The Storm King School campus has been bustling with activity all summer, but the new school year is about to commence. International students begin arriving on Aug. 26 and classes are scheduled to start on the first Wednesday in September.
Headmaster Jonathan Lamb reports 186 students are currently registered, with a 3:2 male-to-female ratio. Last year the males outnumbered the females three-to-one. Of the current students, a record 56 will commute to school while 130 will board throughout the year.
As in the past students are coming from several nations. This year 25 nations will be represented including some new ones like Albania, Chili, Croatia, and Nigeria. There’s also a wider distribution of American students, with 10 states represented.
“Our name is getting out,” Lamb said. “We continue to figure out how to refine the marketing effort. If you go back to 2008, when the crash happened, the domestic market took a hit. Little by little the domestic market has been coming back. The key thing is marketing through our web site, travel by our admissions office around the country and around the world.”
Aside from the 285 children taking part in a variety of summer program offerings, a number of projects have been ongoing to improve the campus.
Carpeting and tile flooring has been replaced by a wood product in buildings and dormitories. A couple of the faculty apartments have been refurbished. Two building roofs were replaced and the playing field has been repatched. Some old security cameras were replaced and additional ones installed. The school will be moving to a new entry system where people will have to swipe a card to enter a building. That should be in place by the start of the year.
In terms of programming, the school will offer a college semester like schedule as it did last year. Students will take and complete three courses per semester.
Lamb said this allows the teachers to offer more group work, problem solving, and lab time. Although the work load is the same, the concept aims to reduce daily stress on the student. Teachers are also able to focus on fewer classes at a time.
Storm King School will continue to expand its student life curriculum which entails dorm life, athletics, and activities outside the classroom.
Last year, an initiative was introduced to address stress including homesickness and coping with test anxiety. In the winter and spring the focus switched to discussions about depression and suicide prevention.
This year the school will be joining the Positive Coaching Alliance to teach coaches how to approach sports for the right reasons – playing for fun, not just to win, learning responsibility, and learning how to be a teammate.
Lamb said Storm King continues to look at ways to expand its STEAM offerings. The school’s biology teacher is looking to create a field biology course using Black Rock Forest and the region as a potential laboratory.
The school is also looking to join the Hybrid Learning Consortium, which offers online courses.
