Board of Directors
​
The Village School Board of Directors has ultimate legal and financial responsibility for the school. The Board is composed of teachers, parents, and community members. Primary Board responsibilities include maintaining the legal and financial security of the school, long-range planning and development, and creating and overseeing the implementation of policies and procedures of the school that are consistent with the school’s pedagogy, community vision, and its charter. The Board elects a President, Secretary, and Treasurer from among its members. All Board members are encouraged to participate in the major committees of the school. The Board meets monthly throughout the year; times and dates are posted on the Village Voice Newsletter. Meetings are open to the public and parents are welcome to attend. Look for information about meeting schedules in the Village Voice.
The Village School Board of Directors is actively recruiting volunteer members!​ The Board consists of the School’s administrators, teachers, parents, and community members. It meets every 3rd Wednesday of the month, with some exceptions. The meetings usually take place at the School but refer to the Village Voice newsletter for the location of the meetings in case of change. Meetings are open to the public. Parents and community members are welcome to attend.
If you or someone you know may be interested, please complete an application. If you are not interested in becoming a member, but know of a family or community member who might be, please let them know we are recruiting by sharing this information. Click here for an application.
​​
​​
Nikos Ridge, President
nikosridge@eugenevillageschool.org
​
Kay Cosby, Secretary
kaycosby@eugenevillageschool.org
​
Charles Baker, Treasurer
cbaker@eugenevillageschool.org
​
Shannon Boyd
shannon.boyd@eugenevillageschool.org
​
Leah Lowthorp
lowthorp@eugenevillageschool.org
​
Jeremy Ludwig
jeremy.ludwig@eugenevillageschool.org
Michael McClintick
mcclintick@eugenevillageschool.org
​
​Andy Peara, non-voting
apeara@eugenevillageschool.org
Roz Romatz, non-voting
Shannon Powell, non-voting
spowell@eugenevillageschool.org
​
Mission and Nondiscrimination Statement
​
The Village School Mission Statement
The mission of The Village School is to provide an education that fully integrates the arts with an academic curriculum, guided by observations of child development that promote the healthy growth of the whole human being – the head (thinking), the heart (feeling), and the hands (willing). Further, The Village School strives to create a community that honors truth, beauty, and goodness and encourages development of the inherent gifts of each school community member.
The Village School Non-Discrimination Policy
The Village School strongly supports diversity and the honoring of all people, beliefs, and cultures both locally and globally. A core element of The Village School curriculum is to educate our students in the wide array of cultures and belief systems, both past and present, and to treat everyone's beliefs and culture with respect. As such, The Village School has a very strong non-discrimination policy and does not discriminate against employees or students based on mental or physical handicap or disability, race, color, gender, gender identity, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, religion, marital status, familial status, economic class, source of income, physical characteristics, or linguistic characteristics of a national origin group.
​
Student Investment Account
Student Success Act
The State of Oregon distributes roughly $1 billion per year to school districts and charter schools including The Village School to promote Community Engagement, Increased Instructional Time, Improving Student Health & Safety, Reducing Class Size, and Well-Rounded Education. The Village School conducted extensive information gathering surveying and community engagement to develop its own Student Investment Account plan. Our plan for implementing these funds may be reviewed here. For 2020-21, the state diverted a large portion of SIA account funding to offset decreases to the state's general education fund, thereby reducing SIA accounts by 70%. As a result, we were required to fund only portions of our SIA account plans. Funding for 2021-22 and beyond has been more on track with original intentions. The following is the SIA grant agreement with the Oregon Department of Education. The following links give access to our SIA annual reports:
​
​
​
​​Video of Village School
The Village School produced a video back in 2005 describing the distinctive aspects of its educational programming. Much of the video rings true today. Click here to see the video.
​
​
Curriculum
Kindergarten
Our primary focus is learning how to go to school: how to work together as well as individually, how to listen well and be respectful of others, how to work and play creatively within the safe boundaries of a group, and how to be ready to take in the gems of knowledge that will be presented during the next many years of school. In this foundation year, imagination and the natural seasons inspire and guide the work and play of the Kindergarten. Our program is nontraditionally academic. Rather than teach formal skills of reading, literacy work aims at developing listening and comprehension skills through storytelling.
