Philosophy and Vision
Eden Park Academy is an open-enrollment charter school. As a charter school, we are a public school approved by the State Board of Education. We receive the same state funding and we have the same accountability to the State Board of Education and the State of Texas as every other public school.
Eden Park Academy was chartered in 1998 to provide a unique and additional opportunity to address the educational needs and desires of the children and families in southern Travis and northern Hays counties. We envisioned a unique and excellent curriculum that incorporated life skills training for a changing world. Our intent is to create a learning community in which individual achievement is measured against standards of excellence defined personally, not collectively.
Our belief in educating the whole child, achieved through the commitment of a dedicated, caring, and experienced faculty in an environment that embraces individual differences, makes us unique to this area.
We look ahead to a 21st century that requires workers literate in multiple forms of media and ways of thinking and communicating. It requires workers who can set aside their differences, both personally and professionally, and work together toward common objectives. They will need to be flexible and able to change jobs and careers. They will need to be skilled in using advanced technologies, and they will need to be lifelong learners. They will need courage and integrity. They will need to be able to gather information from a variety of sources, weigh the credibility of those sources, and reach their own conclusions. They will need the self-confidence and wisdom to construct their own meaning when deluged with information. Not only will they meet the state's goals for performance and achievement, but they will be able to demonstrate additional skills and talents not routinely measured by standardized assessments.
EPA believes that learning occurs when:
- students construct meaning
- students see connections between what they learn and the real world
- students are actively engaged in purposeful tasks
- activities are integrated and meaningful
- students work individually and as members of a group .students are expected and encouraged to learn
- students internalize that what they learn and do in school makes a positive change in the community
- students have an individual plan, and support is an intrinsic part of the educational program
- students are supported with coaches, mentors, and/or advocates .all students have advanced learning opportunities
- all essential learnings are described with outcomes and standards, and are assessed through formative and summative performance activities.
To this end, EPA has created a unique learning system that provides an opportunity to innovate and explore, to be at the cutting edge of educational reform, and to lead our schools and our community into the 21st century. Parents, teachers, administrators, board members, business leaders, and students are and will continue to work to establish both the tangibles and the spirit of this new approach to learning.
VISION AND MISSION
The primary focus of Eden Park Academy is the well being of the children of our community. We envision our school as a purposeful, living laboratory, operating in a caring, supportive, and closely watched environment. We are unique in the following ways:
- additional focus on individualized, personalized learning provides flexibility for those who either experience difficulty in the traditional learning environment or who want to direct their own education;
- community service roles for the students which weave the community and school in the educational enterprise;
- extended school hours to enhance learning and meet the needs of families through the Open Door Program;
- offering technology opportunities to students to prepare them for the 21st century;
- encouraging educators and students to be more innovative.
Eden Park Academy's mission is to develop students who are competent, confident, productive, and responsible young adults who possess the habits, skills, and attitudes to succeed.
EDUCATION - A COMMUNITY EFFORT
Our vision is driven by the values of individual responsibility, personal mastery, personal integrity, self-esteem, shared responsibility, and community. EPA seeks to achieve a balance between the individual and the group, between quality of outcome and the process, between the need for work and play, and in order to be responsive to its members and the community, it must be flexible. We strive to be both self-examining and self-changing while continuing to hold fast to the values set forth above.
We believe that education is a community enterprise. We have intentionally incorporated parents into the school structure (Board of Trustees and Eden Park Advisory Council) and expect our parents to partner with us in the teaching/learning process.