Los Angeles Area Girls’ Schools Take First and Second Place at Mock Trial Championship
12/18/20—The Los Angeles Mock Trial Program is an academic competition in which over 2,500 middle and high school students compete at the county level. Teams study a hypothetical case, conduct legal research, and receive guidance from volunteer attorneys in courtroom procedures and trial preparation. The trial itself is a simulation of a criminal case, in which students portray lawyers, witnesses, court clerks, and bailiffs, thus acquiring a working knowledge of the judicial system while developing their analytical abilities and communication skills.
Louisville High School and Girls Academic Leadership Academy both performed exceptionally well in the 2020 competition, claiming first and second place respectively in the senior division, which included 110 schools and over 1,800 students. Congratulations to both schools for their hard work and achievement.
Trinity Hall Announces New Head of School
12/16/20 —Trinity Hall’s Board of Trustees has named Mary Kate Blaine as the next head of school, effective July 1, 2021.
For the past eight years, Blaine has served as Principal of Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School. Dr. Barbara McGraw Edmondson, Head of Georgetown Visitation shared, “Mary Kate invests tremendous care in every young woman at Visitation, celebrating each one’s gifts. She makes time for everyone, embracing St. Jane de Chantal’s call to ‘Lead those in your care with an understanding heart.’”
Blaine is equipped with a strong background in curriculum development, strategic growth, and project management, as well as a deep understanding of the importance of fundraising and sound budgeting. Her “proven commitment to all-girls education and experience as an educator, administrator, and leader allow her to truly understand Trinity Hall’s mission and vision, and our hopes and dreams for our future,” stated Victoria Gmelich, Chair of Trinity Hall’s Board of Trustees.
Westridge Head of School Announces Retirement
11/30/20—Elizabeth McGregor, a member of the NCGS Board of Trustees and Head of Westridge School, announced she will retire at the end of June 2022. Herself a graduate of a girls’ school, McGregor will have served at Westridge for 13 years at the time of her retirement.
During her tenure, McGregor focused on building community and trust, expanded and inaugurated signature programs, and celebrated the school’s Centennial. McGregor expressed, “I wanted to be at a school where I could park my heart as well as my mind, and one that was forward-thinking. Even in the most challenging of times, through a recession, the pandemic, and the reckoning that has come with racial and social unrest, I have seen how our school can lean into discomfort and challenge itself to grow and thrive for the sake of its students.”
“Liz’s passion for all-girls education and strong conviction in the Westridge mission and its power to develop female leaders of the future made her a tireless advocate for our school whose contributions will shape Westridge for generations to come,” stated Westridge’s Board Chair Richard C. Fung.
Global Village Project Appoints New CEO and Head of School
11/23/20—Elizabeth Elango Bintliff has been named the new CEO & Head of School at the Global Village Project (GVP), which is the only school in the United States designed to meet the unique needs of refugee girls and young women with interrupted education.
Before relocating to the United States to pursue higher education, Bintliff attended a girls’ boarding school in her home country of Cameroon. She is ecstatic to have the opportunity to work with girls in education, and according to Ginger Schmeltzer, Chair of the GVP Board of Directors, Blintiff “has a clear commitment to and passion for championing youth, with a proven and expansive track record from leadership roles at Junior Achievement Africa and Heifer International.”
Prior to GVP, Bintliff served as the CEO of Junior Achievement Africa, where she transformed the organization’s ability to impact youth programs, developed sustainable funding models, and expanded their reach into additional countries from Ghana headquarters. She also ran the largest division of Africa programming at Heifer International as Vice President. Blintiff holds a Master of Arts in African Studies from Yale University and Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Affairs from Kennesaw State University.
Atlanta Girls’ School Celebrates 20th Anniversary
11/19/20—2020 marks the Atlanta Girls’ School’s (AGS) 20th Anniversary, and they have much to celebrate as they reflect on two decades of inspiring girls to lead lives of purpose.
Originally opening its doors to students in grades 6-9, the school saw its first cohort of graduates walk across the stage in 2004. Today, AGS serves over 200 students in grades 6-12 who come from 60 Atlanta metro area zip codes.
NCGS Trustee Ayanna “Yanni” Hill-Gill, who is in her seventh year as AGS Head of School, shared, “Being small gives every girl the opportunity to build confidence and to find, use and raise her voice. Every part of our school’s culture is designed to inspire girls to lead lives of purpose and to be their authentic selves.”
Congratulations to the AGS community on 20 years of educating girls!
Girls Preparatory School Announces New Head of School
11/17/20—The Girls Preparatory School (GPS) has announced that Megan Cover will be the 10th Head of School beginning July 1, 2021.
