Q: What one change for the 2013-2014 school year in terms of equipment, resources, or facilities will make the biggest impact on the Hamden Hall community ?
A: Walking around campus you will notice a number of facility improvements such as the work in classrooms, on the playgrounds and grounds, and of course in Swain Library. However, I believe the change for this year that will make the most noticeable impact on our whole community is OnCampus, our new learning support system. Students are just now being introduced to the many tools and features of OnCampus. We are all experiencing a learning curve, but it is a much more powerful communication tool for students and teachers. We also plan to have OnCampus training sessions for parents this fall. Technology will never take the place of the interaction between students and teachers at Hamden Hall, but technology isn’t the future, it is the present! As a school, we need to take full advantage of all of the opportunities that technology provides in order to continually improve and enhance the overall educational experience of our students. I’m excited that our Middle School faculty have encouraged and embraced the use of ipads in many of their classes. These enhance the learning in many ways as students are able to benefit from more interactive learning. So from online textbooks, to the new Apple Computers used for digital photography and videography in the Middle and Upper School Art Studio, we have continued to invest our resources to upgrade our use of technology as we documented in our strategic plan. We are very excited to discover and implement the full power of our new technology.
Q: Any other news to share about the academic climate this school year?
A: I could go on and on about all of the happenings on campus! I mentioned the Middle School ipad initiative with our Middle School faculty. The goal for the 2014-2015 is to implement a 1:1 ipad program for the Middle Schoolers. Our Lower School Mystic Seaport Partnership has been such a success, we are exploring a partnership with the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford. The Science Center has tremendous resources that we believe could offer our Lower Schoolers unique experiential learning opportunities.
In the Upper School we are offering two new AP classes: AP World History for sophomores ready for college level course work, and AP Economics for juniors and seniors. This brings the number of AP courses offered at Hamden Hall to a very impressive 18! In addition, we have several courses beyond the AP curriculum. We are so fortunate to have outstanding teachers who can teach all of these advanced courses. I believe our students benefit from taking these demanding and rigorous courses while they are still in high school.
Q: We heard that Swain Library was renovated over the summer and is now a Learning Commons. Can you tell us more about that undertaking?
A: As I noted, the interior of the Middle and Upper School Library was remodeled and renewed with a generous gift from trustee emeritus, Spencer Taylor. Mr. Taylor made the gift in honor of his mother, Dr. Barbara Olin Taylor. The Taylor family has been enormously generous to the school. Trustee Bob Massey and his family donated the beautiful new glass windows for the Learning Commons. School architect and current parent, Christiaan Dinkeloo, donated many hours of his time designing the new space. The newly designed space includes two side rooms that can serve as technology centers, meeting rooms, quiet rooms, or additional classrooms. The main part of the Learning Commons was designed to be open space in order to have the flexibility to use it for different purposes throughout the school year and to take advantage of all of the natural light. In addition, when Swain Library was built in 1983, stairs connecting the two floors were not installed. We installed a spiral staircase on the north side of the Learning Commons leading down to the Campus Store and Upper School Student Lounge. Hamden Hall students will enjoy the new space for many years to come.
Q: Are there any new faces among the faculty and in our classrooms this school year?
A: Michaela Boller – Michaela will be teaching Middle School English. She is a Bates College graduate and has recently taught at Cold Spring School in New Haven and the Country School in Madison.
Lindsey Hodgman – Lindsey will be teaching in English the Upper School. She just completed her Master’s at Carnegie Mellon U. Prior to grad school she taught high school English in France.
Margarita Kuhn D’Elia – Margarita will be teaching French in the Middle School and Spanish in the Lower School. Margarita taught French for many years in Argentina. Most recently she has taught French and Spanish to children and adults at a language school in New Haven.
Krystal Grassmann – Krystal will serve as our PS-12 Academic Technology specialist this year. Krystal is a familiar face on campus. She worked last year with our early childhood students in our after school program. Krystal is a graduate of Albertus Magnus College.
Kelly Ryan – Kelly is another familiar face at HH as she filled in for Megan Borelli last winter when Megan was out with a new baby. This year Kelly will be teaching chemistry, working with our Science Innovation & Design students, and serving as a student advisor. Kelly recently completed her PhD in Chemistry at UMass.
Kathy McNeiece – Kathy is our new Head Librarian. Kathy comes to us from Saint Ann School in Bridgeport. In May, Kathy completed a Masters in Ed Technology in Library Media from Fairfield U, she also holds a Masters in Teaching from Sacred Heart U, and a BA in Communication.
Ryan Madden – Ryan is our new IT Operations Manager. He comes to us from the Branford School system where he served as their Technology Coordinator at Branford High School. Ryan is a graduate of Central Connecticut State University.
Kara Horvath – Kara is our new Assist Director of LS Admissions. Many of you know that Kara is a HH alum. After HH, she earned a Mathematics degree from Boston College and an MBA from UConn. She’s spent the last several years working in NYC in both finance and marketing.
Q: How many new families have joined our Hamden Hall school community this year?
A: We have well over 100 new families this fall. In fact, we again had a record number applicants. Also noteworthy was the overall low student attrition rate from last year to this year. An independent school education is expensive for most families and I am humbled to realize that so many families place such great value on being part of the Hamden Hall community.
Q: If you had one wish to grant each student in terms of their Hamden Hall experience, what would it be?
A: One of Hamden Hall’s core values is “participation.” At some point during the school year I hope that every student tries something new. I’ve said many times that Hamden Hall is big enough to offer a robust curriculum and an extensive list of extracurricular activities, but we are small enough for students with little or no experience in a particular area of interest to try something new. I also hope that our parents will continue to stay involved in the school. Hamden Hall is a special place in part because of parent participation. As a parent of a Hamden Hall graduate myself, I know how quickly our children grow up and move on to college. There are many ways for parents to get involved including through the Parents’ Association, Athletic Club, volunteering to chaperone field trips, offering assistance in a particular area of expertise, and fundraising.
Q: Finally, we see an interesting sign near the courtyard that states: Look What's Coming - New Lower School. What can you tell us about that project?
A: As many already learned from last spring’s Strategic Plan publication, we have begun the process of planning for a new Lower school building on the main campus. We are developing the building plan and embarking on our fundraising effort concurrently. At this point, we anticipate that the building will be about 20,000 square feet and it will house PreSchool through Grade Four. In addition, the building will serve as the main administrative building. In order for the new facility to become a reality we will need everyone’s help!
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