativity and utilizing a fully inclusive model that educates the whole student through our core values of Empathy, Community, Balance, and Thinking.
Adjunct Instructors
Elements operates an adjunct instructor program, hiring working professionals who teach alongside a teacher of record to provide additional instruction that is more specialized in specific fields connected to the school's lens of learning. Adjuncts are not certificated teachers but rather professionals who teach one or two classes per week around a particular and more highly specialized course. The adjunct instructor program allows students and staff to stay up to date around issues and practices within a professional discipline and gives students access to real-world learning by someone who is actively working in a specialized field daily
Next Move Internship Program
Elements supports the Next Move Internship program with Tacoma Public Schools. Every junior at the Partner Schools participates in an Intro to Internship course in the Fall and an embedded internship experience in the Fall, connected to their pathway of study at the school. Through a curriculum created in partnership with Tacoma Public Schools, every student completes their high school and beyond plan in preparation for graduation.
BRIDGE Program
A bridge is a "near-peer" support with a uniquely identified skill within a particular area and volunteers to provide specific support for a student or group of students who need additional help in that area. It is common for a student to need the support of a bridge in one class and provide support as a bridge in a different class. The bridge program is built on an asset-based model of targeted support as opposed to a deficit-based model. Near-peer tutoring programs have found that the benefits extend beyond the student being tutored
Mentorship
Elements produced a framework for mentor group at the partner schools. The core of the student's relationship with the school and their family is through the mentor group. The mentor group consists of 18-25 mentees who typically stay with their mentor for their entire time at a partner school. Through the guided discussion of social problems through the lens of shared values, students develop a framework for meaning-making in the context of community (Vygotsyk, 1978). The mentor groups meet weekly as a group and individually with student and mentor to set and monitor academic goals based on a student's classes, long-term goals as part of their post-high plan, and socio-emotional goals stemming from the student's reflection and experience.