“As an all-girls school alumna (Agnes Irwin School), Megan experienced the transformative power of a school where from day one as a new student she felt she belonged,” shared Dr. Becca Stimson, Chair of the GPS Board of Trustees. Cover will confidently step into the leadership role as the GPS Head of School with a desire for each GPS girl to know she belongs there.
Currently, Cover serves as as Head of Upper School at Tower Hill where she has demonstrated excellence in teaching and outstanding initiative and leadership throughout her 20-year tenure. While there, she had been instrumental in launching signature programs, enhancing the experience of rising 9th graders through summer programs, and facilitating improvements to service learning, environmental initiatives, and social justice and wellness programs for Upper School students.
Buffalo Seminary National Merit Scholars
11/13/20—Seniors Penny J. and Tia B. at Buffalo Seminary (SEM) were named as Commended Scholars in the National Merit Scholarship program.
As juniors, these students were evaluated based on their PSAT/NMSQT test scores and their cumulative GPA, which served as the initial screening of more than 1.5 million entrants to the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program. About 34,000 of the approximately 50,000 high scorers on the text earn Letters of Commendation.
Both students are active in a number of SEM clubs including theatre, Model UN, and Babel Book Group. Penny plays the saxophone in SEM Ensemble and is a member of the Glee Club and a cappella group. Both helped create handmade face masks for the SEM faculty this summer.
Head of School Helen Marlette shared, “We’re proud of these exemplary scholars and multifaceted students. They’re quintessential SEM girls!”
Gwynedd Mercy Academy’s L.E.A.D Program Develops Tomorrow’s Leaders
11/6/20—Gwynedd Mercy Academy High School’s L.E.A.D. program gives girls the tools they need to gain confidence, find their voices, and become tomorrow’s leaders.
Gwynedd Mercy alumna Jennifer Cervone Guarnaccia ’93 returned to her alma mater to oversee the school’s leadership initiatives through a program fittingly known as L.E.A.D. (Learn, Educate, Achieve, Develop). Leadership emerged as one of five priority areas during development of Gwynedd Mercy’s five-year strategic plan, which was released in 2019. The strategic plan, which was shepherded by Gwynedd Mercy’s President Denis Corkery Marback ’72, consists of five pillars that included education (mind, body, and spirit), leadership, wellness, connection, and vitality.
The goal of the L.E.A.D. program is “to educate and empower young women to become ethical, courageous leaders of action and conviction.”
“Educating, inspiring, and empowering women has always been a part of our culture and Mercy roots, but now we’re more intentional and purposeful in what we deliver and how we deliver it,” Guarnaccia said. “Our girls need to be prepared to lead when they leave these halls, and they are better prepared for today’s world and challenges.”
One aspect of L.E.A.D. allows Gwynedd Mercy students to become leadership certified through the Lead4Change Student Leadership Program. The 12-lesson curriculum is designed to integrate leadership training, collaboration, and community service into the classroom as a way to effect change. In the first year of Gwynedd Mercy student participating in Lead4Change, four students won program grants and qualified for the national competition, making them the only girls’ school winners.
Click here to read “Ready to Lead,” a feature article about Gwynedd Mercy’s L.E.A.D. program that ran in Suburban Life magazine.
Seeing Beyond Today. A Vision for Our Future.
10/29/20—Now, more than ever, life in school has a day-to-day feel to it. In ways that are new to so many of us, proceeding successfully through a day—much less a week or a month—is a genuine accomplishment. While living this way can test the full extent of one’s emotional and intellectual depths, it can also be affirming. For me at least, it is clearer than ever that our work matters. What we do from here matters.
More broadly, girls’ schools matter. NCGS has long believed that our capacity to connect as a community, unified in support of our schools, makes a difference for our students and their capacity to better our world.
Way back in 2019, a few months before everything changed, Executive Director Megan Murphy asked the NCGS Board of Trustees to think beyond our day-to-day to consider an even more adventurous future for the Coalition. We poured over data from the 2019 membership survey, and in doing so, we learned our member schools are highly reliant and heavily engaged in NCGS offerings. This is a good place to start and also a reminder of the responsibility we carry. As long as girls’ schools matter, so does NCGS. Long before 2019—way back in 2012, to be exact—Megan and her team started the NCGS visioning process by commencing a Listening & Learning Tour that has not stopped since.
I am pleased to say the Board leaves our most recent tri-annual meeting having endorsed a vision for a future that recognizes the centrality of women’s leadership and sees girls’ schools as a distinct means to that end.
I have always believed that when we join forces as NCGS member schools, we do so on behalf of our students. And just like our work in our schools, NCGS does our best work when we build community across difference. At the restorative practices workshop I attended during the 2020 Virtual Educating Girls Symposium, Building Inclusive, Anti-Racist School Communities, I sat in a Zoom circle with colleagues from Johannesburg, Ottawa, Ohio, San Diego, Seattle, Texas, and Washington. A global pandemic has halted travel but not connection.
