Guiding Values

QUALITY EDUCATION IS THE KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL FUTURE

• Education plays a key role in cognitive development, which has lasting effects through adulthood.
• Education is mental exercise. If you don't use it, you will lose it.
• Students develop good, lasting habits through education.

STRENGTHS-BASED SERVICES

• Every student has strengths and interests, as well as challenges.
• Strengths and interests must be used as tools to overcome challenges.

PEOPLE DO WELL IF THEY CAN

• Everyone wants to do well, but some need support in being able to do well.
• Behavioral change results from identifying and removing obstacles to positive behavior.

CULTIVATING OPTIMISIM

• Each student deserves a hopeful, optimistic vision of his or her future.
• A history of disappointing school performance can be reversed.

COLLABORATION

• Positive results are more likely when a student's scholastic achievement is guided by a collaborative process involving:
  • The student
  • The student's family/sources of support
  • A multidisciplinary, multi-perspective team of professionals

CULTURAL COMPETENCE

• We respect the values, preferences, beliefs, culture, and identity of each student and family we serve.
• Each family's culture, values, and beliefs inform the services they are provided.

UNDERSTANDING THE NEEDS OF THE YOUTH

• We are committed to utilizing strategies that respect and address, the following critical youth needs:
  • Desire and need for independence and independent identity;
  • Peer group identification;
  • Mentoring relationships with adults;
  • Developmentally relevant programs.