THE MODEL OF ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

“Girls from a single-sex school are more likely to put themselves forward when they are in a co-ed environment,” Baker says. “There’s so much more work to be done.”

Arundel noted that students from all-girls schools are more likely to participate in class in co-educational settings and also have careers in STEM fields, which have historically been male-dominated.

One key component of teaching leadership skills is mentorship roles. High school students at Hathaway Brown work with middle school students, and middle school students work with elementary students. At Cleveland Central Catholic High School, students participate in the Link Crew, part of the international Boomerang Project, which is based on the idea that “you get back what you give.”

In the program, upperclass students mentor ninth graders, offering guidance academically and in extracurriculars. It’s an important component to keeping students thriving and involved, says Sister Allison Marie Gusdanovic, the school’s principal.

“We want to get freshmen connected socially and emotionally as well as academically,” she says.

Dave Stec, who is taking over as president of Padua Franciscan in Parma after more than a quarter-century with the school, said leadership – be it the people directing the school or the students at the school – is a reflection of culture.

“Empowering leadership isn’t a new concept,” he says. “The key is creating a continuity plan. It’s important to create a culture within the company that doesn’t have to be restarted every time there’s a new leader.

“So we share the culture of the school that puts people in a position where they can take over and strengthen the talent and skill set of the people around you. When you have someone who believes in the vision and mission, you have to strengthen their talents so they continue to have passion.”

By VINCE GUERRIERI

Crain’s Content Studio — Cleveland

During the pandemic, educators and administrators from kindergarten through college had to consider how to best reach their students when actual physical proximity wasn’t an option.

The value of technology has been proven throughout the past 18 months, but some schools are taking it further. Every school – public and private – is obligated to teach some of the same core subjects, per state guidelines. Curriculum is a major pillar – and selling point – of private schools.

Even before the pandemic, some schools were moving toward new models of teaching, in some instances altering the structure of the school day itself.

“When people watch a movie about higher education, they have this idea of a tiered auditorium, and a professor at the front,” says Malone University Provost Greg Miller. “We’re moving away from that.”

Before the pandemic, Malone had created its Pendle Hill Pledge initiative, which cast aside the traditional model for more experiential, hands-on learning. Realworld experiences are spread throughout a student’s time in college – not just an internship as a junior or senior, by which time, Miller says, a student may find out all too late that their field of study isn’t what they quite expected and may not be right for them.

Malone is also small enough that each student can have a mentor.

“We want to produce people who can navigate the changing environment,” Miller says. There are jobs today’s students will have that don’t even exist yet.

“All of us will need to head in this direction. We’re just ahead of the curve.”

Also ahead of the curve is Hawken School, which a decade ago started planning a school that emphasized solving real-world problems in group settings. The school, with campuses in Lyndhurst and Gates Mills, developed a building in Cleveland’s University Circle neighborhood for its new Master School, which opened in the fall of 2020 – right in the teeth of the pandemic.

“We opened in masks,” says Scott Looney, the head of the school. “It was not the ideal time to open a problem-solving and projectbased hands-on school.”

The school emphasizes trial and error, both as part of the learning process and for students to find their purpose, Looney says. “No two students will have the same experience at the Master School, and that’s what we think education is like now.” Looney believes that the century-old model of traditional education was designed in a bygone era to cultivate industrial workers.

“It was built in the time of industrial processes, which encouraged specific repetitive tasks,” he says. “It worked then, but it’s a good way to be unemployable now.

“The schedule of most schools is built around the needs of adults, not the learning needs of children.”

Engaged learning happens in the classroom and outdoors on Lake Ridge’s 93-acre campus.

Padua’s MedTrack program combines advancement coursework and practical experience that is gleaned through o -site experiences, including a summer externship at leading Cleveland-area hospitals such as the Cleveland Clinic.

Saint Ignatius also recently adjusted its daily schedule, which principal Anthony Fior says is an important component to the Jesuit school’s mission. e day starts a halfhour later now for students, at 8:30 a.m., re ecting young people’s circadian rhythm, which is di erent from that of adults. And on Wednesdays, students start at 9 a.m., which Fior says allows for more intentional, professional learning.

e whole school day has shi ed as well, with 70-minute periods, instead of the typical 40-45 minutes, a change that Fior says came from input from alumni in the corporate world. “We think the longer periods of time will enable teachers to o er learning experience that teach teamwork, collaboration and problem-solving,” Fior says.

Additionally, there is now common time in the middle of the day. Students were kept busy with sports and activities before and a er school, and transportation needs might not allow them to come to school early or leave later. Club activities can now be done during those common school-day periods, which Fior said will lead to more engagement.

Many schools also o er breakout programs within their educational structures. Lake Ridge Academy in North Ridgeville o ers a high school certi cate program in four concentrations: ne arts, scienti c research, engineering or global and international studies.

“ ink of it as a college minor,” says middle school director Tim Unger. “You’re still getting a Lake Ridge diploma, meeting state requirements, but students can focus on areas of passion, interest and skill on top of the regular Lake Ridge experience.” Students’ interest in those elds can start in middle school, Unger says, where students are engaging in project-based classwork in a variety of subjects.

At Hathaway Brown, there are a variety of academies in the middle school, while in the upper school, girls can participate in a fellowship for applied studies, o ering the opportunity to work in medical schools or with NASA.

e school’s business and nance group helps run the school café (and even formed a franchise with fourth-graders in the primary school) and actually gets real-world investment experience by working with a member of the school board and managing a percentage of the school’s endowment.

“ ey’re really smart and mindful of how much risk they can take,” says Elizabeth Pinkerton, director of enrollment management at Hathaway Brown. “ ey’re doing an impressive job.”

Padua Franciscan in Parma o ers a series of tracks. MedTrack prepares students for medical careers, with curriculum that not only includes science, but also bioethics (a re ection of the empathy the Franciscan school wants to teach) and other topics, addressed by externships and guest speakers. is year, the pool of speakers increased greatly, thanks to the prevalence of virtual meetings.

“If you had asked me what’s next in education, virtual and augmented reality are going to change the game,” says David Stec, a longtime education leader at Padua who took over July 1 as the school’s president. “One of the things we learned from COVID is that technology can unquestionably help us educate.”

In addition to MedTrack, Padua o ers MyTrack, which delivers classwork and career exploration through ve di erent programs: engineering, studio art, business and entrepreneurship, computer science and law. Stec estimates that around half of the school’s 750 students are in one of the tracks.

Many schools, public and private, also include some type of service component. Service projects remain an important part of schools formed by religious orders. And while the pandemic forced some schools to adjust how they served, it also showed the need for community service – and community connections – is of signi cant value.

“COVID made us all isolated,” Stec says. “Service brings us into the world.

“A lot of the service component comes back to serving your family and then moving out to the community. We continued to teach how to make a di erence, even in the digital world.”

Service projects also o er the experiential learning so prized in education today. Fior notes that service, like education, can draw students out of their comfort zone. At Saint Ignatius, students feed the homeless on Sunday nights, o er tutoring to other local students, and even serve as pallbearers when requested.

Marilyn Arundel, dean of faculty and academics at Magni cat High School in Rocky River, said the school normally has a robust outreach program. However, students were unable to distribute meals despite the rising demand due to higher levels of unemployment during the pandemic. So they came in – properly masked and sanitized – and prepared and packaged meals for faculty to drop o .

“ ey had to be creative, and this is where our students were really stepping up and nding new ways to do things,” she says.