Culture & Community
Our Approach
At Two Rivers, we are guided by the motto: “We are crew, not passengers.” Building a sense of crew means students are fully seen, understood, and valued, and learn to fully see, understand, and value others. This enables them to be active participants in making their community a place where everyone can learn and achieve excellence.
What Makes Our Community Unique?
In crew, you have different people that you can connect to and relate to… they know the struggles of virtual learning. You get to play games with each other. You get to share things with each other. It’s really like a community that you can go to every morning, even if you are not having a good day. You can still go and enjoy yourself.
-Devyn, 6th grade
[Her teachers] love on our daughter. They have a heart of her intelligence. They foster a culture of help and assistance. They give their everything to her. I can tell. I can feel it. I can see it. They know her. We are their number one fans!
-Manon, parent
The Two Rivers approach to teaching and learning means hand-on instruction. We have seen that students are most engaged in their learning when they are working to solve a real-world problem. At Two Rivers, we’ve designed a curriculum that integrates literacy, science, and social studies in multi-week module projects that grow their curiosity and character, build problem-solving and critical thinking, and develop strong foundational skills and knowledge across multiple subject areas.
-Ms. McKenzie, Middle School Science Teacher
Whole-Child Approach and Scholarly Habits
At Two Rivers, we believe that how children learn is as important as what they learn, and that knowing the children we teach – individually, culturally, and developmentally – is as important as knowing the content we teach.
Along with our rigorous, project-based curriculum, students at Two Rivers learn and practice the Scholarly Habits.
- I know myself
- I am independent and resilient
- I act with integrity
- I show compassion and embrace diversity
- I can connect and collaborate
Community Meeting
Community Meeting is a tradition at the Two Rivers. It is an opportunity for crews to join together as a cohort to celebrate each other and share learning through songs, activities, questioning, and fun. It is an essential part of our school culture as it builds on the social/emotional character development work that we do in Crew.
What is Crew?
Crew is both a culture throughout the school and a structure within each school day that allows every student to connect with a small group of peers and an adult advisor or ‘crew leader’ for the purpose of building relationships and strengthening knowledge and skills of Two Rivers Habits of Character and Scholarship, known as Scholarly Habits.
Why Crew?
We believe that every child should belong to a tight-knit family in which they feel known, respected, valued, and supported in becoming effective learners, ethical people, and contributors to a better world. At TR, that’s your Crew. Crew is part of the way we are building a culture of inclusiveness at TR where students feel valued by every member of the school community and develop the social skills to be responsible and compassionate members of society.
Somos El Barco
Our school song, Somos El Barco, means “we are the boat” in Spanish. The words of the song represent the characteristics we want to build in our students and our community — curiosity, exploration, bravery, collaboration, and thoughtfulness.
