Welcome Katie and Daragh!

Dear Faculty –

Starting tomorrow, and continuing through next week, we are hosting two Grade 1 teachers from the Jiaxing Alliance Primary School outside of Shanghai, China – Daragh Merridith and Katie Filion.

For those of you new to SSIS this year, you may not have heard of the Jiaxing project, but our elementary teachers know it well from all the Jiaxing teachers they hosted in their classrooms last year.

Phu My Hung, as you all know, is a joint project between the Vietnamese government and the Central Trading & Development Company in Taiwan. Two of the top leaders of CT&D sit on our board. The CT&D Company has begun a new project in Jiaxing, about an hour by high speed train from Shanghai. On an area of land which is nine square kilometres, they are constructing a mixed-use land plan with organic farms, residential areas, and commercial space. Just as with PMH, the group believes that great schools anchor great neighbourhoods and the project will eventually host three bilingual schools – two elementary, one middle school, and one high school.

The ENTIRE project is LEADs certified, a huge undertaking in China but a commitment of the CT&D Company in all its work. Take a look at a model of the first elementary school under construction and you see a roof which is seeded with grass and a play area for students, great fields, lots of natural light for the buildings, and much more.

Katie and Daragh are the first international teachers hired for the school and are writing curriculum as well as teaching. We’re thrilled to have them in town. I pick them up this evening at the airport and they will be on campus starting tomorrow afternoon.

Mark