TDS at its core
At TDS, “doing good” is just as important as “doing well.”
Our core values aren’t simply words in brochures, they are qualities of character that we work to instill in our students each and every day. Respect, resilience, integrity, compassion, responsibility, and joy are part of our lexicon and woven into the daily student experience. Students are recognized in various ways throughout the year for demonstrating our core values; from our youngest learners to our soon-to-be graduates, there is a strong sense of community responsibility surrounding these values.
Educating our students to be good people takes many forms. We proactively teach our core values through morning meetings, read-alouds, classes with the counselor, and more. The richest part of character education, however, comes in life’s natural moments. Teachers take time to unpack current events at age-appropriate levels and reflect on where we see our core values out in the world. We lean into moments of conflict to learn from them. We inspire students to be strong self-advocates, but also push them to be introspective, self-reflective, and empathetic. Our hope is that through their time at TDS, our students understand the impact that individuals have on a larger community.