Our Community Wellness Program provides all students and families with support both academically and socially throughout their Riviera Ridge education.
ExSEL's Student Support Team
The Riviera Ridge School's unique Wellness Program was developed in partnership with The Riviera Ridge Student Support Team, to ensure confidence, resiliency, and care for every student. From academic learning support to SEL (Social & Emotional Learning) courses taught by our Director of Student Wellness and School Counselor, we focus on the individual needs of each child while also facilitating small groups that foster positive academic development and social-emotional growth.
In this space, students are given the confidence to practice soft skills in communication, relationships, and personal growth. Monthly parent education events are also held for both Lower School and Middle School Families.
Andrea Torchin - Associate Head of School Jenny Kustura - Lower School Division Coordinator Dr. Mario Bucio - Director of Community Wellness & DEIB+ Anna Forterra - LCSW, School Counselor Rebecca Ryser - Middle School Division Coordinator Matt Kustura - JK-8th Learning Specialist Kate Keeley - JK-8th Learning Specialist Ursula Kennedy - JK-8th Learning Specialist
Learning Support Programs
In addition to the welcoming faculty and engaging classrooms at The Riviera Ridge School, our uniquely designed Learning Support Program provides our students with learning differences with the accommodations needed for their individual growth and success.
At The Riviera Ridge School, the Student Support Team (SST) is dedicated to empowering students as confident, capable learners. By nurturing lifelong learning skills, the SST supports each student’s academic growth and personal development with intention and care.
In partnership with teachers and families, SST directors create individualized learning plans when needed that are tailored to the student’s unique strengths and needs. They offer classroom support with students and serve as essential liaisons between school, home, and community resources.
The SST provides guidance in accessing appropriate resources, including referrals for educational and developmental assessments. Through our Learning Support Program, we help students deepen self-awareness and develop strong self-advocacy skills within a supportive environment.
Personalized Learning
Individualized and personalized student instruction is at the forefront of a Riviera Ridge School education. Through small class sizes and flexible learning environments, our faculty is able to tune into the needs of each child and meet them where they are as a learner so that every student can feel successful and confident in the classroom and beyond. A personalized learning approach tailors the educational experience to the unique gifts, needs, and interests of every student, supported by our school-wide 1:1 technology program.
SEL - Social Emotional Learning
As the mental health of all our children continues to be a priority of providing the highest level of academic excellence, numerous studies continue to support the positive long-term effects of social-emotional learning. Now more than ever, we are proud of our unique and deeply rooted Social Emotional Learning (SEL) program at The Riviera Ridge School. SEL is woven into all grade levels to promote strong interpersonal communication skills, workshops on creating positive friendships, and offering more individualized support for students going through a period that is particularly difficult period. All Middle School students participate in a grade-level SEL course taught weekly by our school counselor, Anna Forterra, LCSW.
With both Academic and Social Excellence in mind, the Middle School advisory program is purposefully led and designed to promote thoughtful communication, intellectual development, and empowers students to confidently navigate the everyday challenges of adolescence with joy and resilience. The goal of the Riviera Ridge advisory program is to build trust and community, strong interpersonal relationships, and knowledge of self.
Middle School students have the opportunity to meet with their faculty advisor and their grade-level advisory group three times a week. With a low student-to-teacher ratio, every advisory class can dig deeper into areas such as executive functioning, study habits, stress management strategies, advocacy skills, and team-building. Throughout the school year to learn relationship building, self-expression, leadership, self-advocacy, organizational and communication skills, and create lasting friendships.
Middle School Faculty Advisors are involved in every aspect of student life at school. Serving as the focal adult who advocates for the student and oversees academic and social-emotional development for each individual student, Faculty Advisors are the first point of contact for all Middle School Parents. Parents also have the opportunity to meet with their student’s advisor at back-to-school night, parent-teacher conferences, and as needed throughout the school year.
Middle School Success Seminar
The Riviera Ridge Middle School Success Seminar is a universal learning support program to build individual capacities for lifelong learning through a student-centered curriculum. Success Seminar, led and taught by our Middle School Division Coordinator, provides all Middle School scholars with the unique opportunity to develop and implement individualized study skills and learn about their developing brain within an academic context.
