MOLLY MONTGOMERY PHOTO
Co-founder Elise Dardani.
New Haven 20 years ago spawned a new test-score-focused set of charter schools known as “Achievement First” that challenged the approach of traditional public schools.
Now two women are trying to launch a private high school with a “Learning First” approach that also seeks to take education in a new direction.
Elise Dardani and Christian Brownrigg are quitting their jobs as public school teachers to try to start the school, called Parker Cove, which they hope will open its doors in New Haven next September.
An open house will take place at the school, at 938 State St., this Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
So far they’re having trouble finding parents ready to shell out over $40,000 a year for their kids to attend a small new school. But the duo is giving it their best.
If they succeed in attracting students, ninth graders will learn alongside twelfth graders in a single classroom composed of ten students or fewer. Dardani will serve as the sole teacher of a non-traditional curriculum driven by four questions she and the students decide together at the end of each school year. The emphasis would be on interdisciplinary courses of study and on “holistic” and “experiential” learning that stresses “five parts of self: intellectual, social, emotional, physical, spiritual.”
The website promises the school will address this question: “How can education support happiness and fulfillment?”
Grooming students to perform well on standardized tests would be lower on the priority list.
“We have a culture that overemphasizes achievement and consequently underemphasizes learning,” Dardani said in an interview. “High school students absorb the message that performance and results are paramount. They can become fixated on the outcome, and they miss out on the fulfillment and real learning that happens when they value their learning process.”
Teaching at Darien High School and the Norwalk Center for Global Studies, Dardani said, she wished that the curriculum was more conducive to making connections, so that students wouldn’t stop thinking about algebra after the bell rang to signal class’ end. And not just connections between school subjects – connections between school and life, mind and body. Parker Cove’s curriculum will emphasize these connections.
“It’s really important for us that our students learn to take care of their whole self, which, as far as we’re concerned, is comprised of five parts – their intellect, their physical and emotional wellness, their social connections, and their spirituality, or really the degree they feel connected to something that’s larger than themselves,” she said.
Part of Dardani and Brownrigg’s educational philosophy, written out atop one of the white-board tables.
They have rented space for the school in what used to be a vintage clothing store. The space consists of two main rooms – an entrance hall with walls that Dardani said she hopes will display art from students and New Haven residents, and a classroom where the students will gather around a set of tall rolling tables with white-board tops. Dardani and Brownrigg’s private collection of books, which are currently stacked against the back wall, are the start of the school’s library. Light from large windows floods the space.
“We want the aesthetic experience of high school not to be fluorescent lights,” she said.
Dardani said she and Brownrigg wanted the school to be located in New Haven because they felt the city is alive and hope to encourage interaction between the students and the city. They plan to invite artists and speakers to visit the school and will encourage bicycle trips and internships around New Haven.
Tuition is steep – $42,200. The project is funded by founding couple and will begin as a for-profit institution. The pair are hoping to turn it into a nonprofit once it is more established. As of now, they will try to offer merit scholarships, and they are also hoping to offer financial aid in the future.
The application pool opened in October. Applications, which include a resume, an essay, two letters of recommendation, and a creative supplement, are rolling, but Jan. 15 is the priority deadline.
So far, no one has applied.
“Ideally, our learning community will be comprised of students from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds,” Dardani said.
One New Haven teacher and activist who has worked on alternative models to test-score teaching, Leslie Blatteau of Metropolitan Business Academy, questioned the need for a private school to address that need
“When we’re really working hard to support and protect public schools, I think the creation of a new private school that’s clearly exclusive in its size and in its cost – I just wonder what that message is about the belief in the public schools that exist down the road, literally down the road, [alternative public magnet] New Haven Academy is down the road from where this school is supposed to be,” Blatteau said.
She said that public schools would love to have Parker Cove’s freedom in curriculum, but that they are under the obligations and pressures imposed by standardized testing.
“Private schools get to do what they want, charge what they want,” she said. “But there’s no ultimate accountability. There is more freedom, certainly. But with that freedom comes a legitimate turning-your-back on the community. There’s no way you can have a private school that’s inclusive.”
In response to Blatteau’s objections, Dardani said, “For us, it’s not about public vs. private education. In an ideal society all students would be educated in one system of public education that was adequately funded, locally controlled, and universally high quality. However, that’s not the system that our society has created, and we feel that the best way that we can contribute is to do something small and innovative, which means that we need to do something independent.”
From what I have seen in my research, schools like this need no 'accreditation', they just need to satisfy the State Student Attendance requirements to basically 'fly under the 'radar''.
From the 'calendar' I've seen, the two week spring break is a nice 'perk', and seems aimed at a certain 'target market'. Whether this market exists or not, remains to be seen....