Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael McCord.
Michael, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I, with the help of a small band of supporters, started The Learning Project in 1973. It began, as all things do, as an idea. I envisioned a school that would be distinctly small, a school that would be of a size and scale where all children were known by all the teachers and, importantly, by one another. It would be a city school, spilling outside its doors and using the vast resources of Boston. It would be a school that served not just a privileged few but the broad middle class, and those on either side. It would honor and respect traditional academic skills and values, and, at the same time, it would have a pedagogy that was individualized to meet different needs; intellectually challenging and creative; purposeful and developmentally appropriate, and highly engaging to children.
The school would recognize that a deep sense of being cared for and a sense of belonging within a community are vital for healthy social development and we would encourage children to work together, to play together, and to teach and learn from one another. The school would embrace progressive social values while honoring the traditional values of honesty, respect, responsibility, cooperation, courtesy and gratitude. It would be a place that would attend carefully to each child’s academic and social development and equally to the development of their character.
The name of the school was selected to focus attention on the school’s strong commitment to purposeful activity and to ‘learning by doing.’ We borrowed $1800 to pay for supplies and equipment, spent the summer painting and building, and in the fall of 1973 we opened with eight students and two teachers–myself and a woman who was an experienced first grade teacher. For the first six years we rented space in the basement of the First Baptist Church at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Clarendon Street. By year six we were 43 students, grades 1-6 and that spring, in June of 1979, we graduated our first class of eight students.
That summer the school moved a block away to its current location, 107 Marlborough Street.
Fortunately for us, our ‘new’ building was constructed in 1917 to be a school and most recently had been used by a small Junior College which closed in the early 1970’s. It has been the perfect building for our Grades 1-6, and, when, ten years ago, we decided to add a Kindergarten program, we were happily able to house that in our ‘old space’ and so returned to the church basement where the school began 35 years before.
Over the past almost 45 years, the school, still committed to “The Power of Small,’ has grown to about 118 children in seven grades, with an average class size of 17 children and two adults in each classroom. There are also separate teachers for P.E., Spanish, Music, Art and Science.
The whole school meets together twice a week to sing together, to share together, to grow together and to learn from one. Older children who lead these meetings help the school to build a sense of continuity and community. Children of different grades also play together every day at recess and children of all ages participate in frequent all school and cross grade activities. Every child, however young, is an important and known member of the larger community. And the school has many important traditions that children look forward to each year and bind the school in rich commonalities of experience.
The school continues to serve a broad range of the socio-economic population and does so, in part, by reaching out to neighborhoods through the city for enrollment. The school’s tuition, $20,000, is on average $10,000 less than peer independent schools, and with a large commitment to scholarship ($470,000 this coming year) we have been able to preserve the school’s unique demographic character. We believe that the substantial revenue ‘costs’ of these financial commitments (the lower tuition, the high rate of Financial Aid, and the desire to have a cross section of families of various ‘means’) are far outweighed by the benefits of the demographic diversity of our student population, and, fortunately, are offset by immense generosity to our Annual Giving Drive. The amount raised in that effort is astounding for a school our size (with a part-time Development Director) and our participation rates among school alumni, alumni parents, Board Members, and current school parents are well above the national averages for all independent elementary schools.
Also of note is a program that The Learning Project has been running in the summer for ten years called August Scholars. August Scholars is a tuition-free opportunity for mostly Boston Public School students to receive intensive academic review, together with arts enrichment and recreational activities, Students need to be struggling in school to maintain grade level, or be below grade level, and they need to be from ‘lower income families’ to qualify. They are, in essence, the students most vulnerable to significant ‘summer learning loss’ and the purpose of our program is to prevent that loss, and, indeed, bolster their skills–and their attitudes–so they can return to school with more competence, more confidence, and more engagement in learning. We hire seasoned urban educators to work with our Scholars, and the entire staff attends an intensive week-long Orientation on the program and are trained in our methodologies before the students arrive. There are seven classrooms, with 12-14 students in each, together with the Head Teacher and also a college-aged Head Counselor, and a High-School aged Junior Counselor. Three of the classrooms are located at our partner school, The Newman School, at 247 Marlborough Street, two and a half blocks away.
