Academic Support
Along with its demanding academic program, Park offers support to help ensure all students can succeed. We provide interventions and strategies so each child can thrive socially and emotionally and experience achievement in the classroom. For every student, academic support begins with the classroom teacher, who provides additional one-on-one direction or alternative approaches within the classroom.
Park maintains high expectations for all children and values the efforts and contributions of each student. We recognize and value learning differences and believe they enrich the academic environment for everyone. Our faculty strives to create an educational climate that supports diverse learning styles: beginning in PreK and through Grade 8, they guide students to recognize, understand, and work with their own personal learning styles.
Lower Division
Students in the Lower Division develop their academic skills in self-contained classrooms, under the care and direction of their teachers. Small group and individual instruction allow direct teaching in all areas of literacy and math within the classroom. Literacy and math specialists help classroom teachers add to their toolkit of strategies to ensure that all students are supported and challenged, and Lower Division Literacy Specialists provide additional support to students.
Upper Division
Small classes and an emphasis on strong teacher-student relationships allow Park’s Upper Division faculty to identify students’ strengths and challenges. In the classroom, teachers provide guidance and support by differentiating their instruction and finding time to work one-on-one with students.
Our strong advisory system also benefits students. Each child in Grades 5–8 is paired with an advisor who provides feedback and direction in academic, personal, and social development, and who coordinates communication between the student’s team of teachers and family.
Academic Support Services Department
The Academic Support Services Department provides additional individualized instruction to Park students who require more targeted support. This support helps these students develop the skills and strategies needed for academic success here.
Classroom teachers or advisors, in consultation with the Division Head and Director of Academic Support, may recommend that students receive additional instruction from a learning specialist in the Academic Support Services Department. Learning specialists are committed to helping students build strategies that will allow them to overcome academic challenges and thus build their confidence and competence as lifelong learners. Typically, students go to Academic Support tutoring sessions two or three times a week. There is an additional fee for tutoring through Academic Support.
The Director of Academic Support serves as a resource for teachers, families, and students in understanding learning differences and identifying supports, both within and outside Park, that will help students thrive. While the School endeavors to address the learning needs of every student enrolled, on occasion, all available interventions do not meet the learning needs of some students, despite the collective efforts of the child and their teachers and parents. In these rare cases, families are counseled and advised about more appropriate school placement.