Franklin Update -- Winter 2003

These are busy times at Franklin Academy as we prepare to open school this September. Tom Hays, the Educational Director, and Mary Murphy, the Residential Director, are designing a comprehensive program to educate the whole child. They have developed a practical yet innovative learning paradigm, titled Question - Think - Act, to organize and shape each student's endeavors in and out of the classroom. They have also constructed a carefully paced daily and weekly schedule to keep faculty and students focused and refreshed throughout the year.

Our Admissions Director, Cindy Pope, fills her days with campus tours and student interviews. Already, we have 170 active student files, and we anticipate a capacity enrollment for next year. The maintenance team is hard at work, renovating and expanding our facilities, especially in the academic building where we are creating new classrooms and labs. While there is still a lot of construction to complete, we are on schedule and on budget.

My focus as headmaster is now turning to the recruitment of our faculty. I am reviewing the dossiers of great teaching candidates from across the country. Interviews have begun, and I hope to finish hiring everyone by early April. Priority will be given to those educators with strong academic credentials and experience in boarding schools who exhibit a pioneer spirit, an abundance of creativity, flexibility, and compassion, a hearty sense of humor, and the compelling desire to make a difference in the lives of students with NLD. These new teachers will join the Franklin administration and our staff of NLD specialists on July 1 to begin a thorough, two-month, team-building and training process prior to the start of school.

I believe that a major attraction of Franklin Academy for faculty and students alike will be the location of our campus. The property is adjacent to the beautiful 490-acre Chapman Pond Preserve, which leads down to the shores of the Connecticut River. Even though our portion of Connecticut has been inhabited for more than 350 years, 80% of the region surrounding the school is forested. Wild life is abundant. We have deer and wild turkey on campus, and we are constantly on the lookout for bald eagles, great blue herons, and red-tailed hawks. Indeed, the lower Connecticut River is one of the richest ecological systems in the country with many natural areas easily available to our students. With such an incredible resource at our doorstep, you can be certain that Franklin Academy will develop an incomparable science curriculum and outdoor education program.

For more information about the tidelands of the Connecticut River, please go to www.ctriver.org. To learn more about our surrounding town of East Haddam, visit its website at www.easthaddam.org. To experience Franklin Academy and our surroundings first-hand, please give Gabrielle Weissbach, our Administrative Assistant, a call. She will be delighted to schedule a campus visit and a meeting with our administrative team.

Sincerely,

Frederick Weissbach, Headmaster