NCGS aligns itself with other educational leaders like John Sexton, President Emeritus of New York University (NYU) who asserts, “The great question of our time is how peoples around the world will respond to global compression, and the inclusion of unfamiliar elements, drawn invisibly from other cultures, into so many aspects of their familiar, local environment.” In a small, but important way, our Zoom circle eased into an authentic conversation across many time zones, attempting to give an answer to “the great question.” We took turns speaking and more turns listening.
NYU psychologist Carol Gilligan, best known for her research into the moral development of girls, “speaks of ‘radical listening,’ the kind that starts with the true desire to learn from the experiences of others and to discover what they know” (Sexton 2019). That is the charge of NCGS schools today. We need to listen to all of our schools’ voices, in particular those of our community members of color who have experienced marginalization. That is the sort of listening that has marked Megan’s remarkable tenure as our leader. And it is that “radical listening” that has us at this moment where we can speak to a genuine need to reach across boundaries, and a genuine desire to break down barriers, to pull all members into a vision that promotes the visibility and assures the vitality of all girls’ schools.
Paul Burke, President of the NCGS Board of Trustees and Head of The Nightingale-Bamford School
Trafalgar School and McGill Forge a New Partnership to Transform Education
10/1/20—Trafalgar School for Girls and McGill University’s Faculty of Education are establishing a transformative partnership called the CoLab. A first of its kind in Canada, the CoLab will integrate teacher training, classroom practice, and cutting-edge pedagogical research all under one roof. CoLab aims to deliver a dynamic and collaborative learning environment where secondary school and university educators will work together to transform the classroom and the future of teaching and learning.
The CoLab will create an environment where research hubs are integrated into every teaching area; teachers-in-training learn in a space where research and practice are seamlessly combined; students will benefit from experiential, interdisciplinary learning; and practicing teachers can share expertise and engage in this lifelong learning.
“I am so proud that Trafalgar will be building on its longstanding relationship with McGill to pioneer a new era of education in Montreal,” shared Katherine Nikidis, Trafalgar’s Head of School and McGill Faculty of Education alumna. “Because Trafalgar is small, nimble, and embraces innovation, we can model this novel, synergistic CoLab relationship allowing educators and students from both schools to inspire each other daily and benefit from the free-flow of ideas.”
Six Students at The Agnes Irwin School Receive National Recognition Awards
9/29/20—The Agnes Irwin School proudly announced that six of its students from the Class of 2021 have been recognized for their outstanding scholarship by the National Merit Scholarship Program.
“We are proud of the accomplishments and achievements of these six seniors, who exemplify The Agnes Irwin School’s hallmarks of excellent academics, leadership development, and engagement in their global community,” shared Head of School Sally Keidel. “We look forward to their future endeavors, and the impact that they will have here in Philadelphia and beyond.”
As juniors, these Students were evaluated based on their PSAT/NMSQT test scores and their cumulative GPA, which served as the initial screen of more than 1.6 million entrants to the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program. Only 50,000 of these students earn Commended status and 1/3 of those students advance to the Semifinalist round.
Agnes Irwin’s Class of 2021 boasts one Semifinalist, four Commended, and one honoree for the National Hispanic Recognition Program.
The Girls’ Middle School Empowers Girls Through Industrial Arts
9/25/20—The Girls’ Middle School (GMS), located in the heart of Silicon Valley in Palo Alto, California, educates girls at a crucial time in life, from grade six through eight. Since 1998, GMS has been committed to nurturing curiosity and academic growth by providing progressive, engaging hands-on educational opportunities so girls “learn to be safe, handy, and hardy.” GMS’s innovative Industrial Arts curriculum empowers students well beyond the studio.
The art program at GMS creates a safe space for students to take physical and emotional risks by challenging students to be vulnerable and to express their ideas to classmates and their community. The curriculum emphasizes the importance of valuing the process, so the teaching team focuses most of their feedback on the student experience, not the end product. Assessment comes in the form of a conversation, not a grade, therefore students learn to value critique and grow from outside input.
The program includes woodworking, metalworking, and video production. The iterative process of wood and metalworking requires patience, recalculating, and exploring new ways to problem solve. Using the flames and power tools of metal and woodworking builds courage and resilience for students to overcome physical fear and the unknown. Video production requires a different kind of courage and vulnerability to put one’s ideas and passions out into the world to be viewed by all.
All the elements within the Industrial Arts curriculum work in tandem to give girls a safe space to take risks, explore, fail, learn, and try again.