The Meridian community is based on a strong commitment to respect, honesty, and initiative. Students have a considerable voice in the life of the school and are relied upon as equal partners in creating and sustaining Meridian as an intellectually vibrant, emotionally supportive environment. Students and teachers continually explore how to help each member of the school make the most of their time together. Students have many rights that are made possible through their commitment to corresponding responsibilities.

Students take an active role in maintaining the school. For example, some students have responsibility for setting up and maintaining our computers and computer network and others run the pizza committee which brings in lunch once a week. The entire school cleans up the rooms at the end of each day to prepare our space for the coming school day. When students are responsible for their school and have to fix anything that goes wrong, they learn how to appreciate and take good care of the space and materials that are available to them. Students also volunteer to serve on interview committees whenever there are applicants for new positions at Meridian and provide valuable insights into our teaching candidates.

Community is nurtured at many levels at Meridian. Some of the ways that this is achieved include:

Advisory – Advisory is a group of six to eight students from across the grade range and a faculty member who meet weekly. Sometimes, the advisor and advisee meet for individual discussions of academic and interpersonal progress. At other times, the whole advisory meets for a range of activities from conversations about ethics, class, gender and other topics to efforts that support independent reading at the school (e.g., a field trip to a local bookstore where students pick new books to help stock our school bookshelves).

School Life and Beyond (SLAB) - The students and staff meet weekly for SLAB. During SLAB, the community may propose, discuss, and make changes to the student handbook and other school rules; plan events and parties; address any problems identified by a participant; share announcements; and consider ways to link Meridian to broader community concerns. Speakers may come and address the school about their work.

Community Service - Our service learning curriculum is a natural outgrowth of the respect and responsibility offered to Meridian students. Knowledge used will be knowledge maintained. And knowledge used for the greater good brings true satisfaction in itself. Citizenship within a democracy is characterized by both rights and responsibilities. Within our school, students help to establish, and come to embrace, those rights and responsibilities that will contribute to the intellectual and emotional growth of each member of the community. Students are involved in establishing the goals and rules of the school, and recognize their responsibility in solving problems that they and their peers face.

As students develop a sense of their own abilities to shape the school community, and to create original solutions, they begin to look outward to their local community for ways to address broader goals that their studies have helped them to define. Students at Meridian Academy engage in service projects designed to help them understand the variety of needs within their community. These projects arise out of discussions and research that they carry out within their advisories. The students then volunteer or do other work that they identify as addressing the issues that their advisory has been exploring.

Junior Research Projects and Senior Internships - While not required, both the junior and senior year-long experiences will often have a service component. Seniors will have the opportunity to work at a organization once a week throughout the year and then intensively for the final six weeks of the year. These internships give students the chance to take responsibility for an important body of work on behalf of others.