Chelsea School: Who We Are

Chelsea School is a college preparatory school, serving grades 5-12 for students with language-based learning disabilities from the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Our students have average to above average intelligence, yet struggle with language in ways that impact their speaking, listening, math, reading, and writing skills.  The instruction at Chelsea School is research-based using best practices from current educational literature as well as university research. Chelsea School takes pride in an educational philosophy, which in addition to academic success, emphasizes psychosocial and emotional growth and community responsibility. This philosophy is modeled by parents and faculty through our T.E.A.M. Chelsea motto: Teach, Educate, Advocate, and Mentor students to be academically and socially responsible.  In addition, we challenge all students to live up to what it means to have Chelsea P.R.I.D.E.:  Personal Respect and Individual Dedication to Excellence.

Chelsea School has positioned itself to embark on a bold new future through several exciting ventures.  We are working to be the first math/science/technology college preparatory school for at-risk, inner city students with language-based learning disabilities.  To accomplish this goal, we are looking to expand the current career pathway options to include areas of engineering, biotechnology, digital multimedia, and many others.  We have recently completed a set of conceptual drawings for a new high school on our present site in Silver Spring, Maryland. This project has been inspired by Daniel Libeskind, the world-renowned architect, and realized by Ron Claiborne, a longtime protégé of Mr. Libeskind. Daniel Libeskind is the lead donor and the design advisor to our Board of Governors for this project.  He has committed his iconic name and support to Chelsea School for the completion of this new building and our capital campaign.  Finally, Chelsea School is planning to establish a Learning and Technology Institute with the goal of serving the greater educational community by providing outreach, research, and partnership opportunities. This effort will be spearheaded by collaboration with local universities and fundraising from corporations, foundations and individual donors.

Our ultimate goal is to build a world–class school that is not only responsive to the needs of students with learning disabilities but to serve as a national symbol of hope for all individuals with learning disabilities. It is our intent to be at the forefront of the national conversation on school reform and plan to bring a coherent and convergent voice to the discussion of teaching, learning, literacy, and technology regarding learning disabilities.

Tony Messina
Head of School

Head of School Recommended Links:
Washington Post article about Chelsea School

Web link to Silver Spring, MD

Web Link to Daniel Libeskind

Chelsea School Executive Summary

 

HEAD OF SCHOOL VIDEO

Click the "play" buttons below to see special video messages
from Tony Messina, Head of Chelsea School.

    

 

A Message from Tony Messina

I wanted to share with you an interesting thing that occurred at Chelsea School this month. It’s something that I think speaks to our overall commitment to the education of the “whole child.” When a student begins their freshman year here at Chelsea School they are presented with a number of formidable academic and personal expectations. They are challenged to meet the tenets of Chelsea P.R.I.D.E.: Personal Respect and Individual Dedication to Excellence.

In ongoing quest to more clearly define what Chelsea P.R.I.D.E. means to our student body, our staff has challenged our students to be guide posts for who we should become as we reshape and retool our bold new future.  To this end, Freshman Advisors challenged the Freshman Class to voluntarily sign a “pledge for peace”, in the hopes that their focus on a positive community might create a halo effect on other groups of young people, within and beyond Chelsea’s World.  Below is a copy of this pledge:

 

Chelsea School Pledge for Peace

We live in a time where teen violence is high, often this violence begins with words or horseplay, its like a “your mamma” here and a poke, push there and fists are thrown. This document is written in the hopes that we can promote a positive, peaceful community in one small part of this world, and that this freshman community can positively affect the larger communities that we are a part of (school, neighborhoods).   We the undersigned promise to:

1. Always be a living the Chelsea PRIDE
2. Communicate honestly
3. Listen to others openly
4. Apologize when I am wrong
5. Try not to carry a grudge
6. Be a part of solving problems, not creating them
7. Never mess with the innocent
8. Try to stand up for classmates who have been treated badly
9. Try to get to know each other better
10. Help classmates/teammates improve their “game”
11. Never put down a classmate/teammate that has had a hard time
12. Avoid interactions with people you don’t get along with
13. Remind each other of our pledge

We share this with the wider educational community.  We give our permission for other schools and/or organizations to use this pledge to help empower youth.