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Credits
Freedom, Choices and Responsibility: How Students Earn Credits
Students earn a minimum of 21 and a half credits over four years to meet Maryland State Department of Education requirements. There is some flexibility in how these credits are earned.
Students in each advisory work on a core group of credits at the same time. However, some students may take longer than others to earn a particular credit and some students who work faster and more independently will earn more credits than their peers.
Two afternoons a week students have practical, real life experiences led by the staff and by instructional consultants—local historians, artisans, artists, scientists, environmentalists, contractors etc. These experiences introduce students to a wide variety of skills and interests and provide a backdrop and/or jump start to student projects and research.
Students earn “the right” to choose. Each advisory has its own style, its own decision-making process and its own daily routine. However, all the advisories work in tandem to create a safe, personalized atmosphere based on mutual respect throughout the school. Discipline (such as being sent home or detention) is used rarely. Students who earn the trust of the advisors are given the natural consequence of more freedom in their decision-making about how to spend time. Students who “play” too much get less freedom. In general, wherever feasible, we use a system of natural consequences in which students get a strong sense of how their behavior has affected other people.
At the end of each trimester, students earn credits by presenting a portfolio or collection of work for particular credits. This portfolio may represent work done over one trimester or it may represent work done over an entire two years. For instance, the advisory may complete a group project during the course of several trimesters in the area of Earth Science. Most of the work for Earth Science is completed as part of field trips and two week-long backpacking trips to the Shenandoah National Park. Individual credit is awarded, however, when a student has a sufficient body of work to warrant a credit. For a student who completes all the laboratory experiences and field work and then designs a project about the weather or about pollution in local rivers, this credit may be completed within a few months. For another student whose focus is, for instance, on writing for a newspaper, she may complete the field and lab work, but might not take on a culminating project until the following year. When the advisor and the student agree that the collection of work is ready for presentation, the student makes a presentation at the end of trimester exhibition.
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