“Teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives. Children need a story that will bring personal meaning together with the grandeur and meaning of the universe.” — Thomas Berry

For over twenty-two years, Ridge and Valley Charter School (RVCS) has been living this understanding - that the universe is not made of disconnected parts but of relationships unfolding over deep time, and that human beings, including children, are participants in that unfolding. To continue this Great Work, we need your help.

We are cosmological beings, in human form, living on this Earth.

Founded at the turn of the millennium by parents, educators, farmers, and community members, our school emerged from a recognition that education must do more than transmit information. With an educational philosophy grounded in the work of cultural historian Thomas Berry, evolutionary cosmologist Brian Swimme, the Ecological Learning Center and Community Supported Garden at Genesis Farm co-founded by Miriam MacGillis, educators Rudolf Steiner and Maria Montessori, and Circle practitioner Christina Baldwin (among others) who articulate a cosmological perspective that integrates science, culture, and human experience, our school works to offer a vision of elementary education that empowers children to stewardship based on a deep love of the earth and respect for the planet’s myriad systems and interconnections.

For the past two decades our innovative, K-8 public charter school has been honored to immerse our unique program in, and build our relationships with, the land and our campus facilities in northwestern New Jersey. However, maintaining and improving school buildings over time presents a significant challenge. The buildings that have housed the school for more than twenty years will not remain viable into the future. Repairs alone are no longer sufficient, and new facilities are essential if this important transformational educational paradigm is to continue with integrity.

A Paradigm of Love

Education at Ridge and Valley is place-based and relational. Children are honored as individuals and learn to develop mutually enhancing relationships with their home landscape, watershed, bioregion, and the larger Earth community - all in the context of our 13.8 billion year-old Universe. Understanding one’s place in the natural world provides the foundation for meaning, responsibility, and care. Learning is experiential and integrated, fostering curiosity, attention, and the ability to see connections across disciplines. Relationships with other people and with the more-than-human world are central, shaping how children understand themselves and the world they inherit.

Our school has been repeatedly recognized for our deep commitment to sustainability. In 2025 RVCS became the FIRST school in the United States to achieve the international Earth Charter & Education for Sustainable Development School Seal, and we achieved the HIGHEST level of Champion: The Tree! Through our curriculum students express the values and principles of a hopeful sustainable future, taking actions with local and global impact.

Our Critical Need

Unfortunately, the NJ Department of Education does NOT provide new facility funding for Charter Schools, therefore private support is critical for the future of Ridge and Valley Charter School. This capital campaign seeks to secure major funding of $10 Million for a sustainable facility and to support pre-construction costs to develop the project. Every contribution, no matter the size, helps. These sustainable facilities will support programs, pedagogy, and the mission of Ridge and Valley for generations to come.

Our school is relying on our community’s connections, care, and resources to continue our growth towards an ecologically healthy future. If Ridge and Valley has touched your life in any way, or is aligned with your own inspired and hopeful vision of the future, we invite you to be part of this next chapter. We sincerely appreciate you sharing this with your network of like-minded people. Your gesture of support, no matter the amount, enlivens and sustains our community and contributes to the conscious evolution of our species.

More to come!