Who We Are
Point of Discovery School
Point of Discovery School is a public charter school that serves students in grades 7-12. The fact that we are public means:
- We are a part of the Stevens Point Area School District. Our students have access to the same programs, resources, and extracurricular opportunities as every other student within the school district.
- We are open to all students. The demographics of our student body mirror those at other public schools in terms of educational performance, race, gender, educational background, etc. Every single student would fit in well at PoDS!
- We do not charge tuition.
- Our students take the Wisconsin Forward Exam and ACT Aspire.
The fact that we are a charter school means:
- We are run by an independent governance board that oversees instructional programs and finances.
- We have curricular flexibility that allows us to meet the same educational standards in innovative and creative ways.
- We go out of our way to try new things!
Mission Statement
Point of Discovery School is an innovative 7-12 grade public charter school designed to prepare students for a dynamic future through authentic academic experiences, character development, and community engagement.
- We utilize project-based learning where students are immersed in long-term, deep-dive, interdisciplinary learning expeditions that revolve around compelling topics and themes. Student work throughout the expedition is driven by guiding questions that shape a long-term project that is not only academically engaging, but also is of importance to our community.
- Students regularly engage in fieldwork beyond the school walls, where they are empowered as learners by acting as historians, scientists, artists, etc., thus making connections between their school work and real-world experience.
- We recognize that every area of academic study has multiple perspectives and requires students to seek to understand and be understood. Students not only learn content, but become lifelong learners, ask thoughtful questions, and consider multiple approaches to solving problems.
- Students are explicitly taught what high quality work looks like and learn to persevere through the challenges that come with the process of creating authentic, complex work that displays a high level of craftsmanship.
- We position students as leaders of their own education through frequent reflection, student-led conferences, and passage presentations to both appreciate how far they’ve come and to identify areas for future growth.
How do we approach character development?
- We interweave the Habits of Success into the entirety of school culture to emphasize the importance of character in all aspects of life, so that being a well-rounded person with compassion, integrity, and joy becomes the foundation of the school experience.
- All students are a part of a Crew, where they focus on developing relationships, honing leadership skills, growing their character, and emphasizing the needs of the group over the wants of the individual. Each Crew is a close, family-like community within the broader school.
- Students engage in a series of multi-day adventure experiences that stretch their comfort zones, develop their grit, build their resilience, allow them to experience the satisfaction of doing hard things, and revel in the power of shared experiences.
- We intentionally foster collaboration across grade levels through appropriate experiences.
How do we engage the community?
- We develop leadership skills in all students and provide them with opportunities for authentic leadership. Students play a role on our Governance Crew, in Crew Council (our student government), and in planning and carrying out major events.
- We engage our community through active parental participation and by relying on community experts to come into the classroom to enrich the academic experience and enhance student work.
- All students create high quality projects that are displayed at Celebrations of Learning, which are held at the end of each semester. These events can be held at school, but, as much as possible, we seek to hold them off-site to raise awareness about the work our students are doing and collaborate with community partners.
- Parents and families are actively engaged in our community through volunteer opportunities, engagement at student-led conferences, celebrations of learning, and through parent expeditions, where parents learn and participate in activities alongside their students.
Academics
Our curriculum is incredibly demanding in that it requires students to dive deeply into relevant topics, study complex ideas from multiple perspectives, and produce work that matters to an audience beyond the school walls.
Students are not passive recipients in the classrooms at PoDS. Our goal is not only to engage students in lessons, but to empower them so that they are leaders of their own education. In practice this means that:
- Our classrooms are busy. Students are often moving around, completing tasks independently, collaborating with other students, and participating in discussions.
- We think of our teachers as “Success Coaches,” whose job is to guide and mentor students as they work towards proficiency in their academic classes.
- Students track their own progress towards proficiency on essential learning targets.
- Students lead their own parent-teacher conferences, sharing their best work, discussing their academic progress, analyzing their strengths and areas for growth, and setting goals for the future.
- Our students read and write. A lot. But, the reading and writing that students do is in service of the learning that is required for them to create world-class products for culminating events.
The academic results of our approach speak for themselves. Students who have been with us for multiple years are performing ahead of state averages in all subject areas and on par with, or ahead of, district averages in all subject areas.
Learning Expeditions
As a project-based learning school, learning expeditions are the foundation of all of our work. Students participate in a semester-long intense and focused study of a compelling theme. Most of the work they do in Literacy, Science, and Social Studies will relate closely to the expedition’s theme.
Each learning expedition will include:
- A kickoff that immerses students in the theme
- Experts who can provide instruction and guidance to students
- Fieldwork where students are conducting original research or gathering essential information
- An authentic culminating event that is open to the community
Throughout the semester, students will work on a project on which they will apply all that they have learned throughout the expedition. The project will be authentic in that it will matter to an audience beyond the school walls and seek to make our school, our community, and our world better places.
