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Our Vision
The Experiential School of Greensboro is an approved charter school by a collaborative of educators who possess an unwavering commitment to renew public education. Our team is composed of experienced and energetic educators ready to engage students, teachers, families, and communities in NC to address educational challenges for th
e public good. Public schooling is riddled with standardization, pre-packaged, scripted curricula and high-stakes testing which stifle creativity, limits what “counts” as knowledge, and positions students as passive consumers of knowledge. Educational reforms that enforce standardization paradoxically press schools into one-size-fits-all methods while expecting to serve a diverse student body. Caught in this impossibility, students are denied the imaginative, individualized, active, and affirming learning experiences they need. In contrast to seeking one magic bullet to eliminate or standardize the complex reality of schooling, our solution embraces it. We believe in children’s innate intelligence, curiosity, creativity, and wonder, and we envision a school that harnesses those characteristics, positioning children as active knowers and teachers as facilitators of production. Inquiry-based, multi-modal learning experiences encourage children to explore their passions and work actively with their community, allowing them to acquire basic academic skills and content knowledge (meet standards) while empowering them as deeply engaged learners and socially conscious citizens. Grounded in a progressive vision of education, we want to concretely transform the schooling space and experience for local families. We see school as a playground for creativity, inquiry, and wonder, therefore wish to create opportunities that allow students to fully invest themselves in owning and engaging in their learning. We aim to change what is seen as schooling, where learning happens, how teaching happens, and the relationships that develop from these shifts in thinking. We foresee structural changes where resources flow differently, communities are empowered, and students become curriculum innovators. We aim for deep human engagement, reconnecting students and teachers with their learning and community through creative inquiry-based experiential education. Our challenge is to make Greensboro known for it’s k-12 institutions just as it is known for its colleges and universities. Our challenge is to deter the intellectual flight that takes place once individuals graduate and to establish thriving learning communities that invigorate a replenishing economy. Our focused intervention is for downtown Greensboro and its neighboring communities to dovetail with the existing development taking place. In 2001 a school was planned as part of the development renewal of Center City and the Greenway. That idea never gained any traction until now. We want to bring the idea of a k-12 school downtown to fruition. We envision a school that engages the city, and where the city engages students through the school. Context for our Solution
With this charter we envision a progressive/democratic k-8 school with an urban farm and hopes to expand to 12th in downtown Greensboro. Our school would serve as an intellectual and experiential hub for students, teachers, communities, local colleges and universities, schools, and organizations, as well as nationally. Our school nurtures local partnerships with museums, community organizations and businesses in order to secure an inclusive, creative, and innovative environment and culture. Developing these partnerships is essential to the uniqueness of the learning environment at this school. It is one where students would develop transferable research skills to their lives and through these inquiry projects the world outside resides in conducive spaces where it can be deeply studied and explored. By being downtown, the school would have access to the everyday learning that occurs in the thoroughfare of downtown with the multitude of people that travel its intersections. The curriculum expands with a children’s museum, a historical museum, a public library, train depot, arts museum and galleries, and a multi-university campus (Union Square Campus, a joint venture between University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC Agricultural and Technical State University, GTCC and Cone Health System) literally within a few blocks radius
The Experiential School of Greensboro admits students of any race, color, gender, sexual orientation, ability, national and ethnic origin, and religion to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school and does not discriminate in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.
