About Us

At Wild Flower, we nurture kind, creative, compassionate, critical-thinking humans.

Here at Wild Flower Community School, we believe that every brain is a good brain. We strive to meet each learner where they are at in their own educational journey, regardless of their neurotype. We view our learners holistically and provide a supportive and collaborative community to engage them, their families, and the greater community in a whole-hearted and whole-person way. We celebrate our differences as our superpowers and help our learners uncover what makes their brain unique and how it learns best. 

We provide a highly individualized learning experience, emphasizing hands-on and project-based learning and innovative research-based interventions for core academic skill support. We focus on opportunities to develop critical thinking and real-world skills. We prioritize relationships before rigor–focusing on cultivating safety and trust in our school community and supporting learners’ mental and emotional well-being.

Our core values: 

  • Relationships Before Rigor

  • All Brains are Good Brains 

  • Real-World Life Skills 

  • Autonomous, Interest-Based Learning 

  • Critical Thinking and Analysis 

  • Project-Based Learning

  • Wholehearted, whole-person development 

  • Time in the outdoors, and bringing nature into our classrooms

  • Intentional Inclusion–our differences make us stronger!

Our Philosophy Statement

Our program’s philosophy is to provide our learners with the foundation they need to become successful individuals on a holistic level.

Our goal is to provide an accessible, positive, innovative, and highly personalized learning environment, rooted in a nurturing community that celebrates the uniqueness of each learner. Through hands-on project-based learning, our learners are provided support in developing their autonomous interests and goals as well as the opportunity to creatively collaborate within our blended age learning community. 

Utilizing current neuroscience research and best practice guidance from mental health professionals, our learners are given highly personalized instruction as well as skill and resilience-building programming specific to their unique brain differences. We regard brain-based learning differences as latent superpowers that learners are encouraged to embrace, hone, master, and celebrate. We wholeheartedly believe that all brains are fantastic brains.

Our organization seeks to address the educational disparities that exist among learners not currently served well by our public school system, especially learners who are neurodiverse or have learning challenges. We believe that by providing learners with individualized, hands-on, project-based learning we can foster self-determination and help them achieve their version of success; for themselves, their families, and their communities. Many types of brain-based differences, including but not limited to ADHD, dyslexia, and sensory integration challenges are poorly served and stigmatized in many traditional classroom settings. This stigma can be perceived as behavior problems, laziness, or other negative connotations being ascribed to a learner whose brain simply does not thrive within our current classroom framework. The stigma puts learners at risk for mental health challenges, poor academic achievement, and juvenile legal system involvement.

Our organization believes that our differences make us stronger and that each person, whether it be a learner, their family, or a staff member, has unique strengths to bring to the table. Our organization highly values community and the impact it can have on each of our learners, and we understand that you cannot have a healthy community without diversity, equity, and inclusion. In our organization, learners are welcomed and celebrated for their true selves. We welcome families and learners regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender identity, family structure, religion, or spiritual beliefs. 

 

Our Model

Wild Flower Community School values a parent’s choice in their child’s education. To provide both the ability for children to go deep into project-based learning while also (or alternately) receiving specialized interventions based on their unique needs, we offer a new hybrid learning model with options for students and parents.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be intervention and support-specific days. All students will have targeted language arts and math time based on their needs and will be offered social-emotional learning opportunities, brain training and movement time, and other elective time as desired by the student’s parents. Children needing built-in literacy/ELA intervention and remediation, and math intervention will be provided with Alphabetic Phonics and Stern Mathematics included in their regular days. Students not requiring intensive support will be given dedicated math and ELA blocks to work on furthering these skills. Social Emotional Learning groups will be formed based on parent’s goals for their students. These weekly sessions will address coping skills, building resilience, positive peer connections, and forming a network of support within the school setting.

Tuesday and Thursday will be deep-dive days. Using the curriculum Moving Beyond the Page, students will dive deep into Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts. This literature and project-based curriculum supports all learning styles and is highly adaptive to individual student’s abilities. Math will not formally be part of these days, but practical application of math skills will be used as needed. Our youngest learners will use The Sound Case for language arts as a research-based literature study providing a solid foundation in phonics.

Parents may choose to enroll their children for Deep Dive days only, Intervention/Support days only, or for all five days.