Providence and Minnehaha Academy Visitations

I know that the first day of winter is December 21st, but sure feels like winter has already arrived. I'll put it this way – it has warmed up enough to snow again. (yes you're reading it correctly). We got another 4 inches of snow two nights ago. After waking up in sub-zero temperatures several mornings in a row, it has now warmed up to the teens, this afternoon. Having snow all around certainly makes the bare landscape look much nicer!

Since my last blog entry, Carolynn and I have visited two schools, Providence Academy, and Minnehaha Academy.


Providence Academy is a new independent PreK – 12 school that offers a traditional Catholic education for about 900 students (205 in the middle school). They seem to offer a good education but nothing really unique or special about it. It's probably because they are new and still trying figure out the best programs to offer. A lot seems to be in flux. It was started in 2001 with the idea that they wanted to develop a Catholic school with a more rigorous education. They thought that the other Catholic schools in this area had too much emphasis on athletics and not enough on a basic college prep education.




Providence Academy has a newly renovated facility that is VERY nice (as you hopefully see in the pictures). They have wide hallways, wonderful student gathering space (looks like a very large living room with a fireplace), a very nice gym, and spacious classrooms with old style traditional dark wooden desks and chairs. The facility seems to be patterned after prep schools that I imagine exist in the northeast. Religion is core class (along with Math, English, Science, and Social Studies) that is offered at each grade level every other day. This is where their character education is taught. With most schools that we visit, it is the advisory program that offers the character development activities for their students. Providence Academy has a program called 'Ultima' that carves out time for guest speakers, clubs, mini-courses, and service projects. They have Ultima everyday at the end of the school day for a homework check and organizational time before they head home from school. They have and extended Ultima every Wednesday for their other activities. Providence Academy teaches a once-a week course in study skills at each grade level. The 6th grade focuses on time management, organization, and test preparation; the 7th grade focuses on the book, 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens"; and the 8th grade focuses on how to write a research paper (including formatting, internet research, plagiarism, etc.). Providence admittedly has limited technology. Their technology amounts to having two computer labs (PCs) and a cart of wireless laptops which they use primarily to teach the kids how to use Word, Excel, Power Point, and a little bit of web page design … not much else is done. Being a young school they don’t have an endowment and thus have limited resources for technology and scholarships. As far as students with learning differences, although there are accommodation plans in place, there is no learning specialist in the school. Every other school that we've visited has had at least one full-time learning specialist to support students and teachers. There is no teaming in place for the students but there are teams of teachers with kids in common where they talk about supporting their students and brainstorm class activities. In science, their department follows the 'Core Knowledge Science Curriculum' with the 6th grade covering Earth Science and a little of the human body (lymphatic and immune systems); the 7th grade covers some beginning Chemistry and Cell Biology; and the 8th grade curriculum includes Physics (laws of motion), Electricity, Sound, and Food Chemistry. I promised some of my foreign language colleagues at Punahou that I would ask about language offerings. Interestingly enough all of the schools that we've visited in Minneapolis, except Providence Academy, offers Chinese, Spanish, and French. Providence offers Spanish, French and Latin. Spanish and French seem the standard language offerings, but I wonder why Chinese as there is not a large Chinese community in Minneapolis. My Science colleague and friend at Punahou will jokingly tell you that it is just another sign that the Chinese are taking over the world.


Minnehaha Academy is a PreK – 12 School on three separate campuses where two of the campuses are set along the Mississippi River (literally across the street). Their 6-8 Middle School has 225 students (100 of them in the 8th grade). Their Advisory program is central to their Middle School as we spent just about all of our time with their Counselor and Advisory guru talking about advisories. Minnehaha Academy's advisory meets four times a week for 30-minutes with admittedly too many students (20) in each advisory. Ideally they would like to have 12 in each advisory but the tough economic times have hit them pretty hard. They have a carefully coordinated advisory so that all students at a particular grade level have a common experience. Their advisory activities include all the usual activities that you'd expect: community service, study skill development, team building, daily homework check, time management, etc. Within their advisory, they also include a fully integrate project at each grade level based on a particular agreed upon theme. It is then up to each core teacher to find a connection to that theme. This years' themes include 'Winter' (6th grade), 'The River' (7th grade), and 'Careers' (8th grade). As an example, in the 'River' unit, the English teacher has the students read Tom Sawyer, the science and math teacher takes the students down to the Mississippi River to collect data and to calculate information related to the speed of the currents, and the Social Studies teacher does activities to help the kids understand how the Mississippi River supports the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul. Because our conversations were so much about their advisory program, I left without knowing much about their science curriculum other than 6th grade is general science, 7th grade is life science, and 8th grade is earth science. I found it interesting and unique to find out that teams of teachers meet before school, from 7:30 – 8:30, to talk about their students and to discuss their advisory activities. Any parent conference that might be needed is completed during that time (the school day is from 8:45 – 3:05). Minnehaha Academy is a well-established independent school that seems to have as good an advisory program as any of the schools that we visited so far on this trip.



Christmas is right around the corner, so I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and I hope that you have a lot of quality time to spend with your families during your winter break. I will miss all of the Punahou excitement as school ends for the Christmas break this week. I will also miss being with my mom, sister (although I will see her soon), and brother and his family this Christmas. Mele Kalikimaka!