John Dewey Academy Updates 2014

It has been almost a year since the last update from the John Dewey Academy, and it has been a transitional two years since our founder, Tom Bratter, died. This past year, we went through a major reaccreditation process with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. This involved a school wide self-study and report, followed by a site visit from the accreditation committee headed by Jerry Larson of the Cheshire Academy and Malcom Gauld of the Hyde School. Receiving the accreditation was a nice finish to the process, but the real value was to self-reflect on how to maintain our roots and twenty-nine year tradition, while moving into the challenges of the future. In a real sense it provided us with a closure to transition, and a beginning of the new JDA.

Having left her position as Intake Coordinator Lisa Sinsheimer is now volunteering her time on the board of Saving Teens as well as staying involved as an alumni parent, forum coordinator and consultant to us. Andrea Nathans, PsyD has settled into her role as Executive Director, representative of the school's governing ownership family, and Admissions Coordinator. She is at the school at least twice a week and her expertise has been extremely helpful. Andrea and I will be at IECA in Florida and look forward to reconnecting with everyone. Andrea has joined our other therapists, Eric Krawczyk and Jovanina Pagano, in cementing our innovative and solid clinical team. In addition to remaining one of the clinicians I continue to take on all the responsibilities of Head of School and lead us into the future. Some of you attended the presentation I did at the last NATSAP meeting, and building off of that I wrote an article with a former student which will soon be published in Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry (issue 16-2). We are also very proud to announce that our Technology Lab class entered the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition and was chosen as semi-finalists in both the Accelerate and Launch divisions.

Finally, staying true to our identity as college preparatory we had another successful year with one of our biggest classes ever. The 2014 graduates are now attending Bard, Brown, Claremont-McKenna, Connecticut College, Ohio Wesleyan, Puget Sound (2), Reed, RPI, SUNY-Geneseo, Tufts, and Wisconsin (Honors College). A successful year indeed.

We will always welcome visitors and are open to any and all questions. We hope you will take a new look at the Academy and see how our uniqueness, devotion, and expertise has given us both longevity and the ability to move forward in meeting the needs of bright but struggling adolescents.

Kenneth Steiner
Head of School

John Dewey Academy is a year-round college preparatory therapeutic boarding school for troubled teens ages 15 -21. JDA utilizes peer-based approach that leads students to high levels of achievement and inspires them to develop in ways that promote self-respect, maturity, and respect for others.

John Dewey Updates 2014