Editor’s note: To read profiles of all 2015-2016 Blackboard Awards honorees, click HERE!
Marymount School
Headmistress: Concepcion R. Alvar (award accepted by Sabra Mckenzie, Head of Marymount’s Upper School)
Nursery – Class XII
1026 5th Avenue
Award: Outstanding School
Describe your school’s core educational philosophy.
As our mission states: “Marymount School is an independent, Catholic day school that seeks to educate young women who continue to question, risk, and grow—young women who care, serve, and lead—young women prepared to challenge, shape, and change the world.” Marymount is a college preparatory school for girls, committed to the development of the lifelong skills of critical thinking and problem solving.
Tell us about a few of the school’s achievements or distinguishing programs.
Marymount is a leader in STEAM education for girls… Marymount was the first K-12 school in the world to install a Fab(rication) Lab where students could imagine and build, engineer and design, prototype and make… Following the success of our first Fab Lab, Marymount created subsequent makerspaces, including the Tinker Space, STEAM Lab, and IDEA Lab, to accommodate the growing desire to incorporate “making” into the curriculum across disciplines.
What’s new?
Marymount’s long-standing commitment to innovation and excellence has drawn the attention and support of many forward-thinking businesses and institutions, including littleBits, an education electronics company. Marymount is the first school in the US to pilot a 1:1 program with the company, giving each child in Classes III-V a littleBits Portable Invention Kit that functions as her own “mobile maker space.”
What do you love about your school?
What makes Marymount so unique is its incredible heart… No matter how much we strive to accomplish academically, we never lose sight of our Catholic heritage and our enduring commitment to raising compassionate, considerate, and conscientious young women. I am blessed to be part of this community of faith and hope…I love being in a school where the priority is not only learning skills, but also developing competencies so that learning can be transferred. We are committed to preparing our girls for the future—we want them to have a voice, to make a difference, to have an impact on the world.
