Opened in the Fall of 2007, Southwest Charter School offers a new public school option in Southwest Portland. Southwest Charter offers a different educational experience, encouraging exploration of the natural world and involvement in the local community through the arts and sciences.

Southwest Charter School is a small, public school community that emphasizes safety and caring, a place where neither race nor economic status will determine a child's potential for success.

It is the goal of the Southwest Charter School to provide educational options in a small school setting to families in the Southwest part of the Portland Public School District. Currently there are few public school options in Southwest Portland. Southwest Charter School provides an individually targeted method of education. We will achieve this by utilizing smaller class sizes, an outstanding science and arts-based academic curriculum that emphasizes both didactic education and hands on learning and tools such as individual development plans for students. The public charter option will also allow the faculty and staff to know each child on a first name basis and the local community to provide support and resources that foster academic excellence.

The founders of Southwest Charter School believe that there are important benefits of small schools, including student achievement, personalization, cost effectiveness, safety benefits, and others. A charter school is the best model to provide students with all of the characteristics which the Seattle-based Small Schools Project identifies as essential to effective schools:

• Autonomy
• Small size
• Distinctive and focused
• Personal
• Committed to equity in educational achievement by eliminating achievement gaps between groups of students while increasing the achievement levels of virtually all students.
• Use of multiple forms of assessment to report on student accomplishment and to guide their efforts to improve their own school.
• View parents as critical allies, and finds significant ways to include them in the life of the school community.
• Schools of choice for both students and teachers, and are open, without bias, to any students in a community.