Sloan History

HISTORY OF SLOAN SCHOOL

In September of 1997,  the program changed sites and liaison principal.  We physically moved the program off-campus to a remote site on the Chandler Hall property.  We added a teacher and contracted the services of a therapist, an aide, and adventure-based counseling through Youth Services of Bucks County.  Twenty-four students per day, on average, were educated at this new facility.  We credit the simple change to an "off-campus" facility for the dramatic reduction in daily behavioral crises experienced by students.  We benefited from sharing in an intergenerational program with the residents at Chandler Hall in our two-year stay at this same facility.  Michael Holland replaced Ted Sloan upon his retirement.  Mike built upon the great student-administrator relationship established by Ted with our students and created many avenues upon which our students saw possibilities in expanding their education in the community and beyond their high school years. Construction on the Chandler property caused an unsettling 1999-2000 school year for the students enrolled in the alternative school.  The school changed addresses four times throughout the course of the academic year.  For much of that period, the school was housed in two remote rooms of the newly built Maureen M. Welch Elementary School.  Jim Marchesani, Welch School Principal, extended himself to great lengths to buffer the concerns of the parents in the elementary community from our students.  Eventually, the program settled in The Today, Inc. Rehabilitation Facility for the remainder of the school year. In September of 2000, the school district was moved to acquire the Preston Property at 264 Frost Lane in Newtown, to provide the students with a more permanent home. In September of 2006, the school moved once more to 661 Penn St. to provide more space. Today, the Sloan School resides in its now current property - the CR STAR Center. Built in 2020, the STAR Center was designed with the need of the Sloan and ACHIEVE students it houses in mind. Currently, the staff is comprised of four teachers, one for each major subject (Science, Social Studies, Math and English), a therapist and a nurse.