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National Coalition of Girls' Schools Newsletter
IN THIS ISSUE
NCGS Responds to NAIS Coeducation Blog Post
NCGS 2015-2016 Calendar Now Available
The Hamlin School to Host Teach 21 West Workshops
Marymount High School to Host All-Girls Leadership Conference
Highlights from the NCGS "Listening & Learning Tour"

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The National Coalition of Girls' Schools (NCGS) is a leading advocate for girls' education with a distinct commitment to the transformative power of all-girls schools. The Coalition acts at the forefront of educational thought, collaborating and connecting globally with individuals, schools, and organizations dedicated to empowering girls to be influential contributors to the world.
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THE COALITION CONNECTION
May 15, 2015
Dear NCGS Community,
 
NCGS is pleased to rollout a new Professional Development section of our website.

Professional development opportunities for teachers and administrators are among the many benefits NCGS offers its member schools. We encourage our students to be life-long learners. As educators, we also need to step into the role of student to stay informed about topics such as best practices for teaching girls, classroom innovations, strategic school advancement, testing and assessment, and health and wellness issues related to the development of girls and young women.

 

To meet the varying needs of our diverse membership, NCGS has expanded its learning opportunities beyond its national and international conferences to include regional symposiums, online courses (in partnership with the Online School for Girls), and custom designed experiential learning programs (in coordination with strategic partners) for educators and students. All of these are now detailed on our website along with additional opportunities offered by NCGS member schools.

  

Our most recent addition is the Educating Girls Symposium. NCGS and its regional co-presenter, the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS), launched this one-day event last month at The Nightingale-Bamford School in New York. Due to the success and feedback received, we are excited to bring this program to the West Coast this fall.

  

Being held at Marlborough School on October 16, 2015, the topic of the Educating Girls Symposium is Developing Leadership Through Wellness and Mindfulness. Rachel Simmons will be the featured speaker and discussions will revolve around the intersection of leadership, resilience, and wellness.

  

We invite you to submit a proposal to present on your expertise within the areas of leadership, wellness, and/or mindfulness. Click here for the Call For Proposals overview, guidelines, and instructions. To access the online application, click here

 

It is our hope that you will find this new section of our website to be a useful "one-stop shop" for Professional Development opportunities as well as an added benefit of your school's NCGS membership.

  

Regards, 

Megan 

 

Megan Murphy  

Executive Director

 

P.S. Be sure to check out two additional West Coast opportunities offered by NCGS member schools - one for faculty and one for students - detailed below.

NCGS Responds to NAIS Coeducation Blog Post

Hi-res NCGS LogoThis week, NCGS responded to a recent NAIS blog post. Our message included quantitative information about the unique benefits and powerful outcomes of all-girls schools. We received very positive feedback about our posted response and have included it on the NCGS Raising Girls' Voices blog.  

 

We encourage our member schools to utilize the data and language included in the new NCGS blog post as well as these media talking points to craft your own institutional messages advocating for the unique benefits of girls' schools.

NCGS 2015-2016 Calendar Now Available

For your planning purposes, NCGS has posted its calendar of events for the 2015-2016 school year. Click here to view the variety of programming offered by both NCGS and its fellow membership associations.

The Hamlin School to Host Teach 21 West Workshops

The Hamlin School in partnership with The School at Columbia University will host Teach 21 West, a professional development institute for 21st Century teaching and learning. The more than 30 unique one-day workshops will be held on Hamlin's campus in San Francisco, June 22-25, 2015.

 

Now in its fourth year, Teach 21 is developed and taught by The School at Columbia University faculty. The innovative workshops for teachers by teachers are grounded in cutting edge pedagogy and classroom experience.

 

Click here to view the workshops and register.

Marymount High School to Host All-Girls Leadership Conference


Rising 6th-8th grade girls are invited to register for the 4th annual All-Girls Leadership Conference on June 6, 2015, at Marymount High School in Los Angeles. Run and organized by current Marymount students, the conference theme of A Better Self for a Better World conveys how the students want to inspire middle school girls.

  

The goal is to empower and build confidence in young women to become leaders in their communities and around the world. The morning topics are designed to allow for reflection, discussion, and interactive small group activities. The focus shifts in the afternoon to leadership in the local and global communities, giving girls the opportunity to participate in a service project that offers an immediate impact on the local community.

 

Click here for more information and to register.

