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Article in the Boston Pilot, January 24, 2025
This Fall, the Sparhawk Academy Board of Trustees voted unanimously to expand our current grades 3–8 school by adding a grade 9 offering beginning in Fall 2025. Sparhawk will add grades 10–12 over the following three years. Since we opened our doors in 2018, there has been a growing demand within the Sparhawk community for a high-quality high school experience. However, we have always emphasized the importance of first establishing an excellent grades 3–8 program. Now we are confident that the time has come.
While the age range of our students will change, the core tenets of the Sparhawk educational philosophy will not: parents are the primary educators; education and the cultivation of virtue can be found through adventure; completing work with love and attentiveness creates value; and each student is called to a noble purpose by the God who created him.
Parents who see me wearing my Sparhawk cross-musket logo cap (in honor of our nation’s minutemen)often ask me about our “too good to be true” school. They have heard uplifting stories from friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Even the name Sparhawk intrigues them. (If you’re wondering, we received our name because of the beautiful Sparhawk Brook that runs along our grounds.)
As a father of four boys aged 16 to 6, I am acutely aware that parents across the primary and secondary school age spectrum need support. So I cut to the chase.I tell them thatSparhawk is an instrument for helping parents, the primary educators, during the most formative years of their son’s life when his intellectual, physical, and moral capacities are rapidly developing.
I explain that the Sparhawk parent/teacher partnership is rooted in a mutual desire to form men of character who are grounded in reality, inspired by a noble purpose, and plan to impact the world in ways that only he can. Virtue, vision, and vocation are three core ingredients for forming men with these qualities.
VIRTUE: Developing a firm, habitual disposition to do good is a cornerstone of a Sparhawk education. The Sparhawk experience counsels students’ hearts, cultivating within them authentic human virtues, especially love for the truth and a sense of wonder, love for freedom, optimism, industriousness, respect for others, and a spirit of service.
Virtue must be learned, earned, and cultivated continually. At Sparhawk, we engage more with the real versus the virtual world, taking advantage of our beautiful 58-acre property to enjoy the wonders of nature. Boys explore our fields and brooks, observing plants and animals, identifying footprints and bird calls. Our students also read great literature and learn about heroes and adventurers, men and women who overcome obstacles with ingenuity and good cheer.
VISION:Sparhawk knows that each boy has been created by God and has a unique purpose in life. He is, in essence, a called being.Vision inspires action. Sparhawk is not designed to form spectators. Sparhawk trains players for the adventure of life. We invite boys to contribute their talents to the good of those around them: classmates, siblings, parents. When a Sparhawk boy reaches adolescence, he has been equipped to ask more than just, “What do I want from life?”He brings to his prayer the question, “What does life need from me?”
VOCATION: The Sparhawk experience encourages boys to value work by the love, effort, and purpose with which it is completed.God has brought us to these grounds we call Sparhawk Farm to learn to create cheerfully and to serve generously.
Craftsmanship classes teach boys how to split wood, prune trees, cut with a saw, cook with a Dutch oven, and care for gardens. This work has tangible outcomes, and students gain resourcefulness and confidence from succeeding at things that were once unfamiliar or even intimidating.
The meaningful lessons learned in the workshop and across our farm instill in students confidence and determination for other areas of school life. We want a classroom full of craftsmen—students whose academic work is strong, accurate, and beautiful; students who are, in the end, proud of their work. Work of excellence is transformational. Once a boy sees that he is capable of excellence, he is never quite the same.
Letter from the Chair of the Board of Trustees, June 3, 2023
Dear Sparhawk Community:
We have much to be thankful for as we come to the end of our fifth year of offering families a complete educational experience for your sons. Certainly, what happens in the classroom, in the mentoring program, in sports and the arts, in the craftsmanship program and informally on the grounds and fields of the school all contribute to the development of well-rounded young men ready for their high school experience. Arguably, the capstone project of our first five years is the opening of the five-classroom schoolhouse and chapel to accommodate more than 100 students. Yes, much has been accomplished, and it is genuinely a pleasure to consider the opportunities that lie ahead.