The Learning Project raises $145,000 annually–and separately from its own Annual Fund Drive–to cover the costs of the August Scholars Program. We have many generous donors–individuals and family foundations. One of the most generous corporate donors over the years has been the Liberty Mutual Foundation.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Of course, an institution of this longevity and complexity of mission, purpose and organization has had challenges over the years. However, we have, I think, avoided many problems that plague some other schools by being extremely detailed and ‘upfront’ with parents–and with staff– in the admissions or interviewing process about who we are, and who we aren’t. As a result, we have had only a handful of ‘mismatches’ over the years, although whenever that occurs, it is inevitably disappointing to all parties.
Teaching is a hard job because children–and brains–are all different. We can sometimes struggle over finding the right approach, the correct methodologies, the key ‘messages,’ the necessary continuity and consistency balanced with the ongoing need to respond to ever changing and growing children. It is vital to be constantly reflecting, evaluating, rethinking. Often, we get it right quickly–and I believe always eventually. But in the moment, it can be hard. There are sometimes ‘easy solutions;’ and sometimes there aren’t. Patience and humility are helpful.
Developing a sustainable financial model for non-profits is often a major challenge–and was for us. We were not endowed at the start, nor did we have a number of major donors through the early decades. We had some, but mostly we relied on being very conservative about budgeting, immensely frugal and resourceful, and being sure that our limited revenues went to the most important obligation–serving families and children. Thirty years ago, it became clear that we were relying too heavily on the good will–and very hard work–of faculty and staff, and the Board made a huge commitment to steadily make the school competitive in terms of salaries and benefits.
Now, we benchmark our salaries and benefits to be in the top 10% for independent elementary schools in Massachusetts. But keeping up to the standard is a challenge, and one we are determined to meet.
Building the school’s endowment–now around $6 million–is an ongoing challenge, and increasingly vital to the school’s long term future as another source of operating revenue and institutional strength.
Through all of the school’s challenges over the four plus decades that I have been here, one consistent strength of the school has been its Board of Trustees. Composed mostly of ‘alumni parents,’ together with a few current parents and, now, some actual grown-up alumni of the school, we have a Board that knows the school deeply, that embraces its culture and values, and is deeply committed to being ‘keepers of its mission.’ With such a Board, there is no challenge this school cannot successfully face.
The Learning Project Elementary School – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are somewhat unique in terms of our size, our mission, our culture, our curriculum and pedagogy, the nature of our commitment to diversity, our costs, and our commitment to what we often refer to as ‘The Power of Small.’
We are also similar in many ways to most other schools–we hire faculty, we teach children, we have traditions and our ‘peculiar’ ways of doing things, and everyone, including the children, works hard.
What I am most proud of: Our alumni–the quality of their character, the work they do, the service professions they are in or the service work they do as volunteers, and their devotion to one another and to this school. The ongoing friendships, the sense of community and connectedness to a school they attended decades ago is astounding to many people who are new to our community and who see, almost every week, someone from the distant past reconnecting with–perhaps coming by to visit– their elementary school. That doesn’t happen for many of us. It does for many ‘LP’ers’ and knowing that our work here has given them that connection for a lifetime is quite pleasing.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
It has certainly been a source of deep satisfaction to have shared in the work that made an idea into a school and, over time, a school into a significant, if but small, educational institution in Boston–perhaps not as well known as some but highly regarded by those who know it. Moreover, this process has been–and continues to be–very much a collaborative effort, about which many people should feel the pride of accomplishment.
Many of us who have been part of the process have also built friendships for a lifetime, and most certainly have benefitted, personally, from the joy of working alongside like-minded people dedicated to a common goal. Personally, I feel immensely fortunate to have been part of The Learning Project’s first 45 years.
Pricing:
- Specific tuition costs, mentioned earlier as averaging around 20K, is listed on the website.
Contact Info:
- Address: 107 Marlborough Street, Boston, 02116
- Website: www.learningproject.org
- Phone: 617-227-4265
- Email: tlp@learningproject.org
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