Who We Are

We expand the nature of school by developing deeper learning through evolving next practices in education, supported by a healthy community culture with a future-focused approach.

We are a community of thinkers & doers.

Students

At Beaver, students grow and develop, learn who they are, what they want, and how to get it. They thrive discovering the whats, exploring the hows, and challenging the whys with tools and partners that reflect the ever-changing now.

Teachers

Beaver teachers are mentors, experts, collaborators, and motivators, dedicated to each and every student reaching their potential. They are more than instructors—they are the designers of rich learning experiences.

Alumni

Beaver graduates are knowledgeable, confident and savvy leaders—ready to collaborate and compete in a world that is depending on them to make a difference.

Vision & Mindset

The BVR Priorities

The New Basics

Head of School

The Beaver Vision & Mindset

OUR VISION

Beaver strives to expand the nature of school for students and teachers.

We are deeply committed to individual student success in an actively collaborative environment, our teachers challenge students to:

Identify and build upon strengths
Engage with real-world challenges and questions
Act effectively within a diverse cultural and social framework

OUR MINDSET

The Beaver Mindset is a uniquely designed framework, underpinning the pedagogy and philosophy for how our students and faculty experience school.

We present knowledge critical to success in a way that is fresh, experiential, and contextually relevant. We expect Beaver students to dig deeper, think bigger, and do more with what they are learning.

Think both/and

To evolve and grow you can add and incorporate, not trade off or give up.

Make excellent mistakes

Getting comfortable with the iterative nature of being wrong.

Launch, test, refine

Trying stuff, tinkering, and trying again is the best way to see if it works.

The BVR Priorities

Developing deeper learning

Evolving next practices in education

Beaver teachers are experts in their fields and creative leaders who are continuously evolving and expanding their ways of teaching—not just to meet students where they are but to prepare them for where they’re going. We invest in our faculty and staff by providing support, professional development, and opportunities for collaboration. Our teachers are experts in teaching content through modern-day contexts, facilitating their classes and conversations around equity and social justice as they relate to the world today.

Creating a healthy community culture

We must bring our most inclusive mindset into school spaces to cultivate a greater sense of belonging and community. At Beaver, we are committed to becoming a space where ideas can be shared and disagreements are expected rather than avoided. We are all smart individuals grappling with many challenges emerging domestically and internationally. We won’t always agree, but we should always be able to learn from one another. Different perspectives in a respectful community are the foundation for problem-solving.

Fostering adaptability by a future-focused approach

We want Beaver students to be so comfortable with technology that they will seek out the right tool in any circumstance. Rather than working with awkward technology or technology with built-in obvious biases, our students aren’t afraid to learn or even create something new. We want them to develop computational thinking skills that allow them to break a problem into smaller pieces, building algorithms that might lead to solutions. We’re preparing our students to recognize when tasks require A.I. and when they require human capabilities instead.

The New Basics

We believe students need to develop essential new skills, what we call The New Basics. These New Basics are:

Creative problem-solving
Collaboration
Tech & media literacy
Iteration
Visual communication
Empathy
Presentation skills

Prioritizing the development of these skills lives everywhere in the school—in 7th grade math and in 11th grade English, in science and in art, on the stage and on the turf. To gauge effectiveness of this approach, we use a pretty simple measuring stick: At any given time, in any scenario, our students need to be able to answer two key questions: “What am I doing?” and “Why am I doing it?”

At Beaver, students go beyond mastery of content and conventional problem-solving. They are prepared for an undefined era where the New Basics are the cornerstones of professional success and personal development.
Beaver Faculty

Head of School

Kim Samson

An innovator who knows how to develop ideas and put them into action and a developer of people, Kim has been leading the charge to make school relevant and impactful for students and teachers.

She is devoted to championing diversity, equity, and inclusion, and serving the needs of a diverse student body. Most of all, she gets students! Kim is known for her close and intentional relationships with kids, faculty, staff, and parents.

Kim brings 35 years of experience as a teacher, leader, and innovator in education. More specifically, her work as the Assistant Head and Director of the Upper School for eight years at Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio.

Read about Kim Samson’s vision