Fresh Educational Opportunities
Expanding academic opportunities, enriching experiential learning, and strengthening curriculum continuity across all levels of the School are major focus areas for the approaching academic year, under new Principal Travis Brantingham. Over the summer, a team of administrators and faculty members reviewed strategy and approaches in all these areas with one common goal in mind—educational excellence.
A foundational element in this effort is a newly drafted, comprehensive K–12 curriculum framework, summarizing key content and themes that students are expected to cover in each major subject area at each grade level. Accessible online later this fall, this information should be a useful guide for current and prospective families.
To further bolster the curriculum, two Upper School teachers will be coordinating with faculty at all levels to reinforce math and language arts learning. Math teacher Jim Moser (C’04) will support implementation and rollout of the School-wide Math in Focus program. Nancy Heimerl, who will continue to teach Upper School English and head the World Languages Department, is helping develop and integrate a structured writing curriculum from kindergarten through grade 12.
As part of this effort, Heimerl looks forward to “working at all levels to explore the art of writing.” Having spearheaded and launched the annual publication of Panoply, a journal of literature, art, and photography by Upper School students, Heimerl says she is “hopeful that Lower and Middle School students will also celebrate their written work and creative expression in publications in the future.”
At the Upper School, a new seminar for select seniors is being piloted, with the return of veteran social studies teachers Sharon Carper (C’70) and Jim Evans (C’66). Focusing on the theme of world leadership, this yearlong course will demand and cultivate rigorous research skills, high-level writing, and informed defense of analysis and opinions.
A common thread through these and other academic and co-curricular changes is the incorporation of a broader and more experiential approach to character education at Principia, both inside and outside the classroom. In this regard, the new post of director of experiential education brings together under one umbrella the diverse but complementary areas of community service, School trips, sustainability, and athletics. The aim is to strengthen cross-curricular linkages, thus improving student engagement as well as program flexibility. This position is being filled by Brad Warrick (US’90, C’94), who most recently served as director of athletics and on the Middle School faculty. Shad Nichols (C’98) has moved from assistant director of athletics into the post of director.
“I am very excited about this new position,” Warrick says, “because it is centered on the founding principles of Principia and on a twenty-first-century education that makes learning applicable, engaging, innovative, and service oriented.”
“In striving for educational excellence, we want to fully engage our students and incorporate the ‘whole man’ education in everything we offer,” Warrick continues, “so that students are fully engaged and are challenged to be critical thinkers, to joyously overcome obstacles, and to spiritualize thought.”