{"id":26,"date":"2026-08-18T16:33:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shoeleathermagazine.com\/2026\/?p=26"},"modified":"2026-09-09T21:37:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T21:37:42","slug":"schools-want-to-educate-leaders-but-are-they-ready-to-empower-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shoeleathermagazine.com\/2026\/schools-want-to-educate-leaders-but-are-they-ready-to-empower-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools Want To Educate Leaders. But Are They Ready To Empower Them?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new era of high school education evolves as schools start to implement opportunities for student input within their communities and curricula.<\/p>\n

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The Academy at Penguin Hall Class of 2022 throws their caps up in the air to celebrate their graduation. (Credit: Danny Ebersole\/Ebersole Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On June 13th, 2025, Molly Martins sent one of the worst emails of her life. \u201cIt is with a heavy heart that the Board of Trustees is informing you that The Academy at Penguin Hall is permanently closing its doors effective today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martins, founder and president of The Academy at Penguin Hall (APH), had run out of options to keep the school financially afloat. The all-girls private school in Wenham, Massachusetts opened its doors in 2016. And now, after nine years of educating, enlightening and empowering students, or so their mission stated, APH was closed.<\/p>\n

Although the email had only been sent to the current students, parents and staff in the APH community, the news spread like wildfire. Old high school group chats became active again as kids sent screenshots of the message to their alumni friends. Former members of the APH community found out their high school was closed on Instagram as students took to social media to post obituaries that read \u201cRIP PENGUIN HALL.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting in my living room with my parents, shortly after completing my junior year of college, I received a text from my own high school group chat saying that APH was done for. There was no overwhelming sense of anger or sadness. Just shock \u2014 that my high school, with its constant decline of student enrollment and teachers quitting en masse, had honestly even lasted this long.<\/p>\n

APH had brought a new type of all-girls education to the North Shore of Massachusetts \u2014 a school that strived to not only educate its students, but \u201cempower\u201d them to reconsider what their high school experience could be. Martins wanted to foster an environment where students could create school traditions and feel supported to speak out when they felt something could be changed or improved. However, students claim that a lack of basic structure mixed with financial issues caused the school to close.<\/p>\n

When developing APH\u2019s motto of \u201cEducate, Enlighten, Empower,\u201d Martins felt like it was the perfect way to sum up the type of education she wanted to provide to her students. Historically, women haven\u2019t always had the chance to be educated, let alone be empowered \u2014 both in the classroom and beyond \u2014 so at APH, Martins wanted to equip her students by providing them with leadership opportunities to develop the confidence to be leaders in a co-ed environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re empowering them through not only the education, but the opportunities for leadership. In a girls\u2019 school, girls hold all the positions, right?\u201d said Martins. \u201cThey\u2019re the chair of every committee, they\u2019re president of the Student Council, they\u2019re the leads in the play. They\u2019re everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alumni of APH slightly differed when it comes to what they believed true student empowerment was, claiming that they feel more valued when administration is open to student feedback and teachers are supportive of students\u2019 needs \u2014 something that, they believe, APH could\u2019ve improved on.<\/p>\n

Although APH was ultimately unsuccessful, it did introduce students to a new generation of learning, where administration values student empowerment and leadership just as much as academics. By implementing project-based learning instead of AP classes and adding blocks dedicated to community bonding and practicing leadership skills, APH worked to create a balanced empowering and academic curriculum, Martins said. And it\u2019s telling of a much larger educational trend that has started to appear in more school curricula nationwide.<\/p>\n

Emma Willard, another all-girls private school in Troy, New York, has implemented APH\u2019s student empowerment dreams into their curriculum, but with more success due to its 200-plus years of history and substantial endowment. Outside of private schools, New York City\u2019s public schools have taken a different approach to letting students take charge of their education. Career readiness programs like FutureReadyNYC and highly specialized curricula have found their way into multiple high schools in the city, giving students the power of choice.<\/p>\n

