New Beginnings: Announcing the Arbor Student Center & Orchard Academy
I am pleased to announce the new Arbor Student Center located on Van Buren Blvd. in Riverside, opening for the 2026-27 school year! At the heart of this new center will be the Orchard Academy, a program offering a unique, Waldorf-inspired approach designed to ignite a passion for learning.
The Orchard Academy is an independent program that draws from Waldorf principles while adapting practices to meet the needs of our students and community. This approach emphasizes:
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APLUS + Conference 2025
It was my great pleasure to participate in the 22nd annual APLUS+ Network Conference in Sacramento. Its purpose, according to founder/director Jeff Rice, is “to fight for the constitutional rights of our students, families, and communities, and to defend 21st century education that is more flexible, student-centered, personalized, and collaborative.”
Vivian Price, our Assistant Superintendent, Education, was one of our Springs staff who participated, and joined me in leading a workshop entitled “StoryPower: Building School Culture One Story at a Time.” Our workshop focused on how to use storytelling to build school culture. Its use is more powerful than data alone, we believe, and lasts when data is forgotten.
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I hope your school year is off to a good start! First off, I encourage you to regularly view Springs’ social media. We regularly post items of interest for the Springs community. Please visit our YouTube page to see new videos, including a recent profile of our Otay Ranch Academy.
Also, if you have had a positive experience with a Springs program and you are visiting sites that rate Southern California schools, I encourage you to post your thoughts on your experience with Springs. This can be an effective way for us to get the word out to other prospective Springs students.
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We are grateful to each of our Springs families for making Springs their charter school of choice, and please be assured that each member of our Springs team is dedicated to providing each of our students with an outstanding education.
Preparations for the new school year included Ignite conferences for our staff and parents; the staff event included our annual board appreciation dinner at Pechanga Resort.
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Springs Charter Schools are parent choice schools where the community is our classroom. Our mission is to foster the innate curiosity of our students, empower their parents, and promote optimum learning by collaboratively developing a personalized learning program for each student.
Eagle = Choice, Freedom, Initiative
River = Community
Book = Empowering Parents (Knowledge is Power)
Torch = Curiosity, Passion for Learning
Hands = Collaboration
Keys = Personalization, Unlocking the Student’s Potential
Oak Branches = Continuous Lifelong Learning