Together, students explore the various functions and strengths of the adolescent brain to better understand how they each learn best as an individual. Students build the vital executive functioning skills needed to achieve personal academic success through regularly practiced strategies.
Available Accommodations
The Riviera Ridge School partners with parents of students with diagnosed learning differences and teachers in a collaborative effort to create an Individual Accommodation Plan (IAP) tailored to your student’s unique needs. Including but not limited to:
* Allow extended time on tests, quizzes, classwork, and standardized tests.
* Offer preferential seating, near the point of instruction and away from distractions.
* Allow access to class notes.
* Provide a quiet testing location away from peers, if needed.
* Allow use of calculator.
* Allow use of adaptive technology, such as Learning Ally or voice-to-text.
* Allow frequent breaks to circumvent fatigue.
Kaleidoscope routemap
Choose age group
IntroductionAll ages
Early EducationJK - Grade 1
Lower SchoolGrades 2 - 5
Middle SchoolGrades 6 - 8
Kaleidoscope | Introduction
At The Riviera Ridge School, we want our students to examine the world around them, to find the beauty in differences, and to value multiple perspectives. Through the lens of our signature program, Kaleidoscope, our students are given the unique opportunity to experience and study the traditions and values of world religions and diverse cultures through a global and unifying perspective. Just as a Kaleidoscope reflects light in different ways, our students shine in a variety of ways as well. The Kaleidoscope Program presents students to share what lights them up while illuminating the perspective of others as well. In the same way a kaleidoscope’s rotation presents an ever-changing view, we encourage our students to be tolerant, open, and flexible in theirs. Our students broaden their minds through the study of historical, cultural, ethical, and moral perspectives in a reflective view of world religions.
Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.
- Aristotle
Take a singular part out of a kaleidoscope, and it won’t look like much. It relies on the interconnectedness of each little light. As the sum of its parts, growing and changing with every turn, a stunning tapestry is created. Our students learn that they are part of this tapestry, with each year of study, the knowledge becomes more vivid: they’re connected to something bigger. Religious Traditions Explored include: Buddhism, Catholicism & Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American Traditions, Indigenous cultures, Shinto, Sikhism, and Taoism.
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Kaleidoscope | Early Education
The idea that one possesses a purpose beyond self is part of our school’s vision. Our core values are introduced to our students the moment they step on campus. In Junior Kindergarten through First Grade, students delve into literature-based units of study that illustrate our shared values of Joy, Kindness, Diversity, and Ethical Responsibility.
In Junior Kindergarten, students and their families share their heritage and traditions through storytelling and by bringing in food and favorite recipes to share with the class. In Kindergarten students learn ways to solve conflicts by being peacemakers as exemplified by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In First Grade, children learn about being a friend to self and others through powerful stories such as The Rabbit Listened.
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Kaleidoscope | Lower School
An exploration of world religions begins in 2nd grade and continues through 5th grade. The Kaleidoscope Program introduces students to religious traditions through stories of real people, especially children. Students encounter religious traditions authentically, as integral to everyday life, as well as personal and communal identity.
In Second Grade students study geometric patterns of mosaic tiles in mosques and make their own mandalas. In Third Grade, students can be found listening to music from various world religions, studying the importance of the arts through cultural traditions. In 4th and 5th grade, students learn about traditions through guest visits from locals, such as a Chumash elder.
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Kaleidoscope | Middle School
As students enter the Middle School years, our vision of cultivating social responsibility and empowering individual potential grows even stronger. In 6th grade Service Learning, students learn about what it means to be a social entrepreneur and create their own Service in Action Project. In 7th Grade Ethics, students reflect on how they make decisions and examine their own beliefs and moral frameworks, as well as the ethics of others. The Kaleidoscope Program culminates with a comparative and comprehensive study of Comparative Religions in the 8th grade. Our 8th grade leaders graduate from The Riviera Ridge School empowered with a profound awareness for empathy, love of diversity, and immeasurable purpose beyond self.
