The new head of school at The Children’s School is looking toward the future of the private K-8 grade school, hoping to lean into what has worked while making way for change.
“What do we need to conserve, what do we need to protect, what do we need to guard,” said Michelle Candelaria-Dunstan. “Then what do we need to get rid of … what do we need to invent? That is the work that I am doing with the staff right now.”
Candelaria-Dunstan arrives after a challenging year for the school which saw an unanticipated need to find a new school building and the resignations of most of its board members related to leadership controversies.
With 19 years in education, Candelaria-Dunstan came to Oak Park from Idaho, bringing extensive knowledge in expeditionary learning, an educational approach emphasizing the idea of multidisciplinary, experiential learning and the intersection of academic content with real-world experiences.
In Idaho, her experience as an educator included not only running a school through a pandemic but also growing it from 400 to 600 students during those years.
Following a much-needed sabbatical, Candelaria-Dunstan said she wanted to be particular about where she “wanted to land,” knowing her career in education was not over yet.
That job search brought her to The Children’s School in Oak Park.
“When I started reading about TCS and reading over the website, digging into the projects that the students are doing, the student autonomy, the student voice that is part of how projects are developed here I thought ‘oh yes, this is my jam. This is my gig,’” Candelaria-Dunstan said.
In person, she said TCS was just as impressive as on paper. She appreciated how kids were encouraged to take risks and was blown away by their excitement.
Conversations with parents, teachers, and board members also solidified this was where she wanted to land.
“I felt like the stakeholders were really wanting to keep us moving forward, keep the organization, the learning community moving forward,” she said. “Not that it wasn’t moving forward but how do we just ensure that is happening.”
A dedicated Latina educator, supporting a diverse population has always been important to Candelaria-Dunstan, who said she helped bring a weighted-lottery law to her old charter school, the first in the state of Idaho, which helped increase diversity and opportunities for families.
“There is always work to do in that realm,” she said. “That is an arena that we are never done, or we have never made it. It is tough work.”
“I am a public-school gal, a charter school is a public school, so I am leading this school still with a public-school mindset,” she said. “Public schools are for all types of learners, and I believe all schools are for all types of learners.”
As she is getting acclimated, Candelaria-Dunstan said TCS is having conversations to find ways to “invite new” and take away from “the best of the past.”
But TCS has faced a lot of changes this past year, including a move from its previous home in the St. Edmund School building as well as having nine of their 11-member board resign in early September.
Candelaria-Dunstan said she is aware of what occurred but has seen the new board do an “incredible job,” calling them a “governing board versus a managing board.”
“They have jumped in in a really tough situation and they have made sure that the mission and vision of TCS continues to move forward,” she said. “They have ensured that. They have protected that. They have conserved that.”
That has given Candelaria-Dunstan the assurance that she can come in and do the work, saying there is “no residue” of what has occurred in the past school year.
Moving forward, she said the mission and vision, more than anything, is leveling up.
It is an “adaptive challenge,” she said.