Cornerstone Learning Community

Our elementary program emphasizes active learning in which students work independently and collaboratively to apply new skills in novel contexts. Learners encounter challenges that transform their curiosity into innovation and their wonder into possibilities. They dive deep into topics through meaningful projects and the development of a wide array of critical thinking skills. Empowered, capable, and confident, students develop a sense of agency that comes from hard work done well.

Our middle years program matches high standards with differentiated instruction to serve diverse learners. Classes are built around traditional subjects as well as engineering, design, and inquiry-based research. During the 2014-15 school year we are completing the requirements to meet the high standards of an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program. IB's Middle Years Program is an excellent philosophical and academic match for Cornerstone's well-established middle school. Through a wide variety of field trips and service projects, students build independence, cognitive ability, and confidence. Students graduate prepared for high school and with an ever growing love of learning.

Cornerstone's farm program is an ongoing partnership with Longview Farms, a family-owned farm in Havana, Florida. The mission of the farm is strongly tied to the acceptance of environmental responsibility and to developing and using creative approaches to meeting those responsibilities. The development of connections to specific local places contributes to the construction of a sense of self that is intimately connected to place and is part of nested communities. The mission of the farm provides an illustration of the interdependence of economic, environmental, and social systems.

Service learning at CLC refers to activities that both provide a real service to the community — meaning they address a demonstrable need — and provide a meaningful learning context with goals, objectives, and measurable outcomes. Because these opportunities may arise unplanned, not all service-learning projects are repeated. Some service learning projects include partnering preschoolers with Alzheimer patients for a musical therapy program, ecosystem restoration projects, state and local lobbying efforts, get-out-the-vote advocacy, and planning, making, and serving food at a local homeless shelter. Service learning begins in preschool with teacher-planned projects and extends through their 8th grade year when students play a much more active role in choosing and planning projects.