So we’ve identified several of our founding teachers. Not all, but some. And Friday, I set up our moodle site, and we’re starting to collaborate on issues that will really determine what this school looks like in September.

For the past seven months, this school has been in the idea stage… we have had a lot of great meetings, we’ve done a lot of talking about what we believe and what we think a school can be, and there are a lot of people in the School District of Philadelphia, at the Franklin Institute and in the education world who have invested a ton of time and energy in seeing this vision move toward reality. It’s been an unbelievably exciting and challenging time, but it also has felt a little unreal because as much as this school has been about the vision we’ve created so far, until the teachers are on board, and they make it their own, the vision doesn’t live in the day to day.

Because in the end, a school comes alive with its teachers. It’s about those people who have to take the ideas and vision and beliefs of a school and make them live every day in their classrooms, in their activities, in their interactions with their students and each other.

And now we’ve got part of that team identified… and they are writing and talking and starting that process that will bring Science Leadership Academy out of a small office in the Franklin Institute into 2130 Arch St… out of a bunch of planning documents and into classrooms. The teachers will take what’s been written and change them, make them better, make them their own… and then they’ll invite students to come into their classrooms and lives and go through the same process.

And then, we’ll really see things take off.