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At Community Preparatory School, we empower our diverse student body to reach full academic and leadership potential while building a Beloved Community.
Community Preparatory School serves culturally and economically diverse students who are well qualified to benefit from a rigorous academic education in an atmosphere of mutual respect. By engaging with all facets of our students—intellectual curiosity, joyful learning, awareness of their own strengths, the rewards and satisfaction of determination, and a deep connection to our community and the larger world—we prepare our students to thrive in the most competitive high schools and to become community leaders.
Community Prep challenges students to become confident, independent learners and develop a strong sense of public service through community service and stewardship. We engage parents, students, and teachers in goal-setting and planning that ensures academic and social success for each student.
At Community Preparatory School, "inclusion" is an umbrella term that includes race, gender, ethnicity, culture, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity, social/economic class, physical and learning differences, and religion, as well as other characteristics that contribute to each individual's full identity.
Our goal is to nurture and sustain an environment in which all—students, alumni, families, faculty, staff, trustees, volunteers, and visitors—are recognized and valued both as members of the school community and as irreplaceable individuals.
The ideal that guides us is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s vision of the "Beloved Community": widely different groups of people bound together with love and respect, working toward a just society, and understanding that our differences are our strengths. In pursuit of this goal, we are committed to moving from mere tolerance to active work against discrimination within our community and in the world. We will help students to become leaders in the fight against intolerance and teach them to work toward a just and equitable society. We understand that achieving our goal requires dedication and perseverance. We ask everyone in our community to commit themselves to this goal.
Beloved Community is the ultimate goal of the philosophy of Kingian Nonviolence, named for Martin Luther King, Jr., a foundational figure for Community Preparatory School.
Beloved Community seeks an end to poverty, hunger, and homelessness; racism and discrimination of all kinds, and works to replace such bigotry and prejudice with a spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. Additionally, Beloved Community means a community driven toward peace and justice for all through the work of conflict reconciliation.
At CP, we endeavor to bring about our own Beloved Community by following Dr. King's overarching philosophy of peace and justice and by actively working to resolve interpersonal and larger conflicts by adhering to the Six Principles of Nonviolence central to the philosophy of Kingian Nonviolence:
PRINCIPLE 1: Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.
PRINCIPLE 2: Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.
PRINCIPLE 3: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.
PRINCIPLE 4: Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform.
PRINCIPLE 5: Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.
PRINCIPLE 6: Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.
Philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce, who founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation, coined the term Beloved Community in the early 20th century. It was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who popularized the term and invested it with a deeper meaning. It is this vision we pursue in our work at Community Preparatory School.
Bringing about the Beloved Community means bringing an end to poverty. It means hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated. It means an inclusive spirit of community will replace racism, discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice. In the wider world, Beloved Community means international disputes are resolved through peaceful conflict-resolution, instead of military power. It means that love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred; peace with justice will prevail over war.
This does not happen just because we wish it to be—Beloved Community means work!
At Community Prep, we are working to bring Beloved Community into being in our own school by using the six steps of peaceful conflict reconciliation for our interpersonal conflicts and in our relationship with the larger community. It is ongoing, daily, difficult work we are committed to as a school.
