Updated Mission Statement for Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School Ratified

After 14 years of experience running our school, there was a broad consensus amongst the faculty that the original mission statement was stale and did not fully reflect all that we wanted for the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School. At an all-staff retreat in November, 2008, it was decided to revise the mission to more clearly express the actionable goals of the school for educating each of our students. After a five month collaborative effort, consensus was reached on the following updated mission statement, and on May 18, 2009, it was ratified by the Board of Directors.

Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School seeks to provide a supportive and challenging learning environment for middle school students, where teachers foster intellectual development and academic achievement in an atmosphere that celebrates learning as a lifelong pleasure.

We appreciate and understand middle school-aged students. We enjoy the often undervalued creativity and intellectual potential of this age group. We strive to provide an emotionally safe and supportive community, encouraging students to develop their strengths and risk new growth, while pursuing an academically rigorous curriculum. Wherever possible, students learn through experience, allowing them to be engaged in the process of discovery and to see the practical applications of classroom lessons.

Looking beyond the walls of the classroom, we collaborate with local partners to utilize the unique natural and creative resources on Cape Cod, and reach out to global partners to broaden our cultural understanding and knowledge. Our graduates take with them the values of personal responsibility, consideration for others, respect for the environment, academic integrity, creative expression, and perseverance.

The original mission statement was:

The mission of the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School is to foster intellectual development and academic achievement by providing a school centered around challenging interactive learning experiences that consistently bridge traditional disciplines. Employing an interdisciplinary approach which utilizes the unique natural resources on Cape Cod and which are developed and implemented with local resource partners, the school's approach breaks down the boundary between school and community, practical and theoretical. As students develop basic problem-solving skills while studying thematic units focused in large part upon these local resources, they will recognize that real life cuts across disciplines, combines the practical and theoretical, and can be enhanced through education.

Essential to the achievement of this mission is the establishment of a community of learning -- a community built upon the values of personal responsibility, consideration for others, respect for the environment, academic integrity, and perseverance.