Shop Talk: Q&A With Julia Sigalovsky
Photo/Brandon Butler
Julia Sigalovsky, Executive Director, Spirit of Knowledge Charter School
Julia Sigalovsky emigrated to the United States from Moscow 21 years ago with her family. Since then, she has worked as a scientist at Northeastern University and MIT. But she’s also an entrepreneur. She started her own engineering firm with her husband and helped found the Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School in Marlborough. Now she’s onto the next project: Launching the Spirit of Knowledge Charter School in Worcester, which is slated to open this fall. Here, she talks about what makes a charter school unique and what needs to happen for the doors to open on the new school.
>> What is the Spirit of Knowledge Charter School?
This will be a very high-level academic school with emphasis on math, science technology and engineering with a specific focus on renewable energy and biotechnology. We’ve developed a curriculum that is organized in a six-year comprehensive sequential program that will allow us to achieve a high level of teaching that will be measured through state and national standardized testing.
>> How is a charter school different from a regular school?
Charter schools are free public schools that can accept anyone but are not governed by a local school committee. We have our own board of trustees that oversees the school. We were the only new charter school approved this year by the state.
>> What more needs to happen before you can open in the fall?
We’re finalizing a lease on a building now and we’ve already begun hiring teachers and administrators. We will start with 156 students in grades seven, eight and nine and eventually we will work up to 275 students in grades seven through 12. The first year we will have about 13 teachers and the staff size will double within four years. So far we already have more than 150 families interested in the school and about two-thirds of them are minorities; more than half of the enrolled students are girls.
>> What experiences did you learn from helping to start the Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School in Marlborough?
We learned a lot about how to put a school together and specifically the curriculum. It’s important to use technology advances and use all the modern innovations that are available to teach our students. We hope every student in our school will have a laptop. We will have a completely new and innovative approach to educating students.
>> How so?
Most all of our classes will be offered in a six-year sequential format. So, for example, our biology courses will begin with classifications of organisms, then will proceed to cell biology, evolution and in the final two years molecular biology and genetics. This holistic approach to education aims to give students in depth knowledge of specific areas.
>> What is the best way to prepare today’s youth to be tomorrow’s workforce?
There is no miracle to be successful in the workplace. You need to know a lot, period. In order to stay competitive in the global market, we need to be able to teach our children in their most important years. That will give them everything they need to have to move on. We hope the students will establish a connection with these very important issues, which is why we’re focusing on energy and technology. I hope my kids will invent the energy solutions of tomorrow. But to do that they need more than just good will, they need a good foundation of knowledge.
Watch as Julia Sigalovsky discusses the details behind the creation of her new charter school in Worcester:
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