Education Committee

I met with the Education Committee of the new school board yesterday. My assignment is to present a new philosophy education out of CCA's and Spruce Hill's present documents. It is a fairly easy assignment as both schools have the same philosophy, and I mostly will be merging the two into a single entity.

Other tasks are more involved but exciting. One is to review and put together a scope and sequence of the entire curriculum, K-12, and to do so with an eye on accreditation of the complete school. Presently Spruce Hill is accredited, while CCA was in the beginning stages.

The third task is the most immediate. Get the teachers of CCA and Spruce Hill middle school together to prepare middle schoolers for entry into the high school grades.

It was a good first meeting, particularly when the two principals and the teachers present began to share the issues they were facing and discovered they were the same! There is a new energy in tackling old challenges, and I look forward to seeing how the new synergy plays out.

By the way, Keith Fallon and I are serving as co-chairs of the Spruce Hill - City Center Academy board. For now, we have a single board that oversees two schools with one headmaster, Seth Cohen. It will take time - a year or two - to transition through the legal system into a single institution, as well as put together all the practical pieces.