New City School

Educational Leadership 

Educational leadership

The New City School vision is a simple one: Committed and caring people can come together to make the world a better place. That was what drove our founders to create New City School, and it remains the case today.

At a classroom level, we believe that we owe our children the skills and understandings that they will need to face an uncertain and highly complex future. Our unique combination of academics, the personal intelligences, diversity that goes beyond the numbers, and joyful learning positions them well, we believe. Our Head of School, Tom Hoerr, often says that he “…can’t wait until the first New City School graduate is elected president of the United States.” Before then, of course, our graduates are using their skills, knowledge, and values to make a difference in a range of organizations and places. Time and time again, we hear how their New City years have framed their subsequent learning and have stayed with them, even as they travel through adulthood.

At a school level, New City School plays a leadership role in showing how educators can work to make a difference in children’s lives. Today our school is known internationally through our work with implementing Multiple Intelligences theory; that has been the case for 20 years. In the early 1990’s, we began incorporating the Personal Intelligences (sometimes referred to as EQ) in our education and progress reports.  In 1984, New City was one of the first schools in the nation to implement a performance pay plan. Prior to this, going back to the 1970’s, our school was praised for its efforts with human diversity. And in the 1960’s, New City garnered much local attention from its use of the Open Classroom model of education. Most recently, in 2005 we opened the world’s first Multiple Intelligences Library.

At a community level, New City School continues to accomplish the goal of its founders: serving as an anchor for the St. Louis’ Central West End and, indeed, the entire City of St. Louis and Central Corridor.

Models and theories fall into and out of favor; we continue to learn what works for students and their teachers. What has stayed the same, however, is a commitment by everyone at New City School to keep growing and to find the best way to prepare children for the future.