College school director recognized for leadership

Jeanne Geddes-Key has been named the Emily L. Phelps Director of The College School, a laboratory school for children with learning differences that is part of CHEP and located on the UD campus.

Her appointment to the named and endowed directorship recognizes "her outstanding leadership of The College School and her service to the University and broader community," according to Provost Dan Rich. Geddes-Key, who has been the school's director since coming to UD in 1995, serves as a liaison for academic research, coordinates and oversees University student practicums at the school, and supervises a staff of 14.

The College School provides instruction to 56 children ages 6-14, who are placed in each subject-area class according to flexible achievement groupings rather than by age. Each class has no more than 11 students, a teacher and an assistant teacher, in order to give each student a high level of individual attention.

CHEP students majoring in education often work at the school as interns or student teachers, and students from throughout the University provide one-on-one tutoring to youngsters, focusing on particular skills that have been identified for each. Geddes-Key says that level of involvement--about 125 UD students typically assist at The College School in the course of a semester--is one reason for the school's success.

"The College School is not just a private school for grades one to eight," she says. "We're also a partnership with the University in which each benefits the other. CHEP education students get field experience working here, and because our teaching is so tailored to each child's needs, the University students get the opportunity to observe and work with a wide range of instructional techniques. That gives them great experience they can use as future educators."

Kate Morton, CHEP 2003, who student taught in the school's seventh- and eighth-grade classes last spring, says she gained valuable experience.

"The kids and the teachers are great," Morton says. "The classes are so small that you really get a chance to know each student individually and to see and try out a lot of different strategies."

The school has settled into its home in Alison Hall, where it moved in September 2001, but other changes and enhancements to the program are continuing, Geddes-Key says. Among those is the new "Literacy Link," a room where youngsters can read and borrow books. When the school was in the Willard Hall Education Building, its students could use the book collection in the Education Resource Center (ERC) there.

"After we moved, Allison Kaplan from the ERC brought books over to us all that school year, pushing them across campus on a cart," Geddes-Key says. "It wasn't very convenient for anyone involved."

For the 2002-03 school year, The College School received a $32,500 grant from the Helen F. Graham Grants Program of the MBNA Foundation, which paid for books, a computer, software and furniture for the Literacy Link room. It now houses what Geddes-Key calls "a nice collection of high-quality children's literature, which we hope to continue to expand."

When The College School reopens in September, another change will be 16 new students, who enrolled after the same number of students transitioned out of the program last May. The school has about that amount of turnover each year, Geddes-Key says.

The College School is designed specifically to be a transition program, she says. Students who have had academic or social difficulties in their previous schools are expected to attend for about two or three years' worth of remediation, after which most are prepared to return to a more mainstream educational setting.

"For the staff, we know that when a student is ready to leave our program, it means we've done our job," Geddes-Key says. "Whether they go to public school, private school or religious school, they're ready for it, and that means we've been successful in our mission."

A new, multipurpose fund has been created to provide resources to the school for scholarships, innovative programs, materials and equipment. For information about donating to the College School Education Enrichment Fund, visit the UD web site, [www.udel.edu] and click on "Make a Gift," or contact Janet Sydnor, CHEP director of development, at (302) 831-0764.

--Ann Manser, AS '73, CHEP '73