The Taylor School is a child-centered community dedicated to teaching the academic and social skills children need in our ever-changing world. Our faculty and staff provide a supportive and nurturing environment where students feel free to take the risks necessary to grow cognitively, socially, and emotionally. We build upon each child’s strengths and address areas that need strengthening, creating the strong foundation necessary for future success. The school’s engaging learning environment is designed to enrich the lives of our students while instilling in them a love of learning they will carry with them throughout their lives.

The Taylor School and Standards

Standards are the goals we set for students. For example, one of the core math standards for fifth grade says that students should be able to round decimals to any place using place value understandings. The curriculum is what is done every day in the classroom to achieve those goals. At the Taylor School, we are using new standards in math, literacy, science, and social studies as the framework for our engaging, rigorous curriculum.

As a faculty, we started to examine the core standards in 2011-2012. We began with a focus on mathematics. The result of our study led us to adopt Singapore Math in 2012-2013 as our central vehicle for teaching math, with supplements as needed. (There is no single textbook or commercial program that will meet all the standards in a subject area.) We then began to focus on literacy standards. The faculty compared the core standards to the work they were doing in the classroom. The standards validated much of what we were doing and illuminated a need to enhance some areas of our curriculum. In 2014, we began an analysis of the Next Generation Science Standards and the New York State Social Studies Standards. During the summer of 2014 as part of an on-going project, the faculty designed curriculum to include the goals indicated by these standards. The final piece of our standards work will be to identify the best assessment tool to measure our students' growth and achievement. One tool we are considering is from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.

The implementation of new standards has been a steady, purposeful, thoughtful journey at the Taylor School. To us, the standards are like a strong, healthy skeleton. The curriculum is "the meat on the bones" needed to create a unique, robust person. And - the heart and soul is all Taylor School! Keeping the spirit of the Susan Odell Taylor School alive as we revise our curriculum based on standards is paramount.