"Maine Boarding School Blog"

Two Generations at Gould Academy: Community and Lasting Values

Rob ’75 and Stef ’12, father and daughter, find the core of Gould Academy as they sit for an interview during during Rob’s 35th reunion. Stef, of course, finds the idea of her father’s teenage rock stardom pretty funny. But, Rob, thinking out loud and with some years behind him articulates the essence of Gould [...]

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Kents Hill School Names Jeremy LaCasse 18th Head of School

This marks the second head of school appointment this month that we’ve had the privilege to share. Kents Hill School trustees announced the appointment of Jeremy LaCasse to succeed retiring head Rist Bonnefond this coming June. LaCasse brings a career and experiences steeped in boarding schools to Kents Hill. A Berkshire School alumnus, he returned [...]

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Coming Together, Understanding, and Looking Outward

We live in a bubble. Here, up on a beautiful hill in Maine, we at Kents Hill School live in a warm, open community that welcomes students and faculty from all over the world. In classes, on the fields and in the residence halls, we teach our students to embrace differences, to appreciate diversity and [...]

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100 Mile Wilderness Run: Gould Academy Faculty Member Tackles an Incredible Challenge

Chris Hayward of Gould Academy (Bethel, ME) teamed with Eli Lazarus (University of Maine) and Nichol Ernst (Summit Achievement) to cover the Hundred Mile Wilderness on a non-stop run. For those of you unfamiliar with the Appalachian Trail, Backpacker Magazine features this description of the 100-Mile Wilderness: “…The extra-burly route stretches from ME 15 in [...]

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Kents Hill School: To China and Back

I was lucky enough to go to China this summer, a country I have long wanted to visit. As the Director of the International Program and Chair of the ESL Department at Kents Hill School, I was excited to travel to one of the countries that I had heard so much about from my students. [...]

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Rist Bonnefond, Kents Hill Head, to Step Down After 20 Years

Rist Bonnefond will reduce his role at Kents Hill School at the conclusion of the school year. His twenty year stewardship at the school have produced a period of great stability and steady improvement. He leaves as one of currently longest serving school heads in New England. The quality of life that Bonnefond has cultivated [...]

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A New Boarding School & A New Boarding Program

The past couple weeks have brought stories of a new boarding program in Maine and a new boarding school in Granby, MA. John Bapst Memorial High School (Bangor, ME) will add an international student program beginning fall 2011. John Bapst principal, Mel MacKay and school trustees spent eight months studying the expansion touring schools and [...]

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Student Video Tells the Story: Who Knew Gould Has a Skateboarding Team?

Gould Academy Skate Team member and aspiring filmmaker Pete Pontone ’10 produced a great video introduction to skateboarding at Gould. It’s noteworthy because it’s so clearly a student speaking to other students about something that he loves. It’s short on dialog and explanation; long on action with solid editing and a great track to keeping [...]

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A View into the Afternoon at Proctor Academy

This quick post about Proctor Academy‘s video (Afternoon Program: Spring Sports and Activities 2010) builds on our Gould Academy entry- Simple Video; Powerful Message: Gould Academy. Like the GA video, it highlights the incredible value of simple, tight snippets that weave together the different strengths & variety of opportunities on boarding school campuses. From the [...]

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Simple Video; Powerful Message: Gould Academy

Carefully aggregating and sharing web content produced by boarding schools helps to fuel our blog. Sometimes the examples are subtle, organic mentions of an event or aspect of a school’s community. These ‘every day’ stories build a foundation for the narrative that clues families into the vibe on campus. Take this video of a Gould [...]

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The Top Ten List of What I Learned as a Parent About Searching for the Right College

So it’s finally over. The decisions are in, the choice is made, and the bumper sticker is on the car – and what a ride it has been! Fourteen months ago, I bought a GPS (whom we named Rhonda – “Help me, Rhonda!”), got in the car and set off for a tour of Maryland, [...]

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Check-Out The Hyde School News Team’s First Episodes

Following our earlier post about their inception (Hyde (School) Broadcasting Communications: Must see TV!), the HBC News Team has produced their first two episodes- a bit of Hyde School (and other) news- mostly a spoof of the hyper-action, hyper-serious, production tone of local news programs with a dash of the old Saturday morning super hero [...]

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A Circle of (College Financial Aid) Hell?

Round about the end of January, I went around muttering about the tenth circle of hell, the one that Dante left out of his Inferno, the one reserved for those parents and students who need to fill out college financial aid forms. “I’m in financial aid hell,” I wailed in a desperate email to a [...]

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Gould Academy Alumni Compete in the Paralympic Games at Whistler Mountain

The Portland Press Herald featured the Paralympic Games experiences and reflections of Gould Academy alumni Luba Lowery and Carl Burnett this past Saturday (Living Their Dreams in Vancouver). Lowery who “lost a leg to a congenital bone defect at age 8″ is competing in her first Paralympics while Burnett “paralyzed from the waist down after [...]

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A Laugh Out Loud Olympic Parody

Don’t miss the two part parody “Ribbon: The Thin Red Line Pts 1 & 2″ done by Pete Hodgin, Kents Hill School history teacher. These videos are Saturday Night Live worthy. Hodgin hits all the right notes and skewers the seriousness with which some of the more odd sports are presented and brings laughable absurdity [...]

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