Expectations & Parental Responsibility

SOLA strives to co-create an educational culture that encourages the development of learning partnerships that nurture a child’s capacities to think freely, feel compassionately, and act with authenticity and courage. We recognize these qualities and skills as essential - now, more than ever before.

First, we’d like to remind each of our families that as independent, homeschooling parents, SOLA will be one of many resources in your child’s constellation of learning relationships, with others being your family environment and the network of living relationships your child has beyond any formal ‘classroom’. You have the agency to determine all elements of your child/ren’s learning journey. As a private, membership-based collective of community-supported educators, we are here to serve the needs of the children and families who feel drawn to partner with SOLA in their child’s learning journey. SOLA is committed to providing a wholesome, safe, nourishing, challenging, rich, and enlivened palette of learning experiences, and to maintaining a Sanctuary of learning freedom that encourages awareness of the responsibilities that accompany this freedom, and the limitations that are inherent to any learning experience within a community.

The integrity of your learning partnership with SOLA will require mutual comfort and resonance. With hearts oriented around creating healthy relationships, we invite you to deeply consider all elements of your partnership with SOLA’s teachers and staff.

SOLA’s faculty, administration, and staff are partnering with parents to nurture the emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing of all members of our learning community by providing and practicing the following:

We stand ready to convene with you as parents to determine how we, as educational partners, can or cannot support your choices and wishes for your child/ren’s education and wellbeing; or whether we can or cannot support you or your child’s needs, behavioral tendencies, or abilities.
We engage relational ways of working with the inevitable challenges that arise within a diverse community. We value a dialogue based, heart-centered approach to conflict, misunderstandings, or other issues. We expect members of our community to be comfortable with this approach, and ready to meet with faculty, staff, or other SOLA member-parents, if or when issues arise.
SOLA is a largely wif-fi and technology free learning environment, and we value this over the convenience provided by continuous access to the internet or digital communication. We do use wi-fi at times in the SOLA office which is located in the Circle Lodge, and our faculty do use phones or computers, with much discretion, and only as needed.
We prefer in-person conversations for sensitive dialogue, and refrain from over-using emails or text messages. Emails are used to communicate community-wide announcements or important practical information about SOLA operations.
We ask parent volunteers to support SOLA with a minimum of two hours of service each month. This could include land or garden work, cleaning of indoor spaces, with a checklist of tasks; helping with a project or supporting activities in various ways.
We allow children to socialize, play and move freely as is their natural tendency and birthright. We allow children to interact freely with our environment and one another- including the animals that live on the SOLA campus, plants, water, mud, soil, insects, sun, and rain. This physical intimacy is an essential element of SOLA learning and pedagogy.
We support and respect individual freedom and privacy, and expect individuals in our community to uphold and reflect this. For example- health freedom and personal choice will be respected, honored and upheld at SOLA. We also ask parents to honor others’ privacy by refraining from sharing photos or information about SOLA members and activities via social media or other digital platforms. We are all participating in a ‘human ecology’, and freedom of choice must be held in balance with the greater context of the community, and aligned with the SOLA vision and mission.
SOLA conducts classes both indoors and outdoors, and there are inherent risks in both venues, which we deem to be worthwhile and essential in each child’s learning of resilience, risk assessment and exploration.
Our learning culture requires appropriate outdoor and indoor clothing, shoes and gear, so that both indoor and outdoor learning are easeful and enjoyable. Children and teachers are expected to wear attire that allows for freedom of movement, voice and breath. SOLA will never require students or SOLA faculty to wear medical gear such as masks or protective facial coverings. We also encourage students to make clothing choices that minimize slogans or corporate logos, or contain any potentially offensive or unsettling imagery.

We require that SOLA parents to carefully monitor their own and their children’s health each day, and we will separate children who develop any signs of illness during the day until parents can come pick them up. We require our SOLA teachers, staff and parents to carefully monitor their own health each day, and stay home if any symptoms or signs of illness are present.
SOLA does not use harsh chemical disinfectants inside classroom spaces. We rely on natural sunlight, fresh air, anti-microbial essential oil cleaners to keep our spaces clean, and also have great respect for the strength and vitality of the human immune system.

