We provide a creative and challenging academic program supported by the Quaker belief that there is that of God in everyone. From age 3 through 5th grade, PMFS builds and affirms a community grounded in cultural competency and social responsibility.
Our core values of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship (SPICES) are woven into the educational and cultural fabric of who we are and what we do.
Students collaborate with peers and teachers, using inquiry and reflection to solidify understanding and prepare them for success as lifelong learners.
Students develop a solid sense of self and social responsibility through connecting and communicating with others, and persevering to solve problems and resolve conflict collaboratively.
It's a new beginning in Kindergarten Drama, as our actors are learning routines and safely settling in for all the imaginative exploration to come! Kindergarten Drama actually begins in the Kindergarten classroom, where the students prepare for the trek to Drama by reviewing who has the job of line leader, door holder, and caboose, doing their best to maintain a line (instead of what we refer to as a "blob") and remembering to pause at all the Kindergarten "stopping lines" to check-in before Christy and the Kindergarteners arrive at the Drama room door for the fun.
Thursdays start out with a different rhythm; at 8:30 quiet settles over campus as we all attend Meeting for Worship. Yesterday was our first Meeting for Worship of the school year.
For some of us, this is a new experience. Second graders spent time talking on Wednesday about what Meeting for Worship is like, and talked about strategies that help them adjust to a slower pace. Genevieve shared the book Listen, by Gabi Snyder, which asked students to listen to the quiet and then to listen past the quiet to hear the voice inside themselves. The class then practiced listening past the quiet for about 5 minutes, after which students were invited to share what they heard in the stillness. Students noticed their heartbeat, traffic noises outside, or footsteps overhead. When they headed for Meeting on Thursday, second graders went to the Meetinghouse ready to try out the strategies they had discovered for keeping their bodies still and to listen to their inner voices. Some returning students remembered that they enjoyed this moment of peaceful togetherness in their time at school.
We invite families to join us in the Meetinghouse for this central time in our week. Students in grades 1-5 come to the Meetinghouse each week; Pre-k and Kindergarten students join later in the year after having Meeting in their classes for a period of time.