Contemporary holistic education (CHE) is an alternative way of both teaching and learning that focuses on the whole student. Community Schools are grounded in a community partnership approach. CHE supports a relational program with the holistic perspective that mind, body, and environment are inextricably interconnected, and for students to reach their potential we must support a love for lifelong learning and success in all of these areas. Students’ ideas, interests, emotions, family, culture, peer group, and life experiences are all understood as part of the whole environment that both enables and constrains, supports and limits, the present functioning in which each community member lives.

Programmatically, CHE connects the many different academic subjects and relationships and frames them in an interconnected context. Holistic education is a co-created learning/teaching process where both students and teachers have responsibility for the learning environment and outcomes. A contemporary holistic approach doesn’t concentrate on individual disorders, disabilities, and marginalizing labels. This method sees the qualities of each student, strengths and limitations, as differences to be honored, supported, and understood. Most importantly, CHE is founded on a relational ethic that values intimate connection, support, and inclusion. All human experience is seen as a social event understood and engaged through each of our individual lenses. This doesn’t mean we accept our struggles and limitations as endpoints, but see them as part of an identity that we can grow from and expand our capacities.