The program, which is held in more than 30 countries around the globe, consists of a series of five monthly contests solving unusual and challenging problems that require analytical and creative thought, stretching the abilities of students, strengthening their foundation for both assessment tests and more advanced studies. 

This week, students in Grade 7 participated in Milton Green Day Clean Up around the town by picking up litter on the streets and sidewalks. Many students also went to ABCD Dorchester Early Head Start and Head Start programs to play games with the children at the center. A group of speech team members completed their community service on campus, presenting their prepared pieces for Lower School students and conducting a question and answer session about public speaking.

This spring, students in eighth grade French have been reading short stories. Last week, Madame Lantieri charged her classes to create skits of conversations which might follow from the stories they read. Using the context of the story and the vocabulary they have learned during their two years of language study, students worked in small groups to devise skits which might follow from Le Petit Nicolas. Click here to watch the videos.

Strategic planning is center stage at Milton right now. 

Milton's trustees, administrators, faculty and staff mobilized this broad-based planning effort last January.  All are eager to connect with as many Milton parents as possible, and secure your points of view about Milton's future.  We are intently focused on making sure Milton's mission and values are renewed, revitalized and relevant.

Please join the many parents who have expressed their opinions through the feedback link at Milton's Strategic Planning Web site: http://www.milton.edu/about/strategic_planning.cfm Use the link that says: Give Us Your Feedback.

Over the last several months, parents have shared their perspectives in person with Head of School Todd Bland, Upper School Principal David Ball, and K–8 Principal Marshall Carter at events either on campus or in cities across the country.  From Boston and New York to Florida, the Midwest and the West Coast, Todd invited parents and alumni to join him in conversation.  David Ball has extended the conversation from the Milton campus to Seoul, Hong Kong and Shanghai. 

Three Task Forces (made up of trustees, administrators, faculty and staff), and a Resources Working Group have been meeting over the winter and spring, and will continue through May. These working groups are each centered on areas of crucial inquiry. Their focus areas will seem familiar to you‚ faculty, educational program, and student life.  Our goal is to consider these areas, along with our institutional resources, explicitly in today's context: educating for our students' future.

Your insight, through your children's experience at Milton, is particularly valuable.  Thinking about what's important to you through the lens of three questions might be helpful:

FACULTY: How will Milton set the premier standard for teaching?
How will we make sure that transformative teaching is still Milton's hallmark, especially as we recruit and develop and a new and diverse generation of educators?

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM: If we match the traditional quality of a Milton education with the skills students need to succeed in their world, what would their program include?

STUDENT LIFE: What should be in place at Milton to make sure that every one of our students finds intellectual and personal growth?

The efforts to engage with Milton's many constituencies continue. The board's and the Steering Committee's hope for the planning process is that every person who wishes to share thoughts about Milton's direction takes the opportunity to do so, as we determine the priorities for the School.

The Task Forces and Working Group will ultimately make recommendations to the Strategic Planning Steering Committee.  The Committee will work with all those recommendations to develop the draft set of priorities for the board's consideration. 

Those priorities, and their related initiatives, will be ambitious, inspirational and realistic. At the close of the process, the Milton Academy Board of Trustees will articulate the plan to achieve Milton Academy's vision and strategies for the coming decade.

We hope you take the opportunity to help identify Milton's long term vision, by visiting the strategic planning Web site and commenting online at http://www.milton.edu/about/strategic_planning.cfm Our challenge is to apply analysis, creativity, energy and real-world experience to define the road ahead for a School with a rich history, tradition and values.