The message to our students: the responsibility for learning is theirs.

Above all else, a sense of community is the hallmark of Children's Community School. And so while you'll find our students deep in study with book, pencil or calculator, you're as likely to find them away from their desks, working together, where the most important lessons include leadership, collaboration, compromise and group problem solving -- lessons that will stay with them the rest of their lives.

Such workgroups serve a vital purpose in a CCS education. Children who feel engaged and responsible to a group of their peers understand the importance of their contribution much more than in the usual classroom model: doing assigned work at a desk in isolation. Students are encouraged, not just by their teachers, but by their peers, to take their work seriously and hold themselves to a higher standard. At CCS, the classroom becomes a community of learners.

Learning doesn't only happen in the classroom

Community is defined broadly at CCS. We invite, welcome and hope that a student's family will find their place at CCS too. To accomodate many schedules and abilities, we have volunteer opprotunites for everyone. It takes a lot of help from parents for this small School to reach such big heights.

Children's Community School is just one project of the Foundation for Excellence in Education which is a non-profit organization governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. The other projects include the Children's Arts Insititute and the Van Nuys Health Fair and Family Festival. All of these projects support the mission of the other and together they demonstrate the coming together of a community to support children and families. But CCS was the first and remains the primary project that was orginially founded in 1981 by Neal Wrightson and Leni Jacksen.