Guadalupe Centers Alta Vista High School 

DRAFT Core Values 

 
The vision of Guadalupe Centers High School is to prepare students to succeed in college
and in their chosen professions in order to empower them to be productive members in
the community. To this end, we have maintained an average of a 75% post-secondary
enrollment rate for the last three years as more students are earning dual college credits
before graduation than ever before. As a result of these successes and our students’
achievements, in 2013 Alta Vista High School was recognized by the Missouri Public
Charter School Association as “The Missouri Charter School of the Year.”

To continue to reach these goals, we must be reflective practitioners who have clear plans
for how to serve our unique student population. In an average year more than 70% of our
population is somewhere in the process of learning English as as second language. Last
year more than 20 of our students were new arrivals to the country who had no previous
experience speaking English. Our ELL population needs language supports in the
classroom, as well as typical content scaffolds.

We are a school of teachers with content expertise; however, we know that we must all
also be language teachers in order to be a school that continues to send students out in
their chosen colleges and professions. Ultimately, the lessons we design must teach
students to be productive members of society. For us, this means that students know and
value their cultural heritage; and just as importantly, that our students overcome their gaps
in content knowledge and language acquisition.

In order to bring our vision into reality , Guadalupe Centers Alta Vista High 
School’s mission is to...  

❏ Provide choices for social and academic growth.

❏ Provide effective teachers, challenging curriculum, and exposure to appropriate
learning experiences.
❏ Connect class work to students’ lives.
❏ Provide opportunities for students to practice civic responsibility.
❏ Create community, home, and school partnerships that provide students with
necessary resources.
We see this mission working its way out in the following core value statements: 

Learning is Meaningful.
The students of our school value their cultural heritage, and we respect this by using their
‘biographies’​ to drive their learning. Teachers believe that the content of our classroom is
informed by the culture of students; moreover, students are encouraged to be critically
conscious in their learning. Through their own culture, students learn and become active
members of the larger KC Metro area and activists for the urban core of our city.

Learning is Interactive.
Students learn best when they engage their experience with their learning. Our students
are able to investigate and discuss issues of content through the activation of their
collective background knowledge, choice, and the use of technology. Teachers value
socially constructed knowledge because it develops autonomous content area learners
and leads to language development. We value the voices of students in our school and
classrooms.

Learning is Challenging.
Students are provided with challenging curriculum and taught to expect excellence of
themselves even as they struggle with difficult concepts. Students and teachers are
pushed and supported to achieve more than they think or know they can by observing and
evaluating excell​ent models. We ensure that our assessments are closely assigned to the
current state standards, that our curriculum provides opportunities to answer similar question
types, and that relevant assessment data informs our instruction.

Learning is Public.
Through formal structures of presentation, exhibition, critique, peer feedback, and data
analysis, students and teachers build a shared vision of pathways to achievement.
Teachers and students are reflective about data related to academics, instruction, and
character. “Failure” is viewed as an opportunity to identify a gap in knowledge and grow.

Learning is Transformative
Through authentic, interactive, challenging, and public learning, students share rigorous
expectations that transform the quality of their work, their achievement, and their behavior.
Students’ trust, respect, ownership, and love of learning permeate the school culture and
flows out into the community and the family.Through this transformation, we fulfill our
vision to ​prepare students to be leaders that succeed in college and in their chosen
professions in order to empower them to be productive members in the community.