SabbaticalHomes.com is eager to feature the accomplishments of its members on its website. So many of you are doing exciting things that are of interest to our diverse community. We also hope that SabbaticalHomes.com has been helpful in the successes our academics, writers and artists.

Our Notable Member for this issue of our newsletter is Dr. Katherine K. Merseth, Senior Lecturer, Harvard School of Education, and long-time SabbaticalHomes.com member.

"This site has helped me immensely. Honestly, I have lost count on how many tenants I have had, but I would estimate something like seven or eight."

Merseth thinks the success of SabbaticalHomes.com is tied to its unique demographic. "Academics are easier to work with since they often have the same schedule I do," explained Merseth. She sends lots of pictures to her prospective tenants and uses former tenants as references. "It's relatively simple."

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers recently honored Dr. Merseth for Excellence in Advancing Knowledge, primarily for her work on her current book, Inside Urban Charter Schools.

"It is an honor to be recognized by this group because it represents the gate keeper for high quality charter schools," said Merseth. "I have been interested in the charter school movement since it began in 1993. It offers real opportunities as well as possible perils for reforming K-12 education."

Charter schools are center stage in the debate about the state of education and school reform across the United States. Perhaps no one is more qualified to speak to the successes of charter schools than Dr. Merseth. 

The next step in her work is to investigate low-achieving charter schools to determine if the factors that were important for high achieving charter schools, as identified in her book, Inside Urban Charter Schools, are missing from the low-achieving ones.

SabbaticalHomes.com is proud of Dr. Merseth's accomplishments and looks forward to her continued input on the changing face of education. We will keep you all posted on her findings. If you have a suggestion for a Notable Member, please contact us at SabbaticalHomes.com.

That's exactly what happened to Aylette Jenness, author and long-time SabbaticalHomes.com member, when she leased her Cambridge, MA apartment last year. In her discussions in getting to know her tenant, she learned he had lived in Nigeria, in the same general region that her family had.  Aylette and her family were there for three years, and she worked on her writing and photography, capturing the African way of life. This led to her third published children's book, Along the Niger River- An African Way of Life.

Both families, not knowing each other then, returned to their lives in the United States, only to find one another by chance through SabbaticalHomes.com.

"The people who use SabbaticalHomes.com are so simpatico. I always meet interesting people but this was such a wonderful connection," said Jenness. "My tenant was about the same age as a boy living there that my own son had been."

This encounter was the beginning of a happy friendship between Aylette and her tenant-family. She later learned that the tenant's mother was also an author of children's books, and had worked in the field of photography as well. In fact, when Aylette needed to return to Cambridge, yet her tenant's young daughter still had two weeks of school left, the group decided to be housemates and now, of course, are lifelong friends.

Her latest tenant is no exception. Again through SabbaticalHomes.com, she has rented her apartment to a family and they have become friends. They are new to the Massachusetts area and are delighted to live in her Cambridge home but all are already planning on joining her at her winter home in Cape Cod for a weekend soon. "They have never been out to Cape Cod and we get along so well, it was very natural to invite them to stay with me."

Currently, she is hard at work on her first adult book, a photographic memoir of her time in Nigeria during the Nigerian civil war. Aylette is an accomplished author of 13 children's books, many of which have been used in classrooms across the United States. Her last children's book, All About You -- An Adventure in Self Discovery, is on display in the Boston Children's Museum.