Mission and Vision
Mission
Pelham Lab High School strives to engage and inspire all students in rigorous, challenging study. Inquiry, exploration and research will expand the horizons of students and prepare them practically for the worlds of college and career. All staff members are dedicated to the idea that our students represent unique, holistic models of growth and evolution and that our mutual destination is the path of continued academic success.
Vision
Students learn best when they are challenged to achieve goals that are neither too easy for them nor so difficult as to engender frustration. The learning goal for the students must be adapted to the “just-right” level through careful assessment and observation. Once the goal is set, the student must be supported with his or her cognitive, emotional and social needs and should be supported by teachers and support staff as much as possible.
What makes work challenging and rigorous? Rigor comes in the types of thinking you’re asking a student to undertake. A student can’t be “spoon-fed”, can’t always expect to fill in a blank or choose a multiple-choice answer. As educators we must make sure that we ask questions that engage students and encourage them to think and explore deeply. It is not enough to say that electrons travel around the nucleus of an atom and are negatively charged. We must ensure that our students have the freedom and desire to ask their own questions such as “What keeps that electron doing that?”, “How do we know the electrons move?”
Core Values
EQUITY- We share a commitment to equity in education which has as its foundation the premise that all students can learn and be successful.
COMMUNITY- We are committed to the development of our community and sharing information about our school with students, parents, teachers and community members. Family contact will be early and often and will include outreach via many different methods and media.
CHARACTER- We share a commitment to our personal integrity as well as to others’ integrity by daily practicing the essential traits for success in a civil society: grit, determination, optimism, curiosity and self-control.
CONNECTIONS- We understand that subject areas have a natural tendency to blend and merge and that knowledge and inquiry in one area necessarily informs another. We value crossing barriers between subject areas in order to increase our overall understanding.
COLLABORATION- Teachers, students, administrators and the community work together to create a school of excellence. In the classroom this is modeled with a teacher-as-coach and a student-as-leader approach to education.