Severn
students recently took a dive into the pool of course
selections. Fully submerged in the variety of academic and fine arts classes,
they must take the next step to finalize next year’s schedule and choose their
desired courses. But there is more to Severn’s curriculum than what may appear
to the naked eye. In my previous article on the Malone School Online Network, I
sat down with Ms. Charlier to ask some questions about the essence of the
program here at Severn School, but my expedition didn’t stop there. Shortly
after, I talked with Headmaster Lagarde to decipher the Malone School’s journey
to existence here at Severn.
Q: How did Severn become part of
the Malone School Family Foundation?
Mr. Lagarde: It’s an interesting process. John
Malone’s Family Foundation is very different from any other non-profit
foundation or fund in that it has to specifically seek out your school. As a
child, John Malone went to the Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut with
the help of financial aid. He eventually went on to Yale and later became a very
wealthy man. He wanted to give back in a way that his fortunes would reach and
impact a school such as Hopkins. His idea was to give two million dollars to
one school in every state so that there would be fifty Malone Schools. The
money would be put into an endowment to be used as financial aid for a gifted
student that would be considered a Malone Scholar. So, Severn School received
an email from the Malone School Family Foundation asking Severn to apply for
the program. Seven other schools in Maryland were asked to apply for the two-million-dollar
grant. Severn was selected and accepted in Maryland. What Severn School agreed
to do was have a Malone Scholar in each grade starting with seventh grade
through twelfth grade.
Another
school that is part of the Malone School Network is the Stanford Online High
School. It’s basically a high school that is executed directly online. The
school was using Stanford’s infrastructure to deliver what was a pretty high-end
experience for their students because it allowed face-to-face interaction with
the teacher and his/her students around the world. The heads of Malone Scholar
Schools come together every summer for professional development at Stanford,
and a question that surfaced one summer was, “Can we take the Stanford Online
High School, model it, replicate it, change it so it can personally accommodate
our own students, and deliver content synchronously so that we can mimic the
face-to-face interactions that are found in independent school classrooms?” We
started with the goal of developing relationships, and then we focused on the
goal of developing content. Although most online learning is about content, we first
wanted to focus on establishing a foundation and a structure that replicated a
small independent school classroom. And then, of course, we wanted to focus on
extending our curriculum.
There
are fifty Malone Schools, and only twenty-one of them are part of the Online
School Network. The Malone School at Severn has gone so well that we continue
to broaden the range of classes. What’s important to remember is that none of
this was to make money. We simply wanted to create something that replicates an
everyday classroom scenario, extends our curriculum, and provides a better
experience for our kids. I think the Malone School adds a neat wrinkle to the curriculum.
In the future, there will be more content delivered online, so to be
familiarized with that type of learning at this level allows Severn kids to
have a bit of a step up as they move forward in their lives.
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