There are over\u00a0700 programs at 400 high schools<\/a>\u00a0in NYC featuring multiple different educational pathways, and more are opening up across the country.\u00a0Bloomberg Philanthropies<\/a>\u00a0has donated $250 million to open high schools specialized in healthcare in 10 cities. With these programs, students are getting more opportunities to pick a high school experience that best prepares them for their future careers and entices them to want to attend school.<\/p>\n

After the COVID-19 pandemic stopped all in-person learning in 2020, schools are still struggling to get students back in the classroom years after the shutdown. According to\u00a0Chalkbeat<\/a>, one in three students in New York City\u2019s public schools missed 10% of the 2024\u20132025 school year. Supporters of student empowerment argue that providing students with multiple choices of academically challenging and engaging curricula could be a way to get students back in the classroom again.<\/p>\n

Every student has a different definition of what a good high school experience looks like, and now, more and more schools are starting to empower students to have a voice in what they want from their education. But as students use that voice, are the schools ready to hear it?<\/p>\n

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When Martins was considering where to send her two youngest daughters to high school, she realized that the closest all-girls option was almost 30 miles away in Boston. Her daughters, Addie and Catherine Martins, attended St. Mary\u2019s of the Annunciation School, a Catholic middle school in Danvers, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

While the school was co-ed, most of their middle school boys transferred to the newly opened St. John\u2019s Prep Middle School, an extension of the all-boys Catholic high school, which most St. Mary\u2019s boys ended up attending after middle school.<\/p>\n

\u201cAddie ended up having two years of essentially an all-girls education because there was only one boy in the class,\u201d said Martins. She felt that girls didn\u2019t necessarily need rigid learning structures to do well in school like boys did. She wanted her daughters and other girls to \u201cfind their own leadership style in a way that was not confined,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Her three oldest daughters had all graduated from the local public school years ago, but she wanted to continue this all-girls education for Addie and Catherine. However, the only all-girls school in the area was a failing Catholic school on the verge of closure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not start a school for my kids,\u201d emphasized Martins as she explained how APH came to fruition. Many parents in their community shared the same desire as Martins and her husband to have an all-girls education opportunity like boys did, she claims. When a parent mentioned that the old Penguin Hall mansion in town would make a cool all-girls school, Martins and her husband wondered if they could be the ones to do it.<\/p>\n

Before Martins opened APH, she worked in financial administration in higher education and was quite familiar with acquiring real estate for the universities she worked for. Along with her husband, Al Martins, who owned a real estate and construction company, they worked with the previous owner of the property, Jim Mullen, to acquire Penguin Hall and convert it into the all-girls high school they believed students needed.<\/p>\n

Of course, acquiring the property was no cheap task, as the Martins family needed to come up with $10 million. When they couldn\u2019t secure all the money needed from investors and loans, Mullen ended up being the funding source. Penguin Hall was bought in February 2016. The Academy at Penguin Hall opened seven months later.<\/p>\n

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The Academy at Penguin Hall campus; where events like Convocation, Prom and Commencement were held. (Credit: @academypenguinhall on Instagram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Addie thought about where she would go to high school, she had assumed she would choose between the public school her older sisters had attended or one of the local private schools. Instead, her parents provided a third option: opening up a new one entirely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember vividly at the age of 11 years old being like, \u2018This is a terrible idea. I don\u2019t want to go to a high school with all girls,\u2019\u201d said Addie, about seven months after the announcement of APH\u2019s closure.<\/p>\n

While her sister Catherine was excited to be a part of such a unique high school experience, Addie held onto the idea that she could go somewhere else. When it came time for her to apply for high school, she submitted an application to the private Pingree School, which had the well-established STEM and sports programs that the newly opened APH did not.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if they just didn\u2019t think I\u2019d get in or they were hoping I wouldn\u2019t,\u201d said Addie of her parents. \u201cI was all set thinking I\u2019d go because I got in, and then they were like, \u2018Actually, no. This will not happen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, The Academy at Penguin Hall, which Addie says she was forced to go to, was shaping up to be a school that wanted to give its students an educational space where they could learn how to ask adults for support and practice speaking up for themselves.<\/p>\n

