Academics Overview
Our philosophy: tailored teaching for brilliant minds
We use evidence-based practices designed to effectively support student learning, and we teach in ways that are responsive to individual students’ readiness levels and specific needs. This is how students with learning differences succeed—this is how your child can thrive.
Park Century has developed a sensitive environment and teaching that is trauma-informed. From a focus on Social-Emotional Learning (see more below) to the integration of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, and Justice in our classrooms, we help your child and family navigate through key emotional issues.
Our tailored instructional practices are intentional, strategic, and responsive to students’ academic needs and learning styles. This tailored approach is possible because our class sizes are small, ranging from 2 students up to 13 per class. The reading and math classes have the lowest student-to-teacher ratios while the content area classes have the highest to allow for collaborative, project-based learning.
Caring for and teaching your child takes a team of experts working together. Weaving together the overlapping specialties of our classroom teachers with reading specialists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, and a well-rounded professional faculty and staff, Park Century ensures that your child will benefit from the collective knowledge of this amazing group.
Kindness. Respect. Responsibility. Cooperation. Honestly. Resilience. These six words summarize The Panther Way. To learn more about how we live these values day-to-day, visit our Student Life page.
Academic program
The PCS curriculum is designed according to the individual needs of your child. Carefully chosen and evaluated by deans, teachers, and specialists, the tailored curriculum supports their educational, emotional, and social growth. Your child will continually develop the skills and strategies to adapt to a more traditional school setting after leaving Park Century.
Alongside the California state guidelines, we integrate the latest special educational research results into school programs. We always attract and retain a dedicated and highly qualified faculty who continue their professional development.
Students’ schedules include 80 minutes of daily explicit literacy instruction. Students participate in either Structured Literacy or Reading Strategies classes. Reading instruction focuses on addressing the learning needs of individual students within a small group instructional setting. All Park Century students receive daily English Language Arts instruction.
Structured Literacy
Our structured literacy classes utilize several evidence-based structured literacy approaches and programs rooted in scientific research. Literacy Instruction is explicit, multisensory, and responsive to students diagnosed with language-based learning differences. Our core structured literacy programs are The Wilson Reading System and the Orton Gillingham Approach.
Reading Strategies
Once students become more proficient readers they take a Reading Strategies class. This class continues to focus on reading accuracy and fluency but also embeds explicit comprehension strategies.
English Language Arts
The components of this course include written expression, vocabulary development, composition, literary analysis, grammar, and conventions. The goal of this course is to provide a literacy-rich environment where students have access to grade-level text including narrative, informational, descriptive, instructional, and persuasive text types. With the use of assistive technology accommodations, students have the opportunity to write, analyze, and think critically about grade-level material.
Our math classes are intentionally small and students are grouped according to their readiness levels and learning styles. Our instruction is evidence-based, systematic, sequential, and multisensory. Math instruction centers on developing a comprehensive understanding of mathematical concepts as well as procedures.
Our social studies curriculum is aligned to the Common Core Standards and the science curriculum is aligned to the Next Generation Science standards. Students access the standards by listening to and reading text, participating in discussion, role-playing, game-playing, viewing media, and interacting with digital platforms. Students demonstrate their understanding through differentiated individual and group projects, discussions, and completing digital and paper assessments. Students receive personalized accommodations and when appropriate individualized modifications.
Co-curricular programming is an essential component of our program. Students participate in fine arts, physical education, and music education. Our students are creative, athletic, artistic, and imaginative and we believe in fostering and nurturing these student talents and passions.
Middle School Advisory Class meets 4 days a week. The goal of Advisory is to support adolescents’ social, emotional, and developmental needs by helping them understand themselves as learners, peers, and community members. It is an intentionally created space outside of academic classes where students can form trusting and supportive relationships with peers and faculty advisors. Students and advisors also work together to strengthen executive function skills such as organization, time management, and goal setting.
Elementary students participate in social-emotional learning in their homeroom classes. We use evidence-based, well-designed, classroom-based programs that enhance student’s capacities to understand and manage their emotions, set and achieve goals, and develop and strengthen positive peer relationships. Scroll down to learn more about our Social Thinking Program used in this class.
What will my child do after school?
After School Enrichment Program
Park Century’s After School Enrichment Program provides a variety of hands-on educational experiences, such as cooking and gardening, that enhance the school’s science, art, shop, and athletic programs. We also offer a homework club for those who focus better at school and can use the extra support.
After School Enrichment clubs take place on Mondays through Thursdays after dismissal. With four sessions offered throughout the school year, students can explore a variety of options offered at the start of each quarter.
After School Sports and Clubs
There are a variety of clubs and programs to choose from, with some changing quarterly while others run all year long. Updated schedules with full club descriptions will be provided to parents. Parents can register for all clubs online. A sampling of offerings could include:
- Cooking
- Art Club
- Building Blocks
- Sports and Recreation
- LEGO Engineering
- Yearbook Club
- Fencing
- Ceramics
Homework Club
Offered Mondays–Thursdays after dismissal, Park Century’s Homework Club provides a proctored optimal study environment designed to help 7th and 8th grade students who struggle with focusing and completing work at home. Homework Club proctors supervise and monitor students’ executive functioning skills, teaching them how to organize their time to complete work outside of school hours.
Social-Emotional Learning
Park Century uses a variety of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programs to supplement our students’ academic and clinical programs. SEL, as defined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.”
Park Century faculty have received in-depth training in the Circle Ways Council program, which brings the tradition of gathering in a circle to the classroom and creates a sense of equality, shifting the implementation of academic curriculum and social-emotional skill-building to a more student-directed curriculum. Faculty report students who are engaged, open, and eager to build connections to their peers by listening to their stories and observing their interactions in a tranquil, comfortable, and equitable environment.
Park Century faculty implement the RULER program across grade levels. This evidence-based social-emotional learning program was developed at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and aims to infuse emotional intelligence into the classroom curriculum and school culture. The RULER approach begins with in-depth staff training, followed by classroom implementation and parent partnership.
PCS faculty implemented the Social Thinking program to provide students with strategies for developing social skills in order to create meaningful relationships, learn to work in a group or as part of a team, and effectively share space with others. The mission of Social Thinking is to “help people develop their social competencies to better connect with others and live happier, more meaningful lives.”
The goal of the Middle School Advisory program is to support adolescents’ social, emotional, and developmental needs by helping them better understand themselves as learners, peers, and community members. It is an intentionally created space outside of academic classes where students can form trusting and supportive relationships with peers and faculty advisors. Students and advisors also work together to strengthen executive function skills such as organization, time management, and goal setting. Middle School Advisory Class meets 4 days a week.