Welcome to Maritime Academy Charter School and Welcome Back to many returning cadets from summer break for the 2024-2025 school year!
MACS will become a phone-free school for grades K-12 starting in the 2024-2025 school year. To implement this initiative, we have purchased the YONDR Pouch Program. The Elementary and Middle School have been phone free, but we will now add the Classroom Cell Phone Holder with a keyed security lock cabinet. The smartphone is an extraordinary invention; however, it has proven to pose a profound risk of harm to adolescent mental health. We have come a long way from June 14, 1951, when Remington Rand delivered its first computer, UNIVAC I, to the U.S. Census Bureau. It weighed 16,000 pounds, used 5,000 vacuum tubes, and could perform about 1,000 calculations per second.
We now hold in our hand the equivalent of a smartphone more powerful than any individual computer in 1950. An iPhone can perform hundreds of billions of calculations on just a single one of its processing chips. In fact, it's a million times more powerful than the computers that sent the Apollo missions to the moon. We have in our hands immense access to information and the ability to communicate with one another. Obviously, it could potentially be a major distraction in a classroom. Influencers and strangers on social media have proliferated, Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok, video games, and many more; some of which are inappropriate for adults, let alone school students and children. Studies have proven there will be a remarkable transformation, a reduction in disciplinary issues, academic improvement will soar in English, Biology, History and Math, student engagement, conversation, laughter, genuine connection, better communication skills, genuine friendship, and an explosion of kindness.
The elimination of cell-phone distraction creates greater opportunity to faster learning for every student, all the time. We will actually witness students talking to one another and not exercising their fingers texting. Our students may be skeptical at first but will love the phone free learning environment from arrival to dismissal.
MACS 6th, 7th and 8th grade will be in a fully renovated space in building 201 and 202 at the Arsenal. This is an exciting chapter in the life of a MACS cadet as a Charter School. The classrooms and hallways are colorful, well-lit and spacious and a far cry from the cramped quarters in building 41 and 42. Our 6th grade will be on the first floor of building 202 and our 7th and 8th grade will be on the third floor of building 201 and 202. We will have a new mess hall and kitchen which we can convert to a meeting area. The MACS information technology team under the leadership of Mr. Ithier has worked tirelessly to ensure that we will have access to the use of computers and related technology, such as software, cloud-based applications, and networks to communicate or transmit data, build organizational infrastructure, and secure information so we can effectively function as a middle school. The entire project will cost approximately $7.0 million dollars. Other people behind the scenes that have helped bring the project to a conclusion include Michael Cianchetta and KayDee Hoard from Truist bank, legal counsels, Ms. Berson and Ms. Gorman, and Bond Financiers from the Hamlin group. The buildout was accomplished with the design of our Architect, Blackney Hayes and the build was overseen by General Contractor, DJ Keating. It was a major project but we opened for school ON TIME.
This was the year of the Olympics with many demonstrations of the meaning of excellence. Think of the gymnast Simone Biles, who worked through mental health issues that kept her sidelined at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and then went on to win three gold medals at the Paris Games. There were many demonstrations of good sportsmanship and good sportswoman ship. Biles and her teammate bowed to show respect to the gold medal winner in individual floor competition Rebecca Andrade of Brazil. There was sprinter Noah Lyles, the fastest man in the world, despite overcoming asthma, dyslexia, anxiety, and depression. He said, "What you have does not define what you can become". Excellence is not perfection or winning at all costs. It is the satisfying process of becoming the best performer and person you can be. You pursue goals that challenge you, put forth an honest effort, endure highs and lows and everything in between and gain respect for yourself and others. The real reward of excellence is not a medal or the promotion, but the person you become and the relationships you forge along the way. It is, at its fundamental root, what it means to be the best humans we can be. Pursuing excellence is, at its core, retaining respect, compassion and empathy for others, even pursuit of being your best and, sometimes, winning. You must be driven and fierce, but it is precisely because of this determined commitment -- and the recognition of how hard it can be - that you gain immense empathy and respect for others in the arena. You learn about the importance of hard work but also how to graciously accept loss and learn from it.
I am going to close with Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation" - the men and women who went to fight a war after Pearl Harbor had just come off the worldwide depression of the thirties. They came off very hard times, missed the good life, and instead went off to fight and win a war. In the service, they had learned the importance of identifying an objective and pursuing it until the mission was accomplished. To walk your talk, they were all about fairness and justice. School was about, "Enter to learn, go forth to serve." "I am proud of the way I live my life. I was a good soldier. I served my country. It is my country, right or wrong. I am still waiting to find out what God really wants me to do. None of us can ever contribute enough." "I live a good life; not with riches or money, I love to teach, I love to help people." They came home to resume and start lives enriched by the values they defended. Those values are set out in the Constitution of the United States of America and in our Bill of Rights!
In conclusion, always "Be Rich In Kindness". We are a great school because we CARE for one another, we show kindness and concern for other, we are responsible and ACCOUNTABLE for our actions and decisions, we are DILIGENT, conscientious and hardworking, we are EQUITABLE, fair and considerate of others, we are TRUSTWORTHY, our word is our bond, we are honest and truthful, authentic, resourceful, humble and compassionate. It is those CADET characteristics that make us different from other schools.
Let's have a great year. Let's do great things together!
Eugene Mattioni, Esq.,
Chief Executive Officer, Maritime Academy Charter School