From the Head of School

GSA Monthly Reports

Our Heritage as a Town Academy

By Tim Seeley, Head of School

For me, the most compelling and intriguing aspect of George Stevens Academy, the one that brought me here, and the one that I believe holds the greatest promise as we strive to become an exceptional school, is GSA’s heritage as a town academy. GSA is neither a public school nor a private school. We are something better and more flexible. We are a town academy. Like all schools, GSA exists to enhance the lives of our students by nurturing their minds, their hearts, and their spirits. As a town academy, we welcome any student who lives on the peninsula, and we are free to structure our curriculum and programs in ways that will serve those students best.
     Our identity as a school serving the entire community, together with our freedom from bureaucratic oversight, is a great advantage and sets us apart from most other schools. We have an unfettered capability to adapt our curriculum and our programs to meet our students' needs, and the maximum ability to unleash the prodigious passions, creativity, and talents of our faculty, our administrators and our staff to that end.
     We are, in a sense, a public school: we exist to serve the common, public good. We are equally an independent school: beholden to no one but the students who fill our halls and classes, to their parents, and to the communities from which they come. We can design our programs with as fine and detailed a brush as is possible, and so help our students paint the most fabulous, vivid self portraits they can.
     That is what being a town academy means to me: We choose to serve everyone who lives here without discrimination. We have the freedom to serve them in the ways we think best, not tied down or held back by any considerations borne of concerns from away. To my mind, this is the very best of both worlds, a public commitment carried out independently along with the freedom to shape the best possible experience for students.