Full Circle: From AIS to CASIE
Exactly twenty years ago on February 1, 1985, I took up the position of Headmaster of Atlanta International School. My job at that time was to ensure that the school would open on September 3, 1985. On that bleak February day (there had been snow overnight) AIS had a temporary office at Trinity Church, but with no telephone; we had $50,000 in the bank (thanks to the inspired generosity of Kimberly Clark), but no checkbook. There was an extremely active and dedicated group of board members, spearheaded by the indomitable Roy and Olga Plaut, who had established the school and been searching for suitable premises for the school for several months.
My first job (after acquiring a telephone line and a checkbook) was to firm up the location for the school. The board had narrowed the choice to a few venues, with the favorites being St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Dunwoody, and Sardis United Methodist Church in Buckhead. The former had a full array of classrooms, and was in walk-in condition, but there was the serious downside that this would be shared space with the church’s own Sunday School. The facilities at Sardis were much more modest – two derelict buildings and a small playground. Ever the optimist, I felt strongly that it would be greatly in the interests of the fledgling school to have premises of our own that we could call home. We were able to work out a deal whereby the church would borrow $60,000 to renovate the buildings (secured by a guarantee from an AIS benefactor) and we would pay the princely sum of $2,000 a month to have the buildings exclusively for our own use.
Notwithstanding many setbacks, Atlanta International School did indeed open on Tuesday September 3, 1985, with 51 students, and a faculty of 9 – and the rest is history. I remained as headmaster for the first 11 years of the school’s existence, overseeing the move to the Long Island Drive campus in 1987, and then the final move to the current location in 1995. As AIS moved into the wonderfully renovated facilities, I felt that it was time for me to move on to new challenges, so in September 1995 I announced my resignation, effective June 30, 1996. There is no doubt that Atlanta International School will always be part of my life. I love to say that I gave birth to the school, even if I didn’t actually conceive it – that honor belongs to the Plauts and a few others who had the wisdom, the vision, the energy and the determination to begin the process.
From 1996 to 2002 I lived and worked in China as head of international schools in Beijing and Hong Kong. All during that time, however, Gillian and I maintained a home in Atlanta, knowing that we would return at some stage. I have always kept my love of and interest in international education and thus it seemed natural for me to accept the offer of the Executive Director position at CASIE (the Center for the Advancement and Study of International Education) when the proposal was put to me. So in 2005 the wheel has come full circle, and I am back working in the AIS fold!
CASIE, the brainchild of former AIS Board Chair Monique Seefried, exists to promote the ideals of international education throughout the region, with special emphasis on working with the public sector. The twin pillars of AIS’s success, the International Baccalaureate and the dual-language primary program, form the backbone of CASIE programs. By offering IB training workshops and by developing the CrossWorlds program, CASIE is well placed to showcase AIS throughout the region. The CrossWorlds program, in particular, has been designed to help all schools understand the real benefits of diversity and global thinking.
During the next few years, we expect CASIE to continue the development of IB training sessions and the CrossWorlds program. However, we are also looking much more closely at the research aspects of CASIE. We feel that the successes of AIS and the knowledge that AIS professionals have gained should be the subject of research with a view to sharing the expertise with other educators. In this way AIS teachers can feel that they are not only providing a truly first-class international education experience to their own students, but that they are making a substantial contribution to education in general.
David Hawley, who serves on the board of CASIE, has expressed great support for the development of the AIS-CASIE research links. We all know that AIS does a superb job of engendering in students a firm sense of the importance of diversity, multiculturalism and multilingualism. If we can help spread these ideals further afield, we can really feel that we are playing a part in opening the eyes of educators in Georgia and throughout the United States to the benefits of a genuinely global approach to the world and its problems.
So, as I return to AIS, I am looking forward to developing strong relationships with all the wonderful professional educators who make AIS what it is today. This includes, of course, renewing relationships with all those with whom I worked so closely prior to 1996, as well as forging new professional relationships.
As CASIE further develops its own professional identity I will keep the AIS community fully informed about our activities. I am convinced that a strong partnership between AIS and CASIE will serve the school’s interests, as well as promoting international education in general.