Using acquired knowledge of historical and current school finance concepts students will review applicable state, federal and private revenue considerations. Additionally, students will explore funding procedures including computation, accounting, auditing and reporting within the framework of planning, developing, implementing, and evaluating a school budget.
- Teacher: Germaine DiJohn
Ethical School Leadership is leadership based on ethical standards of behavior. Since thoughts lead to action, personal beliefs will be examined as to how a belief may affect leadership. Leadership styles and behaviors are examined and students take and examine the results of validated assessments of their own leadership styles. Students will develop a professional code of ethics and values, and create and model a set of values for a school. The activities of this course are designed around the indicators of leadership standard: “High Performing Leaders act with integrity, fairness, and honesty in an ethical manner.”
- Teacher: William Sommers
- Teacher: Heather White
A survey of information regarding children with special needs including possible causes and characteristics of exceptionalities, educational intervention, available resources, referral processes, and the advocacy role and legislative issues. Regularly scheduled observations of children are required. This course considers children with special needs from a critical perspective, drawing on element of disciplines such as disability studies and social justice. We will approach special needs and disability as an interaction between individual factors (such as the nature and severity of impairment, personal strengths and abilities), and structural factors (such as attitudes of others, abling or disabling environments).
- Teacher: Holli Forrest
This course explores a foundational overview of peace psychology principles focusing on the nature, cause, intervention, and prevention of the determinants of peace. Students will analyze how peace psychology can be applied to a variety of interpersonal settings, and to promote conflict resolution and create non-violent social environments.
- Teacher: Elena Rosemond
Participants will integrate foundational principles and strategies for leadership in the classroom and managing the environment. Among the techniques and topics for managing time and classroom behavior are the four-step passage to abstraction, control of error, ground rules, The Great Period, CORA, fuzzy sequencing, and the use of student notebooks.
- Teacher: Heather White
This is an introduction to the historical, cultural, and philosophical foundations of modern education, public, charter, and private, including Montessori education. Students will reflect upon and critique their own educational experiences and articulate their own beliefs and values about teaching, learning, and schooling. Students will also examine current and historical roles, expectations, stereotypes, and characterizations that define teaching, especially Montessori teaching, as a profession.
- Teacher: Julie Small
This course is intended to offer a foundation in fundamental arithmetic and geometry concepts and skills. It is intended for students planning to work with preschool and elementary children. Topics include numeration, operations, fractions and decimals, powers and multiples, descriptive geometry, equivalence, area and volume, graphing, problem solving, math integration, history of numbers and mathematics, and basic number theory.
- Teacher: Miriam Magre Loren
How did language come to be? Are we shaped by our words, or do we shape words to fit our understanding of the world? Beginning by looking at what defines “language,” this course introduces the study of human language, explores the history and development of human language, language families, and language relationships. We will look at how language changes over time as well as other key topics in the field.
- Teacher: Monica Johnson
This foundational course introduces and develops a frame of assumptions for strengths-based philosophy, as well as creates a framework for dealing with students from a strengths perspective. Originating from the fields of positive psychology, this course will familiarize students with elements of Seligman’s theory of Positive Psychology, Clifton’s Strengths perspectives, and Purkey’s Invitational Theory. Students will develop a new paradigm that will provide a differentiated lens to observe and evaluate students. The underlying assumption being that all students have talents and potential strengths that can provide a mechanism for performance excellence. Leaders are charged with assisting students in the discovery, development, and application of these strengths
- Teacher: Ivette Kestenbaum