The Ridgefield School District unveiled its Wisdom Ridge Academy during the 2021-2022 school year, which offers students an alternative learning program for students in K-12.
The school currently has more than 160 students enrolled and now has a new facility thanks to a partnership with the Port of Ridgefield.
The academy is now housed in a newly-constructed “state-of-the-art development,” a news release stated. The building includes classroom and meeting spaces, as well as places for workshops and training opportunities. It also houses the district’s Innovation Ridge Center for Advanced Professional Studies and the port has a training center located on the other side of the building, which allows students to take on training and partnership opportunities with the organization, as well as other businesses in the area.
Jessica Drake, the director of alternative learning experiences and business partnerships, said Wisdom Ridge provides families more options to educate their children. The academy allows parents a say throughout the educational process.
“We have three different learning platforms that families can choose from depending on the age or grade of the child,” said Drake. “They can find a program or a platform for their online learning that best suits their family’s needs or interests.”
The three programs include Accelerate Education for students in grades K-12, Edmentum for grades sixth through 12, and eDynamic Learning for secondary advanced electives. For kindergarten through eighth grade students, a news release stated the kids have more direct interactions with teachers who provide guidance and support.
Accelerate Education strongly focuses on core academic subjects like math, science, English, and social studies, said Drake, along with electives like coding or arts and crafts. Edmentum focuses more on honors and advanced placement classes for grades sixth through 12, and eDynamic is “a host of electives,” with over 100 options like cyber security, business, and drone piloting. Students have the ability to participate in more than one program, according to Drake.
“If a high school student wants to take their core content through Accelerate but they really want this elective to be a crime scene investigator, we can add that to their schedule,” she said.
Drake said students also have a variety of options for students on campus, which includes enrichment sessions. Students can attend the sessions on campus twice a week for project-based learning. Those include things like a geometry city built from shapes the third to fifth grade group is doing. For the sixth to eighth grade group, Drake said they build a board game from scratch, complete with a theme and pieces the students themselves created.
“They’re just extra ways to add some interaction amongst our students, to build a community, and to encourage them to find things they’re excited about and to work on,” Drake said.
The release stated the majority of learning is done remotely, but teachers still provide supervision, academic support, and see students weekly for check-ins, along with monthly progress reports.
Families have also helped form the structure of Wisdom Ridge Academy.
“We developed our enrichment schedule and plan based on what our families told us at the beginning of the school year, how often they wanted their kids to come in and what they wanted to cover,” Drake said. “We are really looking at students’ voices when they come in, and allowing them to drive what the content is. We get a little flexibility there because we know that all the academic content is being covered in that online curriculum that the students are doing with their families, so it’s really an opportunity for us when the students are here to find what the students and their families are excited about, and to build off of that.”
The release stated Wisdom Ridge allows students the opportunity to achieve their common core goals they would obtain at the other schools in the district, but provide a more flexible schedule.
“With a flexible, high-quality academic program focused on individualized learning and community partnerships, students at Wisdom Ridge are setting their courses toward a brighter future,” stated the release.
Wisdom Ridge Academy is located at 5645 S. 11th St., Suite A-101, Ridgefield.