When new schools open, many of them only open enrollment to freshmen their first year. Every year, as the originating class moves up a grade, they add on another freshmen class until they have a complete high school cohort with freshman to seniors. APH went in a different direction.<\/p>\n

Nazareth Academy, the failing all-girls Catholic school in Wakefield, Massachusetts, did eventually close in May of 2016 and asked APH to take in their former students who were left without a school. So when APH opened its doors that September, a year earlier than planned because of Nazareth\u2019s closure, four classes of students started at APH.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so hard to convey that the first day of the school was my first day of high school,\u201d said Lila Caplan, a member of the originating freshman class. \u201cThe doors opened. I walked in. It was the very first day of school. And that always gets people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caplan had grown up going to the public school in her small town and was quite tired of being in class with the same people learning the same \u201ccut and dry\u201d core curriculum. After her parents toured the APH building and talked with administrators, they believed that this was the educational opportunity Caplan was looking for.<\/p>\n

Being the first-ever class at APH came with its own set of challenges, but Caplan loved being a part of \u201cthe guinea pig class,\u201d as she called it. Nothing was established or set in stone because everything was new.<\/p>\n

Of course, sometimes that meant that lunch was poorly structured as a two-hour unsupervised block where students could roam free in the giant mansion they went to school in known for its hidden doors and mysterious (and supposedly haunted) rooms. Other times, class projects and homework assignments didn\u2019t go according to plan, since no one had ever completed them before.<\/p>\n

Still, Caplan never viewed these failures as a bad thing, as she and her classmates could make changes along with administration. There were never any \u201cThis is the way we\u2019ve always done it\u201d justifications, she said, which allowed students to create traditions, like the annual all-school holiday book swap. They could also decide for themselves what the APH community would be like.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked being able to voice my opinion and feeling empowered to do so,\u201d said Caplan. \u201cI think that that was a really good life lesson because when I went to college, it didn\u2019t even dawn on me that I should be afraid of asking for something.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for academics, the standard curriculum at APH was the same as any other public or private school in Massachusetts. Students were required to take classes in all the core subject areas (math, science and humanities) and had to complete three years of language. In addition to the core curriculum, students also had to enroll in computer science, psychology or religion and arts electives in order to graduate.<\/p>\n

But the faculty and staff at APH tried hard not to stress students out too much about grades to the point where they didn\u2019t show students\u2019 grades at all. Students could check their grades on specific assignments, but cumulative grades were hidden except for the report cards that were sent out quarterly. When applying to college, I had to ask my advisor what my GPA was for my applications since I had never seen it.<\/p>\n

In its first year, APH tried to establish itself in the Catholic tradition, but this didn\u2019t last. The school ended up aligning itself with spirituality rather than a specific religion, offering classes like World Religions and Death and Dying where students learned about how different religions understand death.<\/p>\n

But the one facet of the curriculum that Martins made sure to never change was the absence of Advanced Placement, or AP, college-level classes. \u201cAn AP curriculum is one that everybody does the same thing. Everybody paints the same bowl of fruit, right? They memorize all the same information, they regurgitate all the same information on a test, and they\u2019re given awards to say that was great,\u201d said Martins. \u201cSo for us, the AP or IB or any of those really standardized types of learning were much more for if you\u2019re trying to keep people in lanes and keep them in boxes. That\u2019s exactly the opposite of what we wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

During open houses, parents would ask Martins how many AP courses they offered in order to gauge how rigorous the curriculum was. Martins felt that some parents only wanted to \u201ccheck off boxes\u201d when it came to deciding which school their child should go to. Because Martins made sure parents knew that APH did not support the AP curriculum, this ended up dissuading many parents from sending their kids to APH, worried that their child wouldn\u2019t be as competitive as a candidate when applying to college without AP credit. What did entice students to enroll at APH instead were the opportunities for community involvement and leadership that were unlike any found in schools in the area.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the school year, APH held a House Sorting Ceremony in which all the new members of the APH community were sorted into a house \u2014 Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and Grey\/Purple \u2014 just like at Hogwarts. (Grey House switched to Purple House in 2022 due to students complaining that grey was too boring of a color.) The houses were not just a student tradition as well. Every year, new teachers were sorted into houses along with first-years and transfer students, and they were also involved in all House activities.<\/p>\n

