HS Principal

Welcome to a new school year at CDS. It has been a busy summer preparing the campus for the start of school. Our 4 new teachers arrived at the beginning of August and spent a week settling into their new homes and getting to know their surroundings. The returning staff arrived a week later and busily began preparing their classes for opening day. Let me introduce you to our new staff:

Chris Stallings joins us from California where he has been teaching science. He has 15 years of experience, having also taught in Virginia in the United States. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and did his graduate work at George Washington University where he obtained his teaching credential.

This is a picture of Chris on the new teacher scavenger hunt.

Chris recently married Erin Leydig Stallings who will be teaching science in the middle school.

Chris is excited to be teaching biology, AP biology and environmental science in the bio-diversity capital of the world, Costa Rica. He is a devoted runner, a lover of science fiction, and a devoted consumer of strange and unusual foods. He also has a passion for trivia which paid off—literally—when he made an appearance on Jeopardy! He will put that trivia to good use as he guides our Knowledge Bowl team this year.

Jason Bell hails from Canada. He earned both his bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in education from the University of New Brunswick. He has taught for the past 6 years in New Jersey and will be teaching Algebra II and Algebra II honors.

Jason is the guy on the far left.

Outside of the classroom, Jason is a big sports fan. His favorite sport is hockey and his dream is to buy the Phoenix Coyotes (a professional hockey team) and relocate them to Escazu. If you build the ice rink, Jason, they will come.

Jason will offer a math workshop for kids, hoping to instill a passion in the kids for all things mathematical.

Doug Gamble is fresh off a year- long sabbatical after teaching for the past several years at Marian Baker. He has 23 years of experience having also taught in California, Japan, and Idaho. He earned his bachelor’s degree as well as a master’s in education from Stanford University. He also has a second master’s degree in biblical studies.

This is Doug passing through the library.

Doug is the father of 3 children and his oldest son Jesse is an 11^th grader at CDS. Doug is also an avid sports fan but he is especially fond of baseball, tennis and fly fishing.

This year Doug will be channeling the ancient Greek philosopher and teacher, Socrates, as he leads students in the now famous Socratic Cafe.

Elizabeth Huesing was born, raised and educated in Minnesota. She graduated from the College of St. Benedict and earned her teaching credential at Hamlin University. She has been a math teacher for the past 3 and half years and will teach algebra, geometry and geometry honors.

Elizabeth, where do you go to pay your bills?

While in college she interned and taught English in Costa Rica.

Elizabeth plays the piano, enjoys reading and likes to play tennis.

Elizabeth has also volunteered to advise our yearbook group and looks forward to sharing her expertise as a former yearbook editor.

This school year we officially begin our relationship with K12, the online educational program. So far over a dozen high school kids will be studying courses such as German, Chinese, psychology, and oceanography through K12. Our partnership allows us to offer a much wider range of courses to our students along with the convenience of self-paced study in an online environment.

For the first time since I have been at CDS (I am starting my 4th year) our students will be able to attend the AASCA leadership conference. Lincoln School, here in Costa Rica, is sponsoring the event and we will send a group of students to participate in a leadership camp. The students are excited to participate.

New Parents

We have a New Parents welcome breakfast on Friday, August 21st at 8:00 am in the cafeteria. We hope you can join us. This will be a chance to meet other new parents and find out about our parent association and how to help out during the school year.

Thanks for reading my blog. I will post reminders of upcoming events under the subject or category heading: “High school news.” If you are interested, you may read my occasional musings on education under the title “Educational reflections.” Your comments are always welcome.