Core Values

Blue Engine’s core values represent our guiding principles as an organization.

Our core values are central to our culture at Blue Engine—the “soul” of our work.  They serve as both inspiration and reminder that our success as an organization depends on students, staff, parents, teachers, and school leaders uniting in the common pursuit of our mission.

High expectations are not enough.  Overcoming steep challenges requires courage, discipline, hard work, and the recognition that learning happens outside our comfort zones.

A human centered approach. To develop faith in their abilities and trust in the learning process, young people need individual attention to push the boundaries of their academic potential.

Collaboration through service. Social change is driven by a shared sense of purpose and sustained commitments to national action.

Accountability. Our idealism is tempered by the recognition that organizational success will depend on an unyielding dedication to achieving measurable results.

Commitment to Diversity

At Blue Engine, we seek individuals of all backgrounds to join our team, embracing our differences, big, small, seen and unseen, as crucial to the success of our mission.

When productively channeled within a shared culture of core values, these differences create the conditions for self-discovery, open communication, critical thinking, and—most importantly—our collective ability to create a measurable and lasting impact in the lives of young people.

Working with high school students in small group settings to advance academic achievement requires that we develop a sophisticated understanding of our students’ motivations and remain aware of how various influences are acting upon them. We must learn from our surroundings and from how people react to our work. We must cultivate a sense of empathy as a precondition for effectiveness, never confusing the power of good intentions with the power of results.

Blue Engine Teaching Assistants and staff are a close-knit team of young professionals. We work together in schools, but also spend time together planning, strategizing, and discussing tough issues.  Each BETA’s background brings something different to the Blue Engine experience.  By establishing a culture that encourages BETAs to communicate openly with each other, to learn from and to trust each other, we create the conditions necessary for BETAs to accelerate student achievement while developing their capacities as leaders in a diverse world.

At Blue Engine, diversity and inclusion center on relationships.  We do not shy away from themes of diversity and inclusion but rather honor them by trying to fully understand them.  In so doing, we arrive at a better understanding of ourselves.  By moving forward with humility, self-awareness, and a shared sense of purpose, we dedicate ourselves to the kind of relationships necessary to advance our collective mission and achieve educational excellence and equity in this country.