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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Public Grammar School on Southwest Side
to Promote Global Citizenship
Founder Sarah Elizabeth Ippel, 26, spearheads first school of its kind in Chicago to promote an environmental and international learning experience.
October 25, 2007 (Chicago, IL) - A new grammar school on Chicago's southwest side focused on empowering children to become active world citizens will open its doors next fall. The Chicago Board of Education approved the proposal for the Academy for Global Citizenship (www.agcchicago.org) at their board meeting yesterday, October 24, 2007.
Sarah Elizabeth Ippel, Founder and Executive Director of the Academy for Global Citizenship, and her team of more than a dozen qualified educators and professionals, were thrilled to hear that their proposal was selected under Mayor Richard Daley's Renaissance 2010 initiative. The new public school, to be located in an old barrel factory at 4647 West 47th Street will be the only Chicago Public School to incorporate an environmental and international learning experience into its daily curriculum. Ippel and educators hope the unique learning environment teaches children about how their choices impact their community and the world.
The school's Principal, Anne Gillespie, 29, will facilitate the implementation the International Baccalaureate program. Gillespie explains that the International Baccalaureate organization is a nonprofit group headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and partners with schools in 138 countries around the world to promote intercultural understanding. Gillespie said this program will foster learning through asking questions. "An inquiry-based philosophy teaches students to create meaning out of what they're learning and connect it to their own lives," said Gillespie.
The school's curriculum will place special emphasis on cross-cultural communication. "Extensive globally collaborative opportunities will be incorporated into the students' daily curriculum," said Ippel. "Children will literally be interacting with other children from around the world through written letters, the Internet, teacher travel expeditions and personal visits."
Ippel, 26, who earned a master's degree from the University of Cambridge, has firsthand experience with the benefits of becoming an active world citizen. She has traveled to more than 77 countries to study foreign education systems and will use her contacts abroad to create a communication network with students at her school. Students at the Academy will study a second language beginning in Kindergarten and a third language in sixth grade in addition to participating in at least one international field trip before graduation.
"The world is intricately connected now more than ever," said Ippel, who utilized her international training to work as an education consultant for five years. At the age of 23, Ippel founded a non-profit, established a Board of Directors and assembled an all-volunteer team to pursue approval by the Board of Education for her new globally interactive school. After three years and three proposals, the hard work paid off. Ippel is eager to welcome the first 88 students occupying two classes of kindergarten and two classes of first grade in the fall of 2008. One grade level will be added each year. The school is expected to grow to 550 age three through eighth grade students by 2016, the year of the school's first graduating class.
Students at the Academy will also benefit from strong student-to-teacher ratios – 14:1 – in a neighborhood where most public schools are over populated. "Teachers are better able to get to know students and their families on a more personal and individual level with smaller class sizes, which will allow teachers to more effectively meet the needs of every student," Gillespie said.
One initiative Ippel plans to implement at the school is a globally collaborative gardening program called The Growing Connection (TGC). As current Vice President of Education on the governing board of the United Nations Association, Ippel is committed to fostering implementation of TGC that was designed to cross-culturally connect children and educators. Ippel said the school will convert concrete into an organic garden and urban schoolyard habitat adjacent to the building.
"Children will exchange information about our schoolyard garden with other students from around the world using pictures, stories and other methods of international communication," she said. "Programs like this will provide children authentic opportunities for dialogue. Not only will these children be empowered to become active citizens in their own community, they will also become engaged leaders of the world."
The Academy will also provide students with a 100% organic, nutritionally balanced, scratch-made breakfast and lunch. "Children are better prepared to learn when they eat positive foods," Ippel said. "Breakfast will be the first assignment of the day."
While the Academy is an open enrollment school, families who reside near the school in the West Elsdon and Archer Heights neighborhoods of Chicago are particularly encouraged to apply. Parents living anywhere in Chicago can find and fill out an application form on the Academy's website to enroll their children. Those students will then be selected by a random lottery as officials are expecting a high number of applicants.
Mirza Gonzalez, who lives in the neighborhood, hopes to enroll her five-year old son into the first grade class next fall. Gonzalez said she likes the school's curriculum and the small class sizes.
"I'm keeping my fingers crossed hoping that my son will get in," said Gonzalez. "The curriculum will expose him to so much more than a typical school. I really like that within his daily work, he will learn about other cultures and the world beyond Chicago. We really need a school like this in the neighborhood."
About the Academy for Global Citizenship:
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