Advisory & Community Life
Watershed students can be true to themselves and have strong connections with the people around them.
Community Driven Culture
We have a good time learning and playing at Watershed, but community doesn't mean that everything is perfect. Students at every school, including Watershed, experience social conflict and discomfort. What makes Watershed different is a commitment to being a safe space for students to learn how to be part of a community. We challenge students to resolve conflict, acknowledge mistakes, build connections, and bring their authentic selves to school every day.
“What makes Watershed great is that everyday I walk through the double set of doors, I feel seen. I feel like a valued individual, not just another face.”
student-teacher connections
Our classroom teachers are knowledgable subject matter experts. But more importantly, they are mentors, coaches, and trail guides. The teacher you have in the classroom is the same person who might lead you on a trip to Guatemala. They might be the same person who takes you on a nine-day backcountry trip at the beginning of the year. They are the people who take you off campus into the real world. With these shared experiences, it's no wonder that student-teacher relationships at Watershed are so supportive and close.
close-knit ADVISORY
All students are assigned an advisor who will work with them throughout middle school or high school. Each advisory is a small group of 8-10 students across grades who get to know each other well. Advisory is a place to check in, to ask for help, and to get guidance on your academic career. But it's also a place to play games, to go on activities off campus, and to work jointly on projects that benefit the community.
Watershed students meet with their advisory twice a week, and with advisors one-on-one as needed. For parents, Watershed advisors are the "first call" to the school, a caring adult who's keeping tabs on your child's progress—academic, extracurricular, social, and emotional.
“Watershed outperforms the mean for private schools as well as public schools when it comes to emotional engagement, the sense of connection students have in their school.”
CHARACTER EDUCATION
The research is clear: when it comes to long-term success, who you are is just as important as what you know. At Watershed, we build seven character traits using common language shared by everyone in the community: optimism, gratitude, empathy, curiosity, social intelligence, self-control, and grit.
This shared vocabulary is applied in multiple, real-world contexts: in the classroom, on Wilderness trips, during global travel, and through shared community activities. We provide opportunities for students to reflect on their character development and feedback on these traits during teacher narratives and student conferences.
Building awareness of your strengths - and setting goals for personal growth - is at the heart of the community experience.
STUDENt CLUBS & LEADERSHIP
Our students enjoy participating in and leading extracurricular clubs: yearbook, engineering, human rights-focused activists, chess/games, LGBTQ, student newspaper, and mountain biking, just to name a few. Student clubs and student leadership opportunities can contribute to students' growth in interpersonal and cognitive competence, humanitarianism and cultural participation.
