Meet Our Team: Leah Evans
Get to know Leah Moorefield Evans, our Director of Student Services. In this interview, Leah discussed the school's unique features, including its student-centered, flexible, and community-focused education, and its ability to accommodate students with different needs. She also highlighted the importance of community at the school, with activities designed to foster connections among students.
TRANSCRIPT:
Melissa: Hello, everybody, and welcome. I am Melissa Morrison, marketing manager for Hemispheres Academy, and it's my great pleasure to introduce you to Leah Moorfield Evans, who's director of student services. Hi, Leah.
Leah: Hi, Melissa, how are you? Thanks for doing this.
Melissa: Oh, thank you. Thanks for your time. Tell us the how and why of Hemispheres Academy. You're one of our founding members.
Leah: Yes, I am. And I'm thrilled about that. About 5 years ago started, a group of family members of the foreign service. All educators got together and said, we need to have another option for kids who, for whatever reason, don't fit into their school at post.
So we worked together for a year and a half to create Hemispheres Academy, making sure that we met all the standards for a school in the United States and making sure that we were able to reach a wide variety of kids and meet their needs.
So we worked together for a long time really great educators, a couple of Phds in educational leadership, longtime teachers who had worked in international schools, a lot of teachers who had worked in the Us. And we put together a program that I think, is wonderful for families all around the world.
Melissa: What's so special about the program?
Leah: What I love about it is that we are very much a community. It's not just the teachers, not just the administrators, but the parents, the kids, the community. We all get what each other because we're all expats. We're all foreign service families. We're all global nomads, and we are flexible. We're very student-centered. We're focused on meeting the child where the child is. And one thing that we found is that not all schools do that, sometimes because they don't have the resources, sometimes because just because of the cultural differences. But in the United States we've long had a history of trying to meet the child where the child is, what do they need? How can we help them? Not: You need to do this. You need to be fit into this square or hole, or whatever and so that's what we do, we find what makes a kid great, what makes them shine and work to make sure that school isn't a struggle, that it's something that they enjoy, that they appreciate. Obviously not every kid enjoys every lesson. You know, they might be not a fan of subtraction, or what have you? But we want to meet them where they are, to help them, to support them, and to give them what they need.
Melissa: What kind of students really benefit from Hemispheres Academy?
Leah: We have a lot of different types. We have some kids who are at a school at a post that doesn't have an adequate school, and they want to have a rigorous USA-based USA standardized education, and we can provide that. They earn an accredited diploma. If they graduate with us, their transcript is accredited. So if they're going to the next school, the next post back to the USA. Those classes will all transfer.
We also have students who are gifted, and their school at post does not provide an option for gifted classes, so they might come with us and take those gifted classes, or they might just take a class or 2. They might want some ap classes because they're going to go to university abroad and can use those ap classes to help gain admission. They might want those ap classes because they're going to school in the Us. And they want to get college credit for them.
We also have a lot of students who have different needs. Adhd kids seem to love us because they can jump on the trampoline while they're reading their book, or they can
take a brain break. They can run around in circles in the room. We had one kid who would jump on the bed while learning science. With kids who have dyslexia, perhaps we have a text to voice so they can have somebody read it with them as they're reading along. They might. We have kids who need additional therapies for whatever reason. So that's easier to fit into a school day if it's online, because you can put your classes around your therapies. In addition, we have kids who are homeschooled so they might do a few of their classes in homeschool, but they want some more specific and structured classes with us. So there are a lot of different kids who really thrive with us.
Melissa: You mentioned community, and it brings to mind Hemispheres Time and the ability for them to connect with each other as well.
Leah: Yes, that's so much fun I taught for a while. Now, I mostly substitute teach, and I work with kids who are taking individual classes, but we do. 4 times a week. We have Hemispheres Time where we do fun classes that are designed to get kids connecting with each other. Each class is a cohort of similar grade levels and time zones for obvious reasons.
And those classes, we send them out to into private rooms so that they can do activities. We break up, we do into different smaller groups. We do a lot of fun activities. It's a little bit like a homeroom class in a traditional school. But what I've noticed is that the kids really do connect. And then they connect. Outside of school time.
There was a pretty fun, Roblox game going on. I don't know anything about Roblox between some of our kids. Once they found out they all had some of the similar interests. And so that's a time where kids can really connect. In addition, it's where our teacher coaches get to know the kids and can offer that personalized support. A kid can say, “Look, I'm struggling with math. I need extra help”, and then they'll schedule a time to do that extra help. We call that Latitude and Longitude time where it's more of a 1 on 1 or a teacher with just a couple of kids working on specific needs.
Melissa: That's awesome. You had also mentioned the Speaker series is a great way. With that we build a broader community.
Leah: Yeah, we do a few things to connect with our community. And one of them is the Speaker series. This year. We're focusing on careers and colleges, and we had Becky Grappo, an EEM and a college consultant. Talk about making a college list and preparing for that college search and coming up February 5th at 8 Am. Eastern. You can also ask for the recording if the time zone doesn't work. We have Dr. Lauren Steed who's going to talk about
how to DIY your college search, using artificial intelligence. And I'm so excited for that because she knows a whole bunch of different tools that and processes that a lot of parents might not be aware of to really help with that process. Last year we did. Careers talked to a lot of different EFMs and their careers, a veterinarian and artist about what they do, how they follow their career path and some options for kids. So it's a fun way for everybody to come together and see what an amazing community we have, and the diversity and the knowledge that is out there.
Melissa : That's wonderful. Is there anything else you'd like to mention about Hemispheres Academy or your experience teaching online before we wrap it up.
Leah: Sure I would just say that it's something that I love, and it's a mission that I think everybody who's a part of this, including you and including the head of school, and including the students and the parents. You know, it's something we all really believe in. We want to make sure that our kids have their needs met and have opportunities that work best for them. And I think everybody what I love best is how everybody really believes in this mission. We have a similar vision and it's really working. And it's a beautiful thing to see, and so I'm proud to be a part of it. And I'm really looking forward to seeing where we go in the future.