Each learning expedition will culminate with a Celebration of Learning, where students will showcase the work they’ve done over the course of the semester with their families and the community. Our goal is to have Celebrations of Learning be community events, so that our students’ work can be shared as widely as possible.
Our Grading Practices
- There are three grading categories that each teacher will use. Each category has a range of weight that each category can be given. Each teacher will choose a weight for the category within that range that best fits the needs and style of the class.
- Summative Assessment (50-70% weight)
- These are the projects, tests, quizzes, etc. that serve as culminating assessments of students’ overall learning.
- Classwork (Formative Assessment) (20-40% weight)
- These are the daily assignments, activities, notes, etc. that serve as checkpoints for student learning.
- Students can regularly update, re-do, and re-form their classwork
- Habits (10-20% weight)
- The Habits of Success play a pivotal role in a student’s academic performance, and this category is meant to recognize student achievement and growth on these “soft skills”
- Summative Assessment (50-70% weight)
- We will use learning targets to communicate to students what they are to know and be able to do. For the most part, students' progress towards these learning targets will be the basis for their grade in a class. We use a 5-point grading scale for all learning targets:
- 5 = Mastery - The student demonstrates complete mastery over all aspects of the learning target and consistently demonstrates that mastery on assignments, tests, and projects
- 4 = Independent Progress - The student demonstrates progress on the learning target and does not need assistance to do so
- 3 = Supported Progress - The student demonstrates progress with assistance
- 2 = Does Not Meet Expectations - The student does not demonstrate progress, even with continuous assistance.
- 1 = No Evidence Provided - The student has not completed the assignments related to the learning target
Characteristics of Success
Most schools teach character development in some way, shape, or form, but for us, it is embedded in every lesson and interwoven into all we do. Our work is guided by our Character Habits of Success (compassion, integrity, and joy), which are:
- The focus of many Crew lessons. In Crew, students build relationships, develop leadership skills, and focus on showing integrity in all situations and compassion to all, while learning how to exhibit joy in all circumstances.
- Embedded in classroom lessons and semester projects. It is our desire to have students create projects that not only allow them to gain essential knowledge and skills, but also improve the lives of others in their school, the community, and the world.
- Honed through the teachable moments that arise during incidents where student behavior does not meet our expectations.
Students receive feedback on the Character Habits of Success from their teachers, peers, parents, and then use that feedback to develop goals and celebrate successes. It is our aspiration for students to not only get smart, but to get smart to do good in the world.
Our 7 Habits of Success
Our Habits of Success are the backbone of our work on all four dimensions of achievement. We aspire to have students understand how interwoven all the Habits are and that becoming people who consistently display all seven in their lives will lead to success in any of their chosen ventures.
We provide students with not only academic grades, but also with feedback (from teacher, peers, and self) on their progress on Habits of Success under each Dimension of Achievement.
Each Habit has an overarching learning target that students are striving to achieve and also a series of indicators that allow students to evaluate their progress towards meeting the learning target.
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Curiosity: I am a leader of my own learning and seek to never stop gaining knowledge and insight. |
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Grit: I do my best without giving up, even when something is hard. |
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Character
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Compassion: I show genuine concern for others and take action to assist those in need. |
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Integrity: I am a trustworthy, reliable student. |
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Compassion: I am a positive person who improves the lives of those around me.
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High-Quality Work
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Collaboration: I contribute to a common goal through my words and actions. |
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Craftsmanship: I can complete as many drafts as it takes in order to meet the criteria of craftsmanship and high quality work. |
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Restorative Justice
Restorative justice is an approach to discipline that focuses on repairing harm through inclusive processes that engage all stakeholders. We recognize that most behaviors do more than just break school rules - they cause harm to people, relationships, and our school community. A just response must address those harms as well as the wrong doing. If the parties are willing, the best way to do this is to facilitate a meeting where they discuss the harms and develop a proposed resolution.
This means that we handle student misbehavior very differently than other schools. We recognize that each student and situation is different, so there aren’t any “automatic” consequences to misbehavior. Rather, our teachers and staff draw on one of many available options to use misbehavior as an opportunity for learning. These options include, but aren’t limited to:
- Conferencing with the student one-on-one
- Re-teaching expectations
- Have a Crew Circle give the student feedback and advice
- Having the student perform community service
A student’s behavior may indeed result in a consequence, but consequences are never random and are designed to be a natural outworking of their behavior.
Post-Secondary Readiness
- Designing lessons and projects that require students to collaborate with a variety of their peers.
- Teaching students how to tailor written and oral communication to an intended audience, then requiring students to write and speak to a variety of groups.
- Developing activities that require students to grapple with and solve problems without adult intervention.
- Asking students to adapt their projects and work as circumstances change.