K-8 PROGRAM
Our academic program centers on building and encouraging our students' curiosity, compassion, and confidence. Our commitment to educating the whole student attracts a dedicated and outstanding faculty. We take pride in providing individual attention and offering just-right academics to scaffold all students forward in their learning.
EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
The learning environment at Crestmont School is creative, engaging and student-centered.
Crestmont students develop the confidence and ability to ask questions, to arrive at innovative solutions, to forge meaningful relationships with peers of all ages, and to feel connected to and passionate about their education. Crestmont’s staff and parents provide students with the kinds of relationships, expectations, and opportunities that help them thrive at Crestmont and beyond.
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Crestmont’s intimate size and inclusive community offers students a uniquely supportive and effective education. Students feel seen and heard by both their peers and the adults around them. Our teachers respond to students’ individual needs by utilizing a multi-faceted, multi-modal approach that promotes successful learning for all students. Through this environment, Crestmont students advance academically, enthusiastically cultivating new skills and knowledge.
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Because of Crestmont’s cooperative structure, parents have meaningful participation and input into their child’s learning environment. This engagement allows parents greater connection to their child’s education and gives parents the opportunity to both experience and model community engagement, advocacy and belonging.
Progressive Principles
Crestmont’s curriculum is guided by two guiding principles:
1) Crestmont will prepare children to participate and thrive in a diverse and democratic society, and contribute positive change to their communities and beyond.
2) Crestmont will provide a holistic approach that supports children’s cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development.​
Mixed Grade Classes
Crestmont intentionally groups two grades in a class for grades 1-8. Classes mix for a variety of activities to enhance individual learning and promote mentorship.
This multi-grade environment enables:
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Work, play and community across grades
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Mentoring, role models, sharing, cooperation
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Teaching to “learning levels” rather than a “grade level,” which better addresses student needs and the diversity of abilities and ages
Field Studies
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Crestmont embraces the application of learning, research, exploration, and experiential learning through a wide variety of field trips, including overnight trips.
Field studies enable students to:
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Apply their knowledge and skills in a real-world context and a differently structured day
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Develop greater understanding of self, place and subject
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Explore and discover interests
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Have fun!
Community Study
Crestmont values community and social justice. We build student awareness, aptitude and leadership through lessons, activities and experiences focused on community understanding and skills.
Community studies enables students to:
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Develop social, emotional, and cultural awareness and literacy
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Learn how to build and sustain positive and meaningful relationships
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Understand how to be a contributing member of their community
BEST PRACTICES METHODS
Crestmont commits to best practices for teaching and learning, including:
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Small classes with a low student-to-teacher ratio;
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Project-based and hands-on learning;
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A commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive student body and community;
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An integrated social justice curriculum;
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Relevant and meaningful assignments;
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A challenging curriculum that is tailored to students’ individual needs and interests, including supporting different learning styles;
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A non-competitive environment and ongoing, qualitative assessments;
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Utilizing an emergent curriculum;
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Comprehensive support of emotional-social development; Facilitating parent-teacher-student collaboration.
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SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SERVICE LEARNING
Crestmont is committed to teaching in a way that empowers students to grapple with real-world problems, co-create solutions, and engage in practical actions. Our social justice curriculum starts with issues of fairness, investigating the questions:
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What is power and how is it used in the world?
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What power do I have and how do I use it?
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Who is left out of historical accounts? ​
​As our students age, topics transitions into environmental, racial and economic justice issues through learning about social movements and change. These investigations support the development of tools so that allow students to take action in their community.
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Our service-learning program actively involves students in a wide range of experiences benefiting the community. It offers a chance for students to directly apply and make more meaningful what they have learned in the classroom.
VISION FOR GRADUATES
Crestmont graduates are committed to a lifetime of learning, growth, and engaged citizenship. They have secure relationships with those around them. They know their own unique contributions and see themselves as valuable agents of change. They see the connection between diversity and a strong community. They are able to collaborate and work individually. They become both creative and critical thinkers. They are academically prepared for high school as critical and fluent readers and writers, savvy users of technology, and agile mathematicians. They are caring stewards of the earth. They have the academic skills, confidence, and the self-knowledge to navigate the world around them. Crestmont graduates have the capabilities and awareness to get where they want to go, and with which to make the world a better place.
How Crestmont School Benefits Middle School
Students and Prepares Them for High School