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New students and teachers wait to be sorted in their house during the 2021 House Sorting Ceremony. (Credit: @academypenguinhall on Instagram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Houses were a chance for students of all grade levels to get together every two weeks and plan Spirit Week themes, undertake community service projects, and campaign to win the Pebble Cup trophy, which goes to the House with the most points \u2014 often earned through these community service ventures \u2014 at the end of the year. Each House also had two representatives who demonstrated their leadership by running House meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved having the different houses and getting to form the different personalities behind them,\u201d said Caplan, a member of Red House often known for their huge, \u201cin your face\u201d spirit. \u201cEven though [APH] was small, you had so many different outlets to express yourself, share your opinions, show who you were and show your personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with students, teachers were also encouraged to show their personalities and knowledge through their teaching. Alick McLean started at APH in the fall of 2018, teaching eleventh grade global history. McLean had formerly taught in universities like Syracuse and NYU and then switched to teaching middle schoolers in order to connect with students more. In both cases, McLean was accustomed to prepping a syllabus and sticking to it throughout the semester. Coming to APH where students were used to giving input on curriculum topics and lesson plans was a bit of a shock to him at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard for me to connect with the students in the very beginning,\u201d said McLean. \u201cI just ended up kind of humbling myself and just listening to the students in what they needed. I think over the course of the first semester, I adapted my approach to teaching to try to involve their ways of thinking and to be really listening closely with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLean\u2019s global history class worked closely with the global literature class that all juniors were required to take. Instead of being handed a specific class plan from the APH administration, McLean and his humanities co-teacher worked together to create a curriculum map based on their own interests and students\u2019 feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt opened a worldview because we had teachers that really cared about what they were doing and they were all PhDs who had really niche research areas,\u201d said Addie Martins.<\/p>\n

Teachers were also encouraged to bond with students to establish an overall friendly environment at APH and to make students feel comfortable suggesting class improvements and ideas. Every teacher had a desk in what was called \u201cThe Hive,\u201d which was positioned right in a hallway where students had to pass multiple times a day. The Hive was made up of cubicles lining a wide hallway that connected the old part of the building called \u201cThe Manor House\u201d to the newer part of the building where the majority of classrooms were. This enforced a culture where students could easily visit all their favorite teachers in one place and formed a sense of comradery with fellow teachers as well.<\/p>\n

In the early years of APH, this way of learning worked well. When students and teachers petitioned to add new electives, the administration listened. When the students asked Martins to create a tradition where the seniors got to sleep over in the school one night before graduation, the Senior Retreat Sleepover was established.<\/p>\n

According to Addie, her first year and half at APH \u201cfelt like real school.\u201d That was until the COVID-19 pandemic shut schools down.<\/p>\n

In the spring of 2020, after the pandemic forced schools to switch to online learning, APH excelled at getting students back in the virtual classroom and listening to their needs during the pandemic. Administration also successfully implemented student input into the new remote curriculum by shortening the traditional hour and 15-minute class sessions and telling teachers to limit the amount of homework they gave students. When students complained of being too fatigued by staring at a computer screen all day, APH listened and made changes.<\/p>\n

However, as in-person learning gradually returned, it was difficult to resume normal operations as students were no longer accustomed to taking tests and doing homework. And so, academic standards faltered, as well as the administration\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n

