Mission
Our Mission
Four Rivers Charter Public School is dedicated to educating young people for lives of learning and service. The school offers a rigorous college preparatory program aligned with the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks and an emphasis on character development for moral and social responsibility.
Three central themes -– nature, technology and community — guide teaching and learning at the school, engaging students and teachers in a fundamental question of our times: How do we find the healthy, sustainable interrelationship of the natural world, technology in its many forms, and the human community? The school works closely with parents and seeks both to serve and to learn from the many resources of Franklin County. We strive to be an anti-racist school.
Land Acknowledgment
The Four Rivers community would like to acknowledge that the school itself sits on Pocumtuck land. The Pocumtuck were dispossessed of their land by colonization, violent warfare, and genocide. They fought to prevent the taking of this land. They moved to be a part of surrounding tribes, including but not limited to the Mohican, the Nipmuc, and the Abenaki, whose Nations are still here today. Indigenous people of many backgrounds live among us here as well.
This land acknowledgment indicates a commitment by the school to continue building our capacity to teach the truth about Indigenous history locally and around the world and foster and grow connections with the local Indigenous communities.
The four rivers that are the basis for the school’s name were originally named: The Pocumtuck or “clear fishing stream” for the Deerfield. The Paquog or “place of arrows” in Abenaki, for the Millers. The Pukcommeagon or “smoky water” in Nipmuc, for the Green River. Kwinitekw or “long tidal river” (the “wa” sound means it’s alive) for the Connecticut.
We aim to reintroduce these terms and others in order to normalize their usage. We must continue to speak them aloud. The land can recognize these words and hear us.
This land acknowledgment was written in collaboration with Indigenous activist and Four Rivers mother, Rhonda Anderson (Iñupiaq -Athabaskan) Modified 5/23.