Our Mission

The mission of the Neighborhood Charter School is to provide a learning environment for all students that demands high educational standards and high levels of parent/guardian involvement and responsibility.  

Our Approach

The NCS effort is grounded in the belief that all children can be successful learners and that parents, guardians, and the local community hold primary responsibility to ensure that all children in their neighborhood school have access to and success in public education. Closely aligned with that philosophy is the belief that a public school should be the meeting place where a socially, racially, and economically diverse area knits its many strands into a single tapestry of community. Our approach has four primary components:

• Involvement of Parents, Guardians and Family: Education impacts both the student and the student's parents/guardians and extended family; at the same time, parents, guardians and family impact each child's educational progress. NCS recognizes the value of parents/guardians and extended family and will work to actively involve family members in their child's learning experience. Through a contract signed with each NCS family and a range of opportunities for involvement, parents and guardians will be motivated and enabled to be full partners in the school.
  Click here to see the family contract. contract
  
  
• Community/Diversity: Public education is the responsibility of all community members and all will be welcome participants in the NCS education process. NCS envisions a dynamic, community-oriented, inclusive school that recognizes and nurtures all human intelligence so that students and staff from varied backgrounds will achieve their full potential. Our neighborhoods are racially and economically diverse and the diversity of our community is one of its greatest strengths. NCS seeks to honor, celebrate, and embrace diversity for the benefit of all students.
  
• Constructivism: Successful schools are focused and grounded in a specific educational philosophy. NCS will be organized around a Constructivist philosophy that recognizes that students learn primarily by direct engagement with ideas and materials rather than through passive transfer of information from books or teachers.
  
• Educational Partnerships: By working closely with educational partners, such as Zoo Atlanta, NCS will offer a focused, consistent, progressive curriculum to meet the highest standards. Zoo Atlanta--located within walking distance of NCS-- has committed to a major partnership under which conservation and environmental themes will be integrated throughout the standards-based curriculum. A Zoo Atlanta representative will sit on the NCS governing board, and educators at NCS and Zoo Atlanta will collaborate to develop and implement a full curriculum based on conservation and zoological themes.

Download the
Charter Contract
(PDF File)

Download the NCS Policy Manual
(PDF Document, 3.8MB)

To view the original charter and appendixes, please click here.