Our Philosophy.

A school should be designed for its children. The Chandler School is designed to consider each student’s comfort and happiness within his/her educational environment to address each student’s learning difference. This will free each student’s focus towards setting and achieving his/her own personal educational goals thus, allowing him/her to progress towards future educational achievements and dreams.

Each child has unique talents and areas to make improvements in. Holistic education requires that we know a child’s strengths, so we may encourage him/her to use those strengths to aid in his/her educational process. Understanding the exact nature of his/her difficulties and how to best maximize the student’s strengths allows us to teach student coping strategies to promote success in the classroom. In conjunction with coping approaches, students require specific training and basic skills, which are the tools he/she use to develop that sense of confidence and competence as they progress academically.

Each child is born with potential and a distinct set of experiences that makes them unique individuals. At the same time, they are a member of the human family with certain basic physical, emotional, and spiritual needs shared with their family, school, and community. A school should strive to promote the growth of healthy students through innovative academic programs, while recognizing individual social needs. A welcoming and secure environment provides a solid foundation and stable framework so that each child may enjoy learning as well as the interaction of other students who share the same educational goals. A child’s school and teachers play a distinct role as each student develops from dependent children into self-reliant adolescents and adults with resilience.

A major part of our philosophy is to put children in an environment that fosters creative, independent thinking and promotes risk taking. By creating this environment, we provide a healthy educational atmosphere where students are free thinkers and not afraid to make mistakes. Children learn and grow through understanding themselves and their place in the world around them. This understanding is achieved by keen, ordered observation, problem solving and critical thinking, which we call “intellectual functioning.” As the world has adapted over the last 20 years and we have witnessed all that technology has brought to our society, it is essential that we give our students the greatest gift of all - the ability to think for themselves!

~ Dana Blackhurst, Director of Education