Right after merger, Steamboat Mountain School needs to create seamless journey for pupils
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — When Steamboat Mountain College and Emerald Mountain Faculty resolved to merge previous yr, building a cohesive encounter for learners was a precedence.
Considering the fact that announcing the merger, substantially of the work had been targeted on marrying the company sides of the two universities, which serve kindergarten via eighth grade pupils at one particular campus and ninth via 12th grade pupils at the other. Consideration has now shifted to how college leaders can use the merger to develop a just one school community.
“We did not want to reduce this possibility and just smash the universities alongside one another and retain items very same, similar,” explained Samantha Coyne Donnel, who is the existing head of school at Emerald Mountain School. “We truly preferred to glance and assess our programs holistically.”
Donnel will sooner or later take in excess of as head of university for the unified Steamboat Mountain School in excess of the summer months with present-day Head of School Meg Morse keeping on to concentrate on the transition. Immediately after about a year, Morse claimed she designs on retiring.
“We both equally believe that strongly that this is the correct factor to do for the faculties, and so this is heading to definitely provide and bolster that knowledge,” Donnel claimed. “I am excited to operate with a even larger crew that will then consider about how to tie the parts with each other.”
The faculties do have several similarities. Donnel mentioned Emerald Mountain College was made working with Steamboat Mountain Faculty as a model, and folks typically assumed they have been previously one particular university.
But Morse explained they are also obtaining a lot of means to use far better language and paint a better picture for parents about what their child’s knowledge will be like at the faculty.
“When you get to merge colleges, there is an electricity that arrives with that,” Morse mentioned, introducing that all through the pandemic, substantially of their concentrate has been on the day to working day. “This merger has permitted us, all calendar year very long, and will continue to allow for us to look 5, 10, 15 several years down the highway.”
The merger officially took spot at the initially of the year, but because then, a process pressure inside the educational institutions, which is produced up of recent academics, mother and father and directors as well as mom and dad of previous pupils and alumni, is wanting at the student journey by the faculties.
“What we are on the lookout at with this is to design broader results that will definitely guidebook the student (kindergarten through 12th grade) journey,” Donnel stated.
Wanting to have a presence on both equally campuses, Donnel reported she will shell out the mornings on the Emerald campus in downtown Steamboat Springs and afternoons at the Steamboat Mountain School’s Strawberry Park campus. She explained going back again and forth could possibly be just one of the extra hard aspects of merging the universities, but she is psyched to yet again do the job with older pupils, which she has completed beforehand in her career.
To gather suggestions, they held about 50 interviews with many faculty stakeholders to figure out what the essential hallmarks of the school experience had been and what matters they should really be carrying out to strengthen the encounter for students, Donnel reported.
Donnel explained the aim is to use what they learn to find out what they do very well and what they do not. They also want to glance at programs at each college to see how they can align the objectives of these courses so they are instructing students classes they will use by their time at the faculty.
Now in her 22nd year with the school, Morse reported 1 of the things she has observed by way of this procedure is that college students and mothers and fathers seem to be to take for granted the high quality of education at the faculty.
“What definitely produced them feel that their education was remarkable was all of the do the job we place into supporting them establish as human beings,” Morse mentioned.
The goal is to finish a great deal of the job force get the job done by building results sometime this summer time. As these are finalized, Donnel explained the university wants to deliver in its marketing staff to rebrand the faculty with a crystal clear mission right before the commence of the following school yr.
“This conversation has happened at unique occasions all over the school’s history, and to me, it is just fascinating,” Donnel explained.
To reach Dylan Anderson, connect with 970-871-4247 or e-mail [email protected].
