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Global Online Academy

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Catlin Gabel is one of 10 leading independent schools that have co-founded a new nonprofit organization called the Global Online Academy (GOA), which began offering online high school courses this fall. We are honored that our own PLACE urban studies class, taught by George Zaninovich, is one of the five inaugural courses.

The mission of the GOA is to translate into online classrooms the intellectually rigorous programs and excellent teaching that are hallmarks of its member schools: Albuquerque Academy (Albuquerque, New Mexico), Catlin Gabel (Portland, Oregon), Cranbrook (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan), The Dalton School (New York, New York), Germantown Friends (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Head-Royce (Oakland, California), King’s Academy (Madaba-Manja, Jordan), Lakeside (Seattle, Washington), Punahou (Honolulu, Hawaii), and Sidwell Friends (Washington, DC). The Global Online Academy also aims to to foster new and effective ways, through best practices in online education, for students to learn, and to promote students' global awareness and understanding by creating truly diverse, worldwide, online schoolroom communities.

Catlin Gabel students may choose to take an online class to pursue academic study in a subject that we do not offer, to study with students from other parts of the country and the world, or to experience a format of instruction that they are likely to encounter in the future. We will explore the potential for online learning in a Catlin Gabel education, while investing modest resources and enrolling only a handful of students at first. Upper School department chairs will determine student eligibility requirements and course credit policies. We expect the academy to grow quickly, as new member schools join and more students enroll in classes.
 
Catlin Gabel will play a special role in the online academy by demonstrating our brand of experiential education, which we have honed over decades. “Learning through experience” may form the foundation of the best quality of online instruction.