Founders & Directors:
Traci M. Childress is currently volunteer co-director and co-founder of the Children’s Community School, mother of a 2 year old, yoga teacher and consultant in event and strategic planning. She has been developing international, national, and community programs, events, and projects for 15 years.
As a Curriculum Developer for Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, in Rhinebeck, NY she supported the development of over 100 annual events–professional trainings, workshops, retreats, and conferences– in the fields of holistic living, yoga, education, art, dance, creative writing, and meditation. She is the Lead Developer for Omega’s annual yoga conference and the Conference Manager for the Symposium on Yoga Research. In 2008 and 2009 she supported the development of two conferences for educators, bringing leaders and experts together to explore connecting teachers to their inspiration to teach and, in 2009, bringing mindfulness practices to children grades K-12.
While living in Germany, she coordinated an interdisciplinary academic research project, Group Interactions in High Risk Environments that was funded by the Daimler Benz Foundation. She supported the development of the culminating conference, The Better the Team, the Safer the World, at the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue in Switzerland, as well as two publications.
With a strong vision for interdisciplinary connections, she is particularly interested in bringing yoga, mindfulness, and expressive arts into community. A graduate of two progressive liberal arts education programs herself; she has a BA from Warren Wilson College, has done graduate work in documentary writing, and has an MA from Goddard College in Health Arts and Sciences. Through her education and her own practices, she has extensively explored the role of dance, creative writing, and yoga in personal transformation and in community. She has taught English as a second language to children and adults in Mexico, the Czech Republic and Germany. She has taught yoga since 2000.
Merryl Gladstone has been in education for 15 years, is mother of a 3 year old, and is currently volunteer co-director and co-founder of the Children’s Community School. She earned her Masters degree in Literacy from Bank Street Graduate School of Education and spent a year teaching at the Bank Street School for Children, where her interest in progressive education was ignited. Specializing in reading and literacy, she honed her teaching skills in international, private and public school setting.
While teaching elementary school at the American Schools of Bombay and Paris, she received intensive training in the Primary Years International Baccalaureate Program, an experiential education program. Upon returning to the United States, Merryl began teaching at the Princeton Day School. There she was able to deepen her practice of experiential education through her work with the “Understanding by Design” training program.
Bringing her extensive curriculum and teaching experience to Philadelphia, she began strengthening the academic work and cultural environment at the Charter High School for Architecture and Design. In charge of faculty professional development and curriculum development, Merryl used the tenants of experiential education; constructive teaching and ownership of learning to strengthen teachers’ practice and to better develop and articulate the school’s curriculum.
Merryl and Traci are passionate about bringing a model of progressive education that nurtures that development of the whole child and integrates mindfulness practice to the West Philadelphia community. They are both donating their hearts and time to making this school a place for children and community to grow.