CAS is committed to providing a responsive, engaging, challenging, and comprehensive curriculum and learning environment that addresses the academic as well as social-emotional development of each and every child.

At CAS we believe that it is never too early to start learning another language. We subscribe to current brain research findings about multilingualism and how you can “build” a better brain with language exposure from an early age. At the Lower School, students get to pick and choose which World Language class they want to be in. World Languages are 45-minute to an hour-long subject held twice a week with a certified language teacher. Current World Languages offered are: French, Spanish, Mandarin, and Hebrew.

CAS uses the U.S. Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts which are divided into four strands with the following key features:

Reading: text complexity and the growth of comprehension
Writing: text types, responding to reading, and research
Speaking and Listening: flexible communication and collaboration
Language: conventions, effective use, and vocabulary

In our ELA classrooms, students:

• are supported in reading complex and high quality literary and informational texts
• encounter engaging themes and texts
• build strong content knowledge
• adapt their communication in relation to audience, task, purpose, and discipline
• are engaged and open-minded—but discerning—readers and listeners
• value evidence
• use technology and digital media strategically and capably
  come to understand other perspectives and cultures

The Science & Technology program is designed to address central areas of scientific investigation: inquiry skills and practices as well as physical, life, and earth sciences. The processes of scientific investigation are emphasized throughout because process skills are embedded in and fundamental to all scientific inquiry, instruction, and content. The focus is on how children actively investigate through observing, recording, describing, questioning, forming explanations, and ultimately drawing conclusions. Our program follows the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards.

The World Languages program is committed to objectives that develop proficient skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Teachers use Foreign Language National Standards aligned with the Common Core and the 5 C’s: Communication, Culture, Connections, Comparisons and Communities. Grammatical concepts and vocabulary are taught in the context of real life situations as students develop accuracy in communicating. Students are also

Students made aware of the career possibilities open to persons in many fields if they have knowledge and skills in a foreign language. Students are encouraged to speak the target language from the beginning through many student-centered activities.

The emphasis of the CAS arts program (dance, dramatics, music, and fine arts) is on children’s engagement both actively and receptively, rather than mastery of skills and techniques related to particular artistic media. The components address two key ideas: how children use the arts to express, represent, and integrate their experiences, and how children develop an understanding and appreciation for the arts. It focuses on how opportunities to use and appreciate the arts enable children to demonstrate what they know, expand their thinking, and make connections among the arts, culture, history, and other subjects.