Best Practice High School

What Makes Us Special

What�s so special about BPHS?
In addition to our being a small and supportive learning community, there are a number of other unique programs and opportunities available to Best Practice students. All students who attend Best Practice High School participate in these programs or utilize these tools. This list demonstrates our commitment to fostering the life of the whole person, and to the high standards we set for ourselves.

The Best Practice Code
Click here to download the pdf version of the BPHS Code
The Code is a document developed by both students and teachers to help focus all of us on what is important. The Code articulates the personal, social, and intellectual Best Practices we seek to embody. It heavily emphasizes personal responsibility for one�s actions and education. The Code is the framework from which all of us, students and teachers, pursue our educational-growth goals. Live it!

Physics First for Freshmen
Our science curriculum re-orders the conventional sequence of classes: physics, chemistry, biology. Physics First allows first-year students to get a grounding in the visible, experiential, and testable laws of the physical world before proceeding to the molecular and microscopic realms of chemistry and biology. Physics First also allows the Physics and Algebra teachers to plan and work together. This type of cross-disciplinary subject integration supports student learning and models the way knowledge is exercised in the world outside of school.

Integrated Units
Four times a year, teachers in each grade level team plan and coordinate interdisciplinary, integrated units. Integrated units allow students to test, stretch, and combine the content-area material usually isolated in a classroom across the academic disciplines. Teachers model interdisciplinary fluency by joining forces with other teachers and/or community partners. Students connect their classroom work to larger issues of personal exploration, historical development, social justice, or current culture. Examples of recent integrated units include: sexual and reproductive health, war crimes, careers, -isms, standardized testing, Chicago history, "Fast Food Nation."

Peer Mediation
Non-violent conflict resolution is essential to the smooth functioning of a small learning community. The BPHS Peer Mediation program trains select students in a process of mediation that is objective and non-judgmental. In this way, the entire student body benefits from the program, as students have available to them the option for settling differences outside the institutional disciplinary system.