The Culture of Identity, Diversity & Belonging at SOLA

At SOLA, we view diversity as a spiritual and ecological necessity that enables the Human Being to develop Free Will, Free Feeling, Free Thinking and the Spiritual capacity to inspire Humanity’s evolution toward Inter-Being.

SOLA is dedicated to restoring a sense of the Sacred in education, and thus, our organizational culture acknowledges and reflects the import of the spiritual world in human affairs. We are committed to encouraging an essential cultural shift toward a future for human beings where true freedom and interdependence prevail. We intend to participate in this shift by honoring and nourishing a commonly held, deeper recognition of every human individual’s fundamental identity, which is located within something divinely mysterious and universal.

As a learning community, our role is to assist the child in the Sacred Processes of Being, Becoming, and Belonging; to provide a developmentally sensitive Sanctuary for the outward exploration and external expression of human identity, while continually encouraging the inner cultivation of a Sacred Space where one’s unique, fundamental identity radiantly abides… beyond cultural affiliations, gender, religion, or ethnicity. We are devoted to nurturing the sanctity of childhood, and as such, we refrain from introducing or having class discussions about topics related to the realms of gender or sexuality until early adolescence.

We reverence the exquisite physical beauty of the Natural World- plants, animals, water, minerals, sky, and human beings. We regard the physical beauty of the Natural World as a material expression of a divine design within which the human being is held and nourished. Thus, we regard the physical form of the Human Being as a Sacred vessel intended to support the human soul in its journey of learning, growing, and consciousness evolution. We strive to orient our students’ observations and exploration of differences in externally-expressed human identity or culture around Kindness, Respect and Wonder, and we encourage curiosity and dialogue that can lead to an inwardly- generated Love and Reverence for one’s own and others’ fundamental identities, and for the diversity all around us.

In the realm of gender and sexuality, we distinguish a difference between gender, which is an expression of one’s identity, and biological sex, which is (with extremely rare exceptions) a fundamental physical reality. From this context, we view one’s physiology at birth as a Sacred reality with great purpose, meaning and import in one’s individual and collective human journey.

We understand that the approach above may or may not meet every family’s unique needs. We remind each of you that as homeschooling parents, you are fully empowered to decide and select all elements of your child/ren’s learning journey. We ask that you take care of and take responsibility for your family’s needs throughout the year, with an understanding that the above statement represents the parameters of what SOLA can and will do to assist.

In Care,

The SOLA Faculty and Staff

PLEASE complete the following Membership Covenant, which is a required part of SOLA Membership:

Name

First Name

Last Name

What is your level of comfort with the above described culture of operations?

If you have concerns, what can we do to help you feel more comfortable?

Your input will be included and deeply considered, but we are unable to make a promise to honor any specific individual. preferences

Are you comfortable with being in a community that values health freedom, specifically, honoring others' choices around vaccination status or other health and wellness perspectives?

Do you understand that as a homeschooling parent in the state of NC, you are the administrator of your child's education, and as such, you are responsible for registering your homeschool with the NCNDPE?

Are you willing to honor the privacy of other members of the SOLA community by refraining from posting pictures or content related to SOLA on digital social media outlets?

Topics related to human sexuality, including gender expression, are introduced with great care and ONLY at developmentally appropriate times. SOLA avoids the insertion of language that may confuse or instigate confusion about one's gender or sexuality, or inspire questions in a child who is too young to understand or be introduced to these topics and the realm of human sexuality. Does this approach align with your family's values?

Do you or your family have any essential needs or perspectives that the above culture may challenge?

Is there anything else you would like to share that will help us better understand your family's needs in relation to SOLA's learning culture?

By checking the box below, I affirm that I have thoroughly read, fully understand, and agree with the above parameters, culture, practices, limitations, requirements and provisions of privacy provided by a private membership organization. I understand and agree that I AM SOLELY RESPONSIBLE for any consequence related to my choices and agreement. I agree to hold harmless and indemnify all faculty, staff, contractors, and other individual Members for any loss, injury, or damage that occurs during the course of any SOLA activities, including gatherings, festivals, classes, farm or garden work, or other activities.

I AGREE