Community Engagement
We encourage all of our students to be committed, engaged members of their communities both at school and in the world beyond MCDS. Community engagement (also known as service or service learning) fosters growth and deepens academic, social and emotional understanding. This is at the heart of our community engagement program, one of the primary tools used to integrate the school’s mission and core values into the life of MCDS.
All MCDS students give back to the immediate school community through classroom jobs, helping with lunch cleanup (Lunch Bunch), collecting compost, working in the school gardens or supporting parents and staff at special events. Throughout students' K-8 experience, the academic curriculum is deepened by community engagement opportunities in collaboration with over 50 different community partners who focus on education, the elderly and people with special needs, environmental sustainability, food justice, healthcare, homelessness and poverty.
By the eighth grade, students are fully engaged in Community Internships, with five full days spent off campus working with community partners and practicing Design Thinking strategies to gain empathy, identify a need or an opportunity, prototype solutions and share their ideas with agency staff.
Partnerships include:
- Cedars of Marin
- Glide Memorial Church
- Institute on Aging
- Laurel Dell Elementary School
- MedShare
- Muttville
- Richardson Bay Audubon Center and Sanctuary
- SF/Marin Food Bank