The New School of Monmouth County
Cultivating the Love of Learning since 1969.
Please join us for an open house tour at The New School!
We are currently enrolling grades K-8. Come explore a unique educational experience for your child!
Space is limited! To reserve your spot please call 732-787-7900. If you can’t make the Open House please call us to schedule a private tour.
Students sail bay in vessels made from old bottles
by Terry Gauthier Muessig
About 80 people witnessed hundreds of plastic bottles and milk cartons floating in the Raritan Bay near the shoreline on Tuesday afternoon.
The culprits who put the recyclables in the bay near the Bayshore Waterfront Park area in the Port Monmouth section of Middletown also were at the scene. They were students of The New School of Monmouth County in Holmdel participating in the school’s “Around the World”-themed boat day. The school has conducted the program with a different theme for nearly 20 years.
by Jennifer Bradshaw
In a pinch, empty orange juice cartons and Seltzer bottles will make a seaworthy vessel.
On Friday, the students of the New School in Holmdel took to the water at Bayshore Waterfront Park in Port Monmouth for their annual “Boat Day.”
The students tested out six boats they built themselves out of the bottles and cartons, milk jugs, duct tape and cardboard.
The event is a tradition for the K-8 private alternative school, going on for nearly 20 years.
Students build boats in different themes each year and take them into the water to ultimately see if their designs are viable.
Rebekah Chilvers, a teacher at the school said the year’s academic theme was “Music and Movement,” resulting in boats that looked like a keyboard, a stage, a guitar and the “Jackson Squid,” as in the late pop singer Michael Jackson.
The bay didn’t have a wave in sight to the delight of the group, who were able to take their boats far out into the water with the help of parent volunteers.
High schoolers returned March 10 to the Holmdel alternative school to share their experiences
by Holly Garguilo
Over 50 people squeezed into the second floor of the New School of Monmouth County for Graduate Night on March 10, giving current families and prosepctive families a chance to see how this alternative school prepares students for the future.
The New School, founded by current director Susan Chilvers, bases their education model on the Montessori system where students learn at their own pace, explore areas of interest to them, and receive a more individualized curriculum. The only testing comes in the form of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS), which is necessary for high school placement.
But how do these students from the small alternative schoolhouse fare when they transfer to mainstream high schools? Eighteen graduates now attending high school came back to answer that question.
“My friends in high school think one bad grade makes them bad at something,” said Varun Kambhampati, a freshman at High Tech High School in Lincroft. “Because of the New School, I learned to look at what I did wrong, know I can do better, and realize that one grade doesn’t quantify my intelligence.”