New Dallas Private School Celebrates Inauguration
The Compass School of Texas recently held a ribbon cutting with community members, stakeholders, families, and students to celebrate the official inauguration of Dallas’ newest independent schools.
The school’s academic environment focuses on intention and purpose with learning through hands-on, real world application and encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit.
Founders Francis Harrison, Caroline Loehr, Frances Mitchell, Shelly Sender, Arnold Holtberg, and Alicia Haddock started the school to provide another option for parents looking for private school instruction.
The Compass School opened this fall to 44 students in pre-K through second grade and will expand through eighth grade by 2029.
The Compass School offers a blend of the Reggio Emilia child-centered teaching philosophy and inquiry and project-based learning. The average class size is between 12 and 16 students with a focus on small groups and one-on-one attention. Academics include language arts using phonemic awareness, system phonics, vocabulary, reading fluency, and comprehension; math; science; history; geography; and Spanish.
The school is located in Dallas on Northwest Highway in a 1920s-era Tudor home with a landscape of trees, greenspace, and a creek bordering the property.
The school’s academic leadership team includes:
- Shelly Sender, head of school. She’s the former early childhood education director at Temple Emanu-El Dallas.
- Arnold Holtberg, strategic adviser. He’s the former headmaster at St. Mark’s School of Texas.
- Alicia Haddock, education consultant. She was formerly with KIPP NYC and is the co-founder of MyEducationist.
For more information, visit CompassSchoolTX.org.
