The Connecticut Charter Schools Network

Connecticut Charter Schools - New Haven

Name: Common Ground High School
Location: New Haven
Current grade levels: 9-12
Current enrollment: 100
Opened: 1997

Mailing Address:
358 Springside Avenue
New Haven, CT 06515

Phone and Fax:
(203) 389-0823

Contact:
Joan Gillette, Coordinator

Our mission:

Common Ground High School graduates students with the knowledge, skills and motivation to live healthy, productive and sustainable lives. We do so through authentic learning that develops ecological literacy, academic accomplishment, strong character, and commitment to community.

Common Ground High School offers a comprehensive high school curriculum to prepare students for college and future careers. Through hands-on inquiry, research and investigation, students will develop:

* Academy Accomplishment
* Ecological Literacy
* Commitment to Community
* Strong Character

Students operate a 20 acre urban farm at the base of West Rock Ridge. Raising plants and animals, studying neighborhood social and environmental issues, and investigating the dramatic ridge environment are part of the academic courses. At Common Ground, learning is a daily adventure.

100 students in grades 9 - 12 currently attend Common Ground High School.

Our classes:

Common Ground offers three types of courses. Workshops and seminars meet for one hour each day. Workshops emphasize skill development and seminars involve readings and discussion in a specific content area. Interdisciplinary courses meet for three hours each day and are team-taught.

....Imagine studying literature while you contemplate your relationship to the earth and explore your connections to people around the globe.

....Imagine studying science while you investigate the environmental health of your neighborhood and study the embryology of developing chicks.

....Imagine studying history while you collect oral histories of New Haven and our ancestors and relate these stories to critical developments in American history.

....Imagine studying math while you use trigonometry to chart a course to the West Rock summit, and develop a computer spreadsheet on water flow of an urban river.

Our vision:

Common Ground is where people, connected through their universal needs and aspirations, come together. We envision a school where students' direct experiences lead them to understand the common truths among people rather than the differences which separate them. We envision a school where students use their minds and bodies to connect with human experience on the planet, experiences which transcend time and place.

Our vision is a learning community located in the city on a working farm. This vision is based on the belief that all students deserve and thrive in an active learning context. Authentic instruction based on an inquiry approach challenges the artificial division between city life and life connected to the land. An education at Common Ground will prepare students to understand and pursue stewardship of local and global environments. Their experience will connect students to the basic desires people have to create, to take raw materials in their hands and mold them into new and useful products. Common Ground will provide students with the motivation and skills to meet the current challenges of ecological survival in our time, this land, this city.

For more information, including information about enrolling at Common Ground, call (203) 389-0823.

Since the first charter schools opened in Connecticut in 1997, the charter school movement has grown to 16 schools operating statewide, serving close to 2000 students.

Charter schools are currently located in Bridgeport, Fairfield, Hamden, Hartford, Manchester, New Haven, New London, Norwich, South Norwalk, Stamford, Waterbury, and Winsted, serving students from those districts and many neighboring communities.