First Grade
Achieve mastery of main lesson work pertaining to fairy tales, folk tales, and nature stories; introduction to literacy, letter formation, phonics, the writing process, story writing, poetry writing, letter writing, punctuation, and capitalization; qualities of the numbers, introduction to the four processes in arithmetic, fact families, place value, charts/graphs, problem-solving, skip counting and pattern recognition, simple plane geometric figures. Foundations of science education begin with the exploration of nature in the immediate environment and may include observation of life cycles and gardening.
Second Grade
Legends and myths of helpers of humanity, animal fables, folk tales from North America and other continents, some North American native legends, literacy blocks which build on the work completed in grade 1: story, poetry, journal and letter writing, drafts and the process of writing, continued work with the four processes in mathematics and word problems, place value, number patterns and relationships, introduction to plane and solid geometric figures. Science topics include the study of local animals and continued exploration of the immediate environment.
Third Grade
Creation stories from around the world are first introduced; agriculture study; human habitats and house building; clothing and culture. Literacy lessons incorporate grammar mechanics, parts of speech, and paragraph structure. Mathematics includes multiplication tables, measurement, common fractions, time and money, redistributing (carrying and borrowing) geometry, and problem-solving. In science, our major focus is on earth sciences with an emphasis on agriculture, climate, and weather.
Fourth Grade
North American history as seen through the viewpoint of Oregon and its development from the time of its indigenous people, local geography and map-making (starting from the intermediate surroundings and working up to neighborhoods, city, county, state, and region), Norse mythology, and age-appropriate literacy work that includes letter writing, verb tenses, abbreviations, personal pronouns, poetry, and alliteration. Math work will focus on reviewing arithmetic operations, times tables, story problems, long division, averages, fractions, decimals, simple factoring, perimeter, area, and volume. Science topics include the study of the animal kingdom, simple electrical circuits, energy transformation, and use, water cycle, salmon life cycle, local habitats, and ecology.
Fifth Grade
Ancient history and myths from ancient India to ancient Persia, China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and ancient Greece, including participation in the Greek Games; the lives and legends of Rama and Sita, Buddha, Zarathustra, Gilgamesh, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Khufu, Plato, Aristotle, Achilles, Odysseus, and Alexander the Great. Continued development of writing skills with attention to focus, voice, organization, mechanics and the modes; the geography of North America with reference to vegetation, topography, agriculture, and economics; math blocks include decimals, fractions, mixed numerals, ratios and proportion, the metric system, geometry, estimation, data collection and analysis using number lines bars and line graphs; science topics may include botany and plant studies, simple machines, and dissolving rates.
Sixth Grade
Roman and medieval history, including the founding of Rome, the Republic, the Empire, the advent of Christianity, the Crusades, and the rise of Islam, and participation in the Medieval Games; pre-algebra, geometry, business math (percentages, interest, discount, etc.), ratio and proportion, and geometric drawing; astronomy, geology, and mineralogy; European and Middle Eastern geography; physics (sound, light, heat, magnetism, and electricity); age-appropriate language arts including writing for various purposes and debates.
Upper Grades: Seventh & Eighth Grade
In the 7th and 8th grades, students spend equal class time with Math/Science/Art and Humanities/Language Arts/Drama teachers specializing in their content area. Each class has a homeroom teacher with whom they start each day and maintain in a two-year loop.
Seventh Grade
Age of exploration, discovery, and invasion; the Renaissance and Reformation; modern topics and current events; Language Arts, including creative writing and other forms and modes of writing, novel study, free and structured sustained, silent reading, reading buddies with lower grade students, poetry, response and analysis of literature, more complex class plays involving critical analysis of thematic content with opportunity for original writing and production; Science includes chemistry and astronomy, physics (mechanics, magnetism, and electricity), human physiology and nutrition. Math work includes pre-algebra, geometry (Pythagorean Theorem, simple Euclidean proofs, laws of perspective drawing), powers, roots, integers, and formulae.
Eighth Grade
Health and the human body, introduction to organic chemistry, physics (acoustics, optics, hydraulics, aerodynamics, meteorology); math includes algebra and geometry (platonic solids, proofs, volumes of solids, laws of loci), binary opposition math, and the origins and development of the computer; art curriculum; language arts includes response and analysis of literature, novel studies, an introduction to the short story, letters, personal essays, modes of writing, free and structured sustained, silent reading; more complex class plays involving critical analysis of thematic content with opportunity for original writing and production, learning to discern and interpret various modes of media; social studies include Colonial America, the age of revolution (American, French, Industrial), United States Government, the American Civil War, contemporary history topics, and current events.
​
​
Staff Bios
​
​
