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# About

## Mission Statement

WISE Services, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, helps participating implement and sustain the WISE Program. We help high schools develop a program that gives seniors of all ability levels the opportunity to design individualized, passion-driven projects that empower a transition from high school to college, work and lifelong learning. In a WISE program:

> - Students engage in individualized, passion-driven experiential learning;
> - Parents, teachers, students, administrators, business, labor and social agency leaders collaborate, plan, implement and assess the program based on local needs
> - Schools offer academic credit for experiential learning as an integral component of the curriculum;
> - Schools foster an environment of mutual support, exchange and collaboration;
> - The family of diverse participating schools collaborates to enable each program to remain unique, dynamic and responsive to change.

The WISE “Capstone” experience fulfills the 21st Century need for personalization, equity, multiculturalism, intergenerational understanding and coping skills in education.

The WISE Program was created at the Woodlands School in Hartsdale NY in 1973 as a cure for senioritis. The last semester of high school for seniors was filled with unproductive, unmotivated, bored and disengaged students who were tired of the same old methods in the same old classrooms with the same old (and young) teachers. The WISE program was a hugh success in Woodlands, and was brought to other neighboring schools by the founders and a team of believers in the need for a program that not only engaged these seniors but served as a bridge to the world beyond high school.

Over the 50 years since the inception of WISE, it became crystal clear that there is a desperate need for a structured and supportive transition from high school to college and work. For 18-year-old seniors, this transition looms as both frightening and inviting. We know from watching our students and listening to our graduates that WISE works. We also know that schools can implement and shape WISE to their particular needs.

.Our experiences have taught us to trust the fundamental elements of the program—the student, the mentor, the project, the journal and the presentation, as well as the task force, the coordinator and the process of assessment.

So, welcome to WISE and our new website. This promises to be an exciting time for WISE to grow. We hope your school will grow with us.

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