EAST PROVIDENCE – Gordon School, a local independent K-8 school, has brought aboard a new middle school director and a new “green dean” to help encourage environmentally sustainable practices at the school.
Matthew Boyd was named Gordon School’s new middle school director. Gordon School says Boyd previously served as the Upper School dean of students at The Wheeler School in Providence, where he led the efforts to incorporate restorative practices, engage in research and professional development to craft a system focused on repairing community harm in ways that reflected and amplified the school’s standards and values.
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At Gordon School, Boyd will work with students, faculty, staff and families to support the social and emotional well-being of all students and oversee curriculum at the school.
Cush Gillen, who has been the fifth and sixth grade science teacher at Gordon School, has been named the school’s inaugural “green dean.”
Gillen, the school says, will encourage ecological literary curriculum development in nursery through eighth grade, utilize outdoor learning spaces, and scaffold – the process of breaking lessons into manageable units, with the teacher providing decreasing levels of support as students grasp new concepts and master new skills – existing lessons to meet curriculum goals of interested classrooms and teachers.
Gillen will also assist leading a “green team” of faculty, staff and parents to help establish sustainable events protocols at the school. He will also support ongoing efforts to develop garden spaces and outdoor classrooms around campus that will reconnect students with the earth and empower them to be stewards of the environment, the school says.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
