By Jacquelyn Pillsbury
Chapin School, located at 4141 Princeton Pike, is growing.
They are physically growing, by adding a 14,000-square-foot addition to their Upper School (housing grades 5-8), and also growing technologically by rolling out iPads to every sixth grader.
One area where they will not grow, though, is by adding grades to their school. Chapin remains committed to educating pre-K through 8th grade students.
Renovations at the school are taking place over two main phases. The first phase, completed before school started in September, included a 13,000-square-foot Lower School building for grades Pre-K through fourth that added classrooms, a science lab, technology center, library, offices, and a large commons area.
Changes include using smaller furniture in the library and overall making the facility more appropriate for younger students. The addition includes wide hallways, high ceilings, and lots of natural light. It was built to LEED silver standards.
Meanwhile, with new carpeting, cabinetry, lighting, heating and air conditioning, and a new science lab, the Upper (middle) School received a renovation over the summer. Slated to be finished prior to September 2015, the project is a 14,000-square-foot addition, which will provide six classrooms, a library/information center, technology center, and a commons area.
Together the price tag for these projects is $13.2 million.
In response to how technology is growing in all of our lives, Chapin recently introduced a 1:1 program using iPads with this year’s sixth grade students and middle school teachers.
A great amount of research and training took place over the six months prior to the official implementation in September. Chapin’s goal is that students and teachers will benefit from their use of iPads in the classroom and throughout their education.
Chapin is committed to remaining a Pre-K through 8th grade school. As Ada Yung, director of communications, explains, “We are really focused on elementary and middle school education. It benefits the students and little kids. We are proud we have been a lower school and middle school focused school.”
Chapin’s students graduate in the 8th grade.
“They all do so well,” Yung said. “They feel they are academically and socially prepared” to move to the next level.
Yung explained Chapin’s character education program. “We believe that school is a place to learn about being a good student. We also believe that school is a place to learn about being a good person.”
Chapin introduced their Character Development Program during the 2001-2002 academic calendar after several years of research, studies, and meetings with faculty, students, parents, and trustees.
The program is based on the following five pillars: respect, responsibility, honesty, kindness and perseverance.
“It is grounded in the belief that to have a good life, one must lead a good life. To lead a good life, one must know the good, love the good, and do the good. One must develop the habits of the mind, of the heart, and of the actions in order to behave in morally good ways,” said Chapin’s headmaster Richard Johnson.
One of the keys to the success of this program is the creation of family units combining students from different grade levels, he said. These family groups stay the same throughout their time at Chapin and lead to fostering life-long friendships across the grades.
Yung said that alumni who return to Chapin often remark how this character building program helped teach them compassion, perseverance and how to be good citizens. Overall, they feel it had a positive impact on the teaching environment.
Another way in which the Chapin School is growing is that Pamela Fiander, Ed.D. will become the new Head of School as of July 2015. Fiander is the currently Head of School at Chatham Day School in Chatham.
Chapin School is located at 4141 Princeton Pike, Princeton. Phone: (609) 924-2449. On the web: chapinschool.org.
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