The Smith School

WHAT WE BELIEVE We believe in the power of good teachers to awaken the latent potential of all our students to succeed academically, to grow emotionally, and to overcome with success the various challenges each day brings. We believe in the essential value of alternative education, and in our consequent responsibility to adapt, to respond, to innovate, and to be flexible, in addressing the needs of our students and their families. We believe in a school environment that is, and that students know to be, safe, structured, fair, and exclusively dedicated to education. We believe in the absolute incompatibility of our values with prejudice, bias, or discrimination of any kind, and in the school's responsibility to act accordingly at all times. We believe that the critical moment of education takes place in the classroom, between the students and their teachers; and that therefore, the school should bring all of its resources and support to make the classroom moment succeed. We believe that principled and informed selectivity in student admissions creates a uniquely diverse and tolerant student body.