Crew is both a structure and a culture at Polaris. As a structure, it can be similar to a regular advisory period. As a culture, it serves as an ethos of inclusion: students strive to reach ambitious goals together as a community. They are responsible for their own well-being and their classmates' well-being.
At Polaris school culture is planned for, developed, and sustained through practices that bring the community together, promote shared understandings, and encourage all community members to become crew, not passengers. Students at Polaris are known well and supported by adults.
The structure of crew allows for relationship building, academic progress monitoring, and character development. Crew allows students to build positive connections with their peers and with their crew leader. Crew leaders strategically plan crew to address and assess these multiple goals. Multi-year relationships are also forged in other school structures (e.g., multi-age classrooms, looping) to ensure that students’ needs are met and individual strengths are discovered. Outside of school, mentoring, internships, and apprenticeships foster relationships between students and community members.