Highlights from the NCGS "Listening & Learning Tour"

Olivia Haas, Director of Strategic Communications & Research, traveled to the West Coast last week. Here's what she had to say from the road:

 

"On May 3, NCGS hosted its third Girls' School Advantage advocacy outreach program in Los Angeles. Held on the Chalon Campus of Mount Saint Mary's University (MSMU), nearly 200 prospective families and educators attended the event to learn about the unique benefits of an all-girls education. Dr. Linda Sax of UCLA and a MSMU trustee presented findings from her report, Women Graduates of Single-Sex and Coeducational High Schools: Differences in their Characteristics and the Transition to College. I had the pleasure of moderating a Q&A panel of student representatives from the following participating NCGS member schools: The Archer School for Girls, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, Girls Academic Leadership Academy, Immaculate Heart High School and Middle SchoolLouisville High School, Marlborough School, Marymount High School, Ramona Convent Secondary School, Vivian Webb School, and Westridge School.

 

The 2014-2015 sponsor for the Girls' School Advantage program is Girl Up, an innovative campaign of the United Nations Foundation.

 

I stayed in SoCal to visit a few member schools in the LA area.

 

While touring Westridge School, I had the pleasure of learning about several current and upcoming initiatives from an innovative 6th grade classroom set up with a "lounge area" complete with couches and floor pillows to replicate the way girls study at home to a 4th grade robotics class to a currently in-formation makers space. Westridge's Platinum LEED-certified Upper School Science & Mathematics Building is designed to serve as an actual teaching tool for environmental education, including The Louise and Gregory Probert Study - affectionately known as 'the fish room' - complete with saltwater and freshwater aquariums used for student research and monitoring.

Westridge's Louise and Gregory Probert Study

Marymount High School is currently raising funds for its Marymount Makers Movement, an initiative to build a studio space to inspire students to pull scientific, artistic, and mathematical ideas together to create tangible things. I also learned that Marymount was the first all-girls school in Southern California to institute a 1:1 laptop program where every student receives a brand new MacBook Pro upon entering the school, which is hers to keep for all four years. 

 

I enjoyed discussing over lunch with founding principal Liz Hicks the challenges - and successes - she's experienced while starting Girls Academic Leadership Academy (GALA), a public all-girls science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) school. Recently approved by the Los Angeles Unified school board, GALA will start with grades 6 and 9 in the 2016-2017 school year and is modeled after NCGS member The Young Women's Leadership School of East Harlem.

 

Louisville High School was founded in 1960 by the Sisters of St. Louis in the wooded canyons and green fields along Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. Louisville develops every student intellectually, spiritually, artistically, socially, and personally. Toward this effort is a speaker series that features tangible examples of women and men living the mission of the Sisters 'to work toward a world healed, unified, and transformed.' 

 

I then headed up the coast to visit some of our NorCal member schools. 

 

During a tour of The Hamlin School, I saw fresh fruit carts set-up around campus for the students to grab 'brain food' at anytime throughout the day as part of the school's forward-thinking health and wellness program. Hamlin also 'feeds' its students' brains with an impressive fully integrated K-8 computer science program.

 

I loved hearing about how the practice of mindfulness, which has been the cornerstone of the health and wellness program for six years at Katherine Delmar Burke School, is now so integrated into the school's culture that students will ask teachers for 'mindful moments.' These quiet moments of reflection help students - and faculty - focus and decrease stress and anxiety.

 

Castilleja School was one of only five schools nationwide to receive a 2013 Edward E. Ford Foundation award, which is being used to help fund the 'Partnership for 21st Century Assessment.' The aim of this collaboration is to develop meaningful and valid assessments of the school's experiential learning programs, to apply these tools to improve the effectiveness of these programs, and to share these best practices with other educators.

 

The Annual Women of Courage Panel in Honor of Rosa Parks is an evening planned and hosted by 6th-8th grade students involved in the 'Girls in Government, Leadership, and Service' activity group at Julia Morgan School for Girls. Held on February 4, Parks' birthday, the girls interview guest panelists on their thoughts on what courage means to them, how they have witnessed moments of courage in their lives, and advice they have for girls on how to make brave decisions.

 

At Holy Names High School, I was treated to a student-led tour by sophomore Camila who, as a Julia Morgan alumna, is continuing her all-girls education. She told me that an exceptional visual and performing arts program is the tradition of the school's founders, the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. The diverse offerings include AP Music Theory and a live orchestra comprised of students and adults accompanies the school's musical productions.