Each student at SI is required to complete 75 hours of service before their senior year. Juniors and seniors will complete their remaining 40 Service Hours through their Core Capstone Project, which asks them to engage in direct service with a marginalized population at one non-profit agency/organization. It is our mission for students to engage in service they are passionate about, while also having them venture outside of their comfort zones and into their local communities.
11th Grade Community Service
Each student at SI is required to complete 75 hours of service before their senior year. Juniors and seniors will complete their remaining 40 Service Hours through their Core Capstone Project, which asks them to engage in direct service with a marginalized population at one non-profit agency/organization. It is our mission for students to engage in service they are passionate about, while also having them venture outside of their comfort zones and into their local communities.
10th Grade Community Service
Each student at SI is required to complete 75 hours of service before their senior year; students must complete 20 service hours during their Sophomore Year. It is our mission for students to engage in service they are passionate about, while also having them venture outside of their comfort zones and into their local communities.
9th Grade Community Service
Each student at SI is required to complete 75 hours of service before their senior year; students must complete 15 service hours during their Freshman Year. It is our mission for students to engage in service they are passionate about, while also having them venture outside of their comfort zones and into their local communities.
9th Grade Science
As a general goal, we want our classes to train students to be effective critical thinkers. At every level, students will be presented with scientific concepts and asked to apply them to novel situations through inquiry activities and lab practicals. Students are encouraged to collaborate with classmates and work in cooperative groups.
Frosh mainly pursue these goals through the study of biology. They learn basic biological concepts including ecology, evolution, genetics, life systems. Students are encouraged to identify these concepts in their everyday life as well as identify contemporary issues related to science (eg – pollution, climate change, drug/pharmaceutical manufacturing).
10th Grade Science
Most sophomores take chemistry where we investigate the structure of matter and observe and study chemical change. We discuss how energy plays a role in chemistry and more importantly in their everyday lives. In chemistry we also focus on developing strong laboratory skills, how to collect qualitative and quantitative data and how to make well developed conclusions based on scientific principles.
As a general goal, we want our classes to train students to be effective critical thinkers. At every level, students will be presented with scientific concepts and asked to apply them to novel situations through inquiry activities and lab practicals. Students are encouraged to collaborate with classmates and work in cooperative groups.
9th Grade Math
Frosh do some form of Algebra (1st or 2nd year algebra). Very rarely we do have a freshman who has completed first and second year algebra and geometry. In that rare instance, we do place students into Precalculus Honors as a frosh.
10th Grade Math
Sophomores do Geometry (Regular, Accelerated, or Honors). Many sophomores either test out of this because they took it in middle school, or they take the summer geometry accelerated course between freshman and sophomore year. Depending on the year, between 15 and 30 percent of the class do this, and these students take Precalculus Accelerated or Honors in their sophomore year. We do not allow students to “take a year off of math” by taking the summer course – the loss of skills over that amount of time is extremely detrimental to their development as mathematicians.
11th Grade Math
Juniors take Algebra 2, Precalculus Accelerated, or Precalculus Honors. All of these courses cover extensively 2nd year algebra topics. Approximately 15 to 30% of our sophomore class each year take Precalculus Accelerated or Honors as well.
9th Grade English
Frosh are presented with a course of study that exposes them to the forms of literature: the short story, non-fiction essay, poem, drama, and novel. Students are also presented with various writing assignments that will start them on the process of building a personal writing style. The subjects for these assignments move from the students’ own experiences to topics related to their reading, and the movement during the course of the year is from narrative and descriptive writing to writing that is more expository in nature.
By the end of the course, the student will have written approximately 10-12 papers in a variety of rhetorical modes including creative, descriptive, narrative, expository, and literary analysis writing. The student will also have completed at least one multi-paragraph expository essay.