School Environment

A Community Built on Collaboration

Collaboration is a cornerstone of the Wildwood experience. Through participation on task forces, work groups, and committees, Wildwood’s faculty and staff have an opportunity to interact with and learn from a wide range of constituents. Collaborative processes foster a sense of community, empower teachers, and propel innovation and continual improvement. Teachers work in teams to create curriculum, design projects, grapple with student learning, and to think big about education. Teachers have regular opportunities to collaborate in their division, their department, with their teaching partners, and K-12.

Professional Development

We are all learners at Wildwood School, so professional development is emphasized. Faculty meetings occur each week and topics range from technology integration to mastery-based assessment strategies to multicultural skill building.

Wildwood devotes considerable financial resources to professional development. Faculty and staff are able to research and attend conferences and workshops that meet their varied interests and needs, with organizations as varied as the following: Harvard Think Tank, The Heads Network Women in Leadership Conference, NAIS People of Color Conference (POCC), Visions, Inc., NAIS, CAIS, Buck Institute, Gardner Carney Leadership Institute (GCLI), and many more. Faculty who attend conferences and workshops are provided a forum in which they can share their learning with their colleagues.

Wildwood also hosts several on campus PD days throughout each school year, including weeks of “outro” and “intro,” and offers its REAP program (Research Exploration and Advancement Program) to faculty, allowing for extraordinarily well-funded opportunities to engage in self-directed summer study, domestic or abroad, related to Wildwood’s strategic priorities. Recent REAP-funded programming has ranged from Global Citizenship and Technology Integration to the study of the Finnish education system and a look at Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland’s work around the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

At Wildwood, we adhere to an ethos of reflection and constant growth. Teachers participate in a cycle of comprehensive observation, evaluation, and support. During evaluation years, this program includes annual goal setting, classroom observations throughout the year, periodic check-ins, and a year-end review.