The early childhood and elementary years represent the critical window of time for early identity formation.  All individuals who interact with our youth during this time present critical models supporting the limitless potential of their future.  Therefore, at Serendipity, we do not take for granted the gravity of hiring the right people and creating the right environment within which each student will uncover their interests, talents, motivations, and passions. 

In the “nest” of Serendipity, we strive to build a safe, warm, nurturing, inclusive atmosphere so that when it comes time for students to leave us, they are confident, self-assured, joyful, resilient, and kind.  We do this in a number of ways:

• Keeping total student enrollment and student-to-teacher ratios low providing a more personalized, attentive atmosphere
• Unifying our staff regarding our core values: we take the time to see and celebrate each child
• We build on the question of “who am I?” to “how do I engage with my community?” and “what is our legacy?”
• An expectation that learning is doing, messy, open-ended, and collaborative
• A balanced and diverse curriculum with equal importance on developing the whole child, including the reader, writer, scientist, artist, engineer, musician, athlete, and friend within.

Discovery permeates all aspects of our work at Serendipity.  Discovery, wonder, exploration, and inquiry have been proven to be key components of long-term retention, self-awareness, connections, transference, and application.  By prioritizing a learning environment of discovery, we put learning in the hands of each student and challenge their engagement with learning on a personalized level.  We don’t simply want them to remember or understand.  We want them to analyze, evaluate, and create: higher level tasks that answer the following questions:

• What happens when students are asked to create or produce something new?
• What happens when students are asked to articulate, justify, and defend a point of view, opinion, decision, or argument?
• What happens when students are asked to discriminate, differentiate, contrast, question, or criticize?

Belonging is not just a happy accident.  Community needs to be intentionally designed, carefully monitored, and frequently assessed.  We invest in community because we believe in the fundamental nature of humans as social beings with a greater call to serve each other and serve our world.  Strong communities have one thing in common: a sense of purpose.  And within a community, each member understands or strives to understand their role and how it contributes to the community’s sense of purpose.  The reciprocal and symbiotic nature of a community as it works toward its purpose values the contributions of each member while elevating the group’s goals above the individual goal. 

At Serendipity, our purpose is to uphold and live out our mission.  Our students are at the heart of our mission and, as they come to discover that they matter and that they can, they see that they, too, preserve their own value and each other’s value, experiencing and perpetuating a sense of belonging.

We do this through:

• Play
• Social emotional learning
• Service learning
• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice
• Interaction with nature and outdoor education
• Whole school events
• Cross-grade activities
• Community events
• Weekly assemblies
• Buddy program