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About Us

From the Head of School

Every day, Nashoba Brooks students arrive at school excited to see their teachers and friends and ready to engage in dynamic learning activities.
Thank you for your interest in Nashoba Brooks School! As you explore our website, I hope you will discover our student-centered commitment to creating inspired education through innovation, inclusivity, and impact. In the decade ahead, we look forward to taking this work to the next level as we dedicate ourselves to advancing our strategic directions with new and impactful ways to Spark, Sustain, and Soar as an innovative and dynamic learning institution. We believe in the potential of our students to become leaders and changemakers in their communities and we encourage them to embrace our core values of integrity, collaboration, inclusivity, empathy, and resilience as they do. These values are not simply words on a page, they shape the experience of each member of our community on a daily basis, they stretch our thinking, they grow with us, and they inspire our work together. 

Just as our students, teachers, curriculum, and core values stretch, flex, and grow with us, so too, does our campus. In 2019 we opened three new flex classrooms and the Shilling STEAM Lab—spaces which support and highlight our innovative and integrated curriculum. In 2020, we completed construction of the Sureau Family Discovery Barn, which has expanded and enhanced collaborative and flexible learning opportunities, provided new assembly and performance space, and celebrated connection with our natural environment. In 2021, we embraced the long-held tradition of our beautiful 30-acre campus as an extension of our classrooms with the addition of the Merry Long Community Garden and the Denault Library Courtyard, each building curiosity and connections in outdoor classroom settings. Nashoba Brooks School provides spaces where students can engage in learning that empowers them to connect with each other, find their voice, discover a lifelong love of learning, and become leaders who will shape our world in countless, powerful, and productive ways.

We are dedicated to providing an outstanding educational experience in which students embrace intellectual challenge in a supportive environment that helps them think expansively, embrace curiosity, take risks with confidence, and stretch more broadly and deeply into the learning process. As a school committed to continuous learning and growth at every level, we are proud to be always evolving, never complacent. 

Our teachers, students, and parents view learning as a shared endeavor that is enhanced by strong partnerships, collaboration, and modeling. Our teachers are highly trained in the science and art of child development. Perhaps even more importantly, they are committed to education as a lifelong pursuit. Our teachers are not only informed by good practices, they are dedicated to advancing this work at Nashoba Brooks and in the field through their practice, their research, and their leadership.
 
Following the model of their teachers, Nashoba Brooks students are exceptionally capable, confident, curious, and creative citizens and leaders. They graduate with the belief and the knowledge that they can affect positive change in the world. And they do.
 
There is no better way to understand Nashoba Brooks School than to experience it for yourself. When you visit the School, you will feel the energy, enthusiasm, and joy that fill our classrooms as students and teachers take on learning challenges together.
 
We hope you will visit us soon!

Danielle Heard
Head of School


Questions and Curiosities Blog

About Danielle Heard

Danielle Heard joined Nashoba Brooks in 2008 as the assistant head of school and was appointed head of school after a national search in 2012. She earned a B.A. from Williams College and an M.Ed. from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She was a Klingenstein fellow at Columbia University Teachers College and completed the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School. Since 1991, Danielle has held teaching, coaching, advising, and residential life positions at Emma Willard School, Dana Hall School, and Willow Hill School, and served as executive vice president of programs and operations at The Steppingstone Foundation. Danielle is proud to serve as an advisor to the Chewonki Foundation, a member of the Belmont Hill Board of Trustees, as the Chair of the AISNE Membership Committee, and as the President of the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools.
Situated on a beautiful 30-acre campus in historic Concord, Massachusetts, Nashoba Brooks School enrolls all genders in Preschool through Grade 3, and students identifying as girls in Grades 4 through 8. Nashoba Brooks is an independent school designed to build community, character, and confidence in its students.
Copyright © 2020 Nashoba Brooks School of Concord. All Rights Reserved.