If you’re a high school snowboarder with collegiate or U.S. national aspirations, you might like our latest video interview with Chris Davies, Gould Academy, head snowboarding coach.

Davies talks about how Gould works with and approaches competitive snowboarding from cross training in the off-season to spending 100 days on snow during the winter.

You can see the video in two places:

1. At Gould’s “Glog” with the title “Does This Make Me famous…??” (I think it does, Chris!)
2. Or as part or our article: “Scouting Report: Competitive Snowboarding Boarding Schools“

Additional resources:

Gould Academy – www.gouldacademy.org

Boarding schools in Maine

Janet Dunn, Director of the Akin Learning Center at Kents Hill School chats with us about the center’s new building and the story behind it.

Kents Hill (a coed boarding school in Kents Hill, ME) has been on the fore of learning differences programs having had a program (that started in Dunn’s living room) for 32 years.  The new building is the latest step in the center’s journey from living room, to library, to dedicated, purpose built facility.

A seven year process brought the Akin Learning Center from idea to realization.  Like all good architecture the process began with the students and faculty who use the building and worked outward toward design.  The center’s new home provides students a comfortable setting into which kids want to come, collaborate, and be proud of what they accomplish.

Kents Hill alumni carry a structure and routine into college and adulthood that they’ve absorbed from the KHS experience.  They know how to keep a schedule and when to study and they are comfortable and secure in their interactions with teachers and adults.

Additional resources:

Akin Learning Center

Kents Hill School – www.kentshill.org

Boarding schools in ME

Learning differences boarding schools

Ridley College headmaster Jonathan Leigh talks about the foundation of values that Ridley instills in its students.

With a passport of academic success, Ridley looks to send its graduates into the larger world as globalized, civilized, human beings.

Coming together from all over the world, then praying, playing, and eating together at Ridley builds and instills an ethic and series of experiences that Ridley alumni carry into all of their future endeavors.

Ridley College is a coed boarding school in St. Catharines, Canada.

Additional resources:

Ridley College – www.ridleycollege.com

Boarding schools in Canada

The Williston Northampton School head, Robert Hill, talks about Williston’s new mission statement- how it came about and how the new statement informs and reflects school life.

Built on three concepts that are innate parts of the Williston community- purpose, passion, and integrity- the entire Williston community now harnesss these core values to sharpen daily life and practices. Purpose, passion, and integrity inform everything that Williston does, how the community, and how each individual goes about life at the school.

Building the new mission statement was an inclusive nine month process beginning with faculty examining and giving expression to the fundamental tenets of the Williston experience.

“The Williston Northampton School inspires students to live with purpose, passion, and integrity.”

Additional resources:

The Williston Northampton School – www.williston.com

Boarding schools in MA

Mark Schindler, Mercersburg Academy (a coed boarding school in Mercersburg Academy) assistant director of admission and head lacrosse coach, offers his perspectives on the roles that athletic talent can play in a student’s private school admission process.

Schindler talks about how a family can glean insights into academic and athletic fit- from expert to novice player. He also explores the importance of coaching expertise and a school’s competition level in a student athlete’s development.

In the admission fit equation, athletic ability and interest (along with academics and other considerations) are pieces of the admission process.

For the expert player, athletic ability may not the be-all and end-all; but, for a highly skilled and talented athlete, athletic talent is certainly a piece of admission puzzle. Even for the novice player, schools and admission officers like to see students interested in participating in school activities and school life.

How can parents and student gain insight into the competitive level of a program?

Schindler makes it simple. “Don’t be shy,” Schindler advises. Do your homework. Call coaches; e-mail; express interest; just ask. Coaches welcome and appreciate genuine interest in their programs.

Additional resources:

Mercersburg Academy – www.mercersburg.edu

Lacrosse boarding schools (a list of schools)

Scouting Report: Lacrosse boarding schools

Three Berkshire School students are asked:

“Are you going to miss it [your Berkshire experiences upon graduation]?

Three Berkshire School students all answered, “yes.”

In this tour of Berkshire School‘s campus (Sheffield, Massachusetts), thee BA students (two seniors, 1 PG) speak about the boarding school advantages of an engaged and supportive faculty. Chris (PG) appreciates being pushed through the personal nature of the small classes. And in a similar vein, Barrett (day student) speaks about the connection between interested teachers and intense academics.

Hockey and Basketball provide competitive athletic experiences at Berkshire with all varsity teams in these two sports regularly at the top of the standings. Students interested in learning a sport or trying something new have a range of offerings from recreational to varsity in many sports.

