Advising: regular one-on-one meetings between a student and a member of the teaching staff (each teaching staff member has 10-11 advisees). Students learn to articulate their goals and are provided feedback on how to best utilize PSCS.
Advisory: the group of 10-11 students who share the same advisor. Usually multi-aged, Advisories come together three times/week to discuss larger community issues in smaller group setting.
All School Service: when staff and students leave campus for the day to offer service to an area non-profit. Past and present service projects have included Seattle Tilth, Rainier Valley Urban Farm and Wetland, Danny Woo Gardens, Kubota Gardens, and more.
Block Class: a facilitated activity that meets multiple times per week to provide more focus for engaging a topic.
Check-In/Check-Out: daily all-school gatherings at the start of the school day (9-9:10am) and at the close of the school day (3:30-3:40pm).
Community Hours: students are required to be present in community for 1,000 hours per school year (as with all Seattle schools). There are approximately 1,150 hours in a given school year and each PSCS student is accountable to the community when they are absent or late for personal reasons. Students learn over time to call and pre-set their own attendance (tracked through a computerized system). There is also time allotted for each student to work on a project or activity outside of school, off-campus (see Independent Study below).
Field Trip: facilitated off-campus activity.
Flex Days: where we stop regularly scheduled courses and activities and schedule one-off activities for the whole day. Featuring offerings from students, staff, volunteers, alum, etc., these can be either one or two class slots in length, or half or all day. Sometimes Flex Day offerings become classes in later terms.
Independent Study: un-facilitated, off -campus activity that has been pre-approved and furthers a student’s specific goals and interests. Students earn more Independent Study time as they grow through the school.
Individual work: unfacilitated, on-campus activity that arises from a student’s curiosity or goals.
Intensives: facilitated, in-depth investigation into a theme or topic that takes place all day over a period of several days (some past intensives have been Welding, Snowshoeing, The Blues, Disappearing Art, and Comparative Religion).
Seminar: a weekly meeting for students who are at similar stages of development, designed to help them learn and benefit from their experiences at school. Facilitated by members of the staff, seminars take place for new students, middle school-ers, juniors, and seniors.