Middle School Exchange

For several years, we had a wonderful partnership with ConneXions Community Leadership Academy, an inner city charter school in Baltimore. Our middle school students went down there for a week living with families in the city, and we hosted a group of their students up here for a week of life in Vermont. This was a powerful experience for everyone involved (see student poetry journal). For a variety of reasons, mostly related to our lack of physical proximity, we haven’t been able to continue this partnership.

Through concerted efforts particularly by Humanities teacher Lauren Beigel, we are happy to be undertaking a new “exchange” with the Springfield Renaissance School in Springfield, MA. This Expeditionary Learning school has many things in common with Compass, but is clearly set in a very different place with a very diverse student population. We will begin by exchanging letters and then our 8th graders will spend some time in Springfield and we will also host a group of their 8th graders here.  The dates of the exchange are yet to be determined but we are looking to get a sense of who would be willing to host a student or two in their home. While we hope as many 8th graders as possible could host since they will be traveling to Springfield later, other families are also welcome to host students.

Please contact Lauren (lauren@compass-school.org) if you are interested in being a host family for a few days!