Berkshire students attend class six days a week with Saturday nights and Sundays offering on campus social and residential activities and off campus trips.

When asked why Berkshire has been a great place for each of them each offered a personal take.

Chris said: “it [Berkshire] really pushed me to succeed.” Barrett appreciates the sense of purpose and community motivation. Lucy appreciates the close-knit community.

That’s boarding school.

Additional resources:

Berkshire School - www.berkshireschool.org

Stoneleigh-Burnham School students Hannah and Mary share their thoughts on the SBS experience.

Academics at Stoneleigh-Burnham translate into college success. Stoneleigh girls work through a series of introductory foundational classes before moving on to advanced, or IB, level classes in the 11th and 12th grades. Core curriculum classes include work across the subject areas with emphasis on theater and visual arts, research and research paper writing. Research practice begins in the ninth grade, with the five colleges of the Pioneer Valley (MA) providing extensive research opportunities.

This is Stoneleigh’s first year as an International Baccaulaureate, or IB, school with students appreciating the rigor and global perspectives offered through the program.

Stoneleigh requires two arts credits of each student annually and a sport or activity such as dance or acting every semester.

Stoneleigh dedicates a part of its mission to public speaking and the concept that every student must develop her voice. Students fulfill speaking requirements and the debate team is renowned. The school hosts a public speaking tournament on campus each October.

Why is Stoneleigh-Burnham a great place to go to school? Each students grows into her voice graduating with confidence to affect her community.

We’ve been grinding for months. We’ve made it through the longest part of the school year without a major break (September to Thanksgiving) and now many of us will enter the final exam crunch next week- for students taking exams and faculty grading and writing comments.

We’re tired.

Here’s a fun video that that Trinity-Pawling School sent me back in the fall that helps me keep in mind the optimism with which every school year begins and, that sometimes, we have to fight to hold on to during the short slow winter.

That object of affection, and some joking, the bow tie sporting faculty member (I can say that because I’ve been a bow tie wearing, boarding school faculty member whose headmaster sported bow ties when I was in school), Kent Hill School‘s Jeremy LaCasse offers up this quick instructional video for his fans.

Tying a bow tie really is easier than it looks.

Interestingly, LaCasse looks to have some idiosyncrasies in his technique. It looks like he might be left handed. And, he ties the tie from the bottom up rather than from the top down. I’ve never seen the bottom-to-top technique anywhere before- in practice or in print.

Goofy fun.

Resources:

Kents Hill School is a co-ed boarding school in Kents Hill, ME.

www.kentshill.org

As sub-genre, small boarding schools, offer a more communal and individual boarding experience from than their large school brethren and this certainly true of athletics.

If you’ve got a student body of 140 (or less), filling rosters and competing, in large team sports can prove challenging. Try filling two reasonably competitive soccer, or lacrosse, rosters- varsity and junior varsity- from a pool of 70 boys, or girls, while offering the students a choice of activities. Coaches become recruiters within their school. Sometimes students pull double athletics/activity duty. It’s an upstream swim.

Today, I came across a story in the Keene Sentinel covering Dublin School‘s first home mountain bike race. The race, though, is only part of the story.

Dublin’s thinking and philosophy behind the team and the race are where the real story lies. Dublin seems to be working toward an athletic approach that plays to a small school strength- individual development.

If it’s difficult to play with the big schools in the team sports arena, what about athletic offerings that play to strengths of students pursing individual sports?

Dublin’s inaugural hosting of its mountain bike team shows a school that knows the kinds of students attracted to, and who do well in small schools, all finding a home and medium for success in a school who knows what it does well.

In the finest small school tradition, Dublin’s first mountain bike meet wasn’t about winning or losing. It was about the students- people.

“For Dublin Coach Bill Farrell, Wednesday’s meet was a major step, regardless of how the Wildcats did.

‘This is just to establish we’re in the game,’ Farrell, a science and math teacher at the school, said. ‘To put on one of these in our first year is more important than fielding a big team.’

A former professional skier and longtime skiing and mountain biking coach, Farrell came to Dublin School prior to this school year from Kimball Union Academy in hopes of building a top-notch endurance sports program.

‘These kids that I work with didn’t make it in other sports,’ Farrell said. ‘I’ve got no cuts, no benches. All I’ve got is parents saying, ‘Thank you. (Our son) has found a home here.’”(KS)

Resources:

Mountain biking boarding schools

www.dublinschool.org