Addie remembers her parents talking to her about a math teacher who was uncomfortable assigning a test after the pandemic because he didn\u2019t believe that students would actually try and do it. \u201cMy parents were like, \u2018Oh, what do we do about that?\u2019\u201d she recalled. \u201cI was like, \u2018You should just assign the test. This is a school. You run the school. People need to learn.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But the administration was handling an even bigger challenge besides students not wanting to take tests. When students are encouraged to demand change, it may not be what the administrators want.<\/p>\n

During the 2021\u20132022 academic school year, the students of color at APH, who only made up 6% of the student body at the time, spoke up loud enough that the administration couldn\u2019t ignore them. The 6% Club, as they named themselves, were demanding deep systemic changes within the school to be more welcoming to students of color. Many other classmates rallied with them and demanded that certain teachers accused of committing microaggressions be fired.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that independent schools always struggle with, because of the tuition and stuff like that, is building diversity in terms of your student body, whether it\u2019s socioeconomic diversity, geographic or racial,\u201d said Jan Healy, the school\u2019s dean of academics.<\/p>\n

Healy claimed that APH did have geographic diversity and a decent racial diversity \u2014 although the 6% statistic states otherwise; however, she didn\u2019t believe that the school was good at \u201cmaking everybody feel embraced and welcomed.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was aware that students were struggling with certain teachers and were relying on the administration to help them, but she also didn\u2019t have the necessary power to make the changes the student body was asking for. That power was reserved for Martins.<\/p>\n

To address concerns, both Healy and Martins had a meeting with the senior class \u2014 the most vocal among all grade levels \u2014 at the beginning of the second semester to open up a line of communication. In that room along with my senior class, I witnessed a number of students getting so angry to the point of being brought to tears. Some mentioned how unsafe they felt at the school because of harmful comments teachers had said and how frustrated they were at the administration\u2019s lack of response. They were angry that APH had taught them how to use their voices to stand up for themselves, but that nothing was being done about it.<\/p>\n

The emotion in the room got to be too much for Healy. Watching the students she cared so much about be so angry over something she was trying to fix was brutal. She ran out of the room crying and announced her departure from APH a week later.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Addie Martins watched as her classmates yelled at her mother for an hour. While she believed the students were all bringing up important concerns, she didn\u2019t believe this was the right way to go about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there needed to be more of a divide between students and administration because that was horrible for everyone involved. The people obviously have valid things to say, but also, I was sitting there listening to people rag on my mom about how awful she was as a human being,\u201d said Addie. \u201cIt\u2019s okay to have an opinion, but also, in the real world, you\u2019re not going to just aggressively berate people, and they\u2019re just going to sit there and take it.\u201d She ultimately left the room due to a panic attack.<\/p>\n

Addie believes that APH was different after the pandemic. After Healy left in the middle of the school year, many qualified teachers followed suit. As students watched as their favorite teachers they had created strong bonds with leave, they didn\u2019t really have the desire to stay.<\/p>\n

Although the pandemic actually boosted APH\u2019s enrollment due to their swiftness of getting students back in the classroom before many other schools in the area, their enrollment quickly dropped right back down after other schools reopened.<\/p>\n

With a steadily decreasing number of students and a rapidly increasing tuition \u2014 in 2018, tuition was at $22,800 a year, and in 2025, it was up to $42,800 a year \u2014 rumors started to spread that APH would not last long.<\/p>\n

As teachers started to stay out of school due to late paychecks, students were left fending for themselves in empty classrooms. They were, in fact, empowered to do whatever they wanted at school \u2014 just not in the way they expected.<\/p>\n

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A marketing image from APH. (Credit: @academypenguinhall on Instagram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In June of 2025, Martins had officially run out of money to keep the school afloat. She announced the closure shortly after the last day of the 2024\u20132025 school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t even describe how difficult and heartwrenching it was,\u201d said Martins. \u201cIt was the girls I felt the worst for and future students who could have come and could have done what I saw happen for ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Martins is working through the bankruptcy process in order to pay back the teachers who are owed missing paychecks and retirement funds and students and parents who have lost tuition checks for the 2025\u20132026 school year \u2014 a process that, she says, feels like \u201cdeath by a thousand cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

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