Academics News

During the week of January 31 through February 4, Solebury School hosted our annual Global Education Week! The week is designed to share various cultures and perspectives with students and faculty, with the goal of developing a deeper understanding and awareness of the world around us.

Every year, Solebury School's math and science departments celebrate the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math by hosting STEM-related events, activities, and guest speakers. The week is meant not only to engage the entire school with those subjects, but also to inspire thinking about STEM-related careers.

We are proud to announce Casey Epstein-Gross ’21 was awarded a National Gold Medal and multiple regional Gold and Silver Keys in the 2021 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, presented by Philadelphia Writing Project. Since 1923, the Awards have recognized some of America’s most celebrated artists and writers while they were teenagers, including Tschabalala Self, Stephen King, Kay WalkingStick, Charles White, Joyce Carol Oates, and Andy Warhol. 

The Model UN activity is an opportunity for students who love discussing and exploring current world events, international relations, and diplomacy in the winter trimester. It brings these students together to role-play as delegates from a host of different countries in a simulated version of the United Nations. In a typical year, the activity period is full of training exercises as the young delegates work to master parliamentary language and protocol, become experts on their assigned countries, and then become fluent in the concerns and responsibilities of their assigned committees. But in the age of COVID-19, this was not a typical year. The regional high school conference was postponed until at least March, and the prospect of a four-day Zoom conference was less than ideal. So what were the alternatives? Internal conferences.

During the current school year, Solebury has been a leader in the return to offering in-person education. Yet national, state and local public health concerns may force us to temporarily return to fully remote learning. The Solebury School Learning Support Department would like to share some strategies and tips to help make your student's transition to remote learning a more successful experience.

This past year the Solebury Speech and Debate team earned 3rd place in the Southern Pennsylvania Debate League. They finished behind schools with over a thousand more students, showing that as a team, they are going toe to toe with deep, experienced teams in our region.

Solebury teachers engaged in a full week of professional development in late March to prepare for this term of remote learning. After adjusting to teaching through Zoom, Canvas, and outside of Solebury's traditional classroom schedule, we realized the opportunities presented by this new environment. By the middle of the spring, over 95% of our teachers and more than 90% of our students surveyed reported that remote learning was working for them. We are aiming much higher as we approach the 2020-21 school year.

On February 6th, 15 Solebury School students traveled to Baltimore, Maryland to attend the 23rd annual Johns Hopkins University Model United Nations Conference.

To better serve our college-bound students, Solebury School is offering an SAT prep course taught by our own faculty.