Summit Charter School - Cashiers, North Carolina

Seeking Excellence

Phone: (828) 743-5755
Fax: (828) 743-9157

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Summit Pledge

Each day in my words and in my deeds I will do my best to live these seven virtues...

Honesty
Respect
Responsibility
Self Discipline
Compassion
Perseverance
and Giving

Educational Vision | History | Charter School | 4 C's | Policies & Procedures

Summit Charter School
EDUCATIONAL VISION

The connectedness of things is what the educator contemplates to the limit of his capacity...The student who can begin early in his life to think of things as connected...has begun the life of learning.
~ Mark Van Doren, educator

Summit Charter School is a member of the National Basic School Network. The school's educational program is founded on the work of Dr. Ernest Boyer and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. As explained in Boyer's book, The Basic School, the four priorities are: the School as Community, a Curriculum with Coherence, a Climate for Learning and a Commitment to Character. The school is dedicated to this philosophy.

School as Community
In the Basic School, community begins with a shared vision. At Summit Charter School teachers are encouraged to be creative and innovative in their teaching, with the goal toward the full development of the individual student and achievement of high academic standards. Parents are partners: they communicate daily with teachers through their child's Learning Log, serve on an Academic Affairs committee that makes curriculum decisions, and participate in the Summit Family Association, which supports the school's programs.

Curriculum with Coherence
In the Basic School, literacy is the first and most essential goal, and language is defined broadly to include words, numbers and the arts. Students study the traditional subjects of language arts, math, social studies, science and the arts, organized under eight commonalties: The Life Cycle, The Use of Symbols, Membership in Groups, A Sense of Time and Space, Response to the Aesthetic, Connections to Nature, Producing and Consuming, and Living with Purpose. Through such a coherent curriculum, children learn the relationships and connectedness between the various aspects of education and how to apply those relationships to life. Summit is dedicated to high academic standards, measurable outcomes and research-based instructional strategies that work.

Climate for Learning
In the Basic School, every student is encouraged to become a disciplined, creative, well-motivated learner. The Basic School serves the whole child, acknowledging that a student's physical, social and emotional well-being are related to learning. The Climate Committee is composed of teachers who work with the director to assure that a nurturing and supportive learning environment exists for all students. Students are grouped with their age peers in Basecamps, where they pursue integrated studies. Classes are small and geared toward individual attention as well as group projects.

Commitment to Character
The Basic School is concerned with the ethical and moral dimensions of a child's life. The school emphasizes seven core virtues through the curriculum, the school climate, and high expectations for student behavior.

“Our children need to be taught, both at home and in school, the importance of caring, responsibility, respect, trust and family in a time when these values need tremendous reinforcement. Our children need to know that these same values have meaning and relevance in the world which they face everyday--in their families, their classrooms, their communities.”
~ Eunice Kennedy Shriver