We now enter what can be considered Phase Two of Sparhawk’s history. It is time for new leadership, new perspectives, and new ideas. To that end, the Board of Trustees is pleased to announce that Michael Schell, a member of our own parent community, has accepted our offer of the Head of School position to lead Sparhawk for the next generation. Mike’s background in education is wide and deep. He currently serves as Associate Superintendent of Enrollment Management and Marketing for the Archdiocese of Boston’s Catholic Schools. Previously, Mike was Director of Admissions and Enrollment in addition to Director of College Counseling at Catholic Memorial School. Prior to CM, he taught AP History and Theology courses and held various advancement, admissions, college counseling, and coaching roles at St. Sebastian’s School and Groton School. Between 2010 – 2018, he directed The Cannonball Foundation, a nonprofit he founded that delivered programming to elevate the role of character in student-athlete development and the college athletic recruiting process to hundreds of student-athletes, youth coaches, and high school coaches across the country. His work on and off the field earned him a selection to the NCAA’s Buick Human Highlight Reel series, which showcased the stories of a group of former college student-athletes who have given their all to their sport and community.Mike attended high school at The Lawrenceville School in Princeton, NJ, and completed his college studies at Holy Cross. He earned a master’s degree in organizational and education leadership from Columbia University. He is an active member of several school boards and leading educational organizations, and a frequent presenter on various topics related to the K-12 private school experience and college admissions process. Most importantly, he is thoroughly imbued with the Sparhawk spirit, that intangible “something” that makes the Sparhawk experience so unique. We welcome Mike and look forward to his leadership.Of course, we all know that Sparhawk is where it is today thanks to the heroic work of Bob Sylvain. It is hard to imagine this project would ever have been launched without his prescient vision, clear insights, dogged determination and selfless dedication to the mission. We owe Bob a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid. We are delighted to let you know that Bob will remain a member of the Board of Trustees as we continue to improve upon the Sparhawk experience for your families.Please join me in welcoming Mike and thanking Bob. As I said at the beginning of this letter, we have much to be thankful for!Sincerely,
Tim Casey
Chair, Board of Trustees
Article in the Boston Pilot, January 29, 2021
Character and culture: Forming boys into men
by Bob Sylvain
In September 2018, after many years of prayers and planning, Sparhawk Academy opened for grades three to eight with 36 boys and a faculty of seven on the site of a former horse farm. We designed our boy-friendly curriculum using two guiding principles: parents are the primary educators of their children, and boyhood should be celebrated, not squelched. Sparhawk serves parents by helping their boys to use their freedom wisely in pursuit of their academic, physical, spiritual, and character development. Parents love this. In just over two years we have nearly doubled in size and outgrown the small home we converted into a schoolhouse and chapel. In 2021 we will add a new classroom building, positioning ourselves to grow to 150 students over the next few years.
What constitutes a boy-friendly curriculum? For one thing, lots of time outdoors. Every day boys dash outside during their 15-minute recess and 45-minute lunch period to build forts, climb trees, and catch frogs. Boys can invent games with their own rules or play basketball or football. Daily gym classes and after-school soccer, cross country, basketball, and baseball provide more organized physical activities.
But the outdoors is also a classroom for us. Boys study local bird species by quietly observing their habitat and learning their calls. They may re-enact Pickett’s Charge across our Lower Paddock during history class or sketch the root system of a fallen tree in their science journals.
Article in the Boston Pilot, June 21, 2019
The Future of Boston’s Catholic Schools
by Thomas Carroll
As the new superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Boston, I have enjoyed meeting countless people committed to the future of our schools — principals, teachers, parents, students and clergy. The passion I have seen is nothing short of inspirational, and I look forward to visiting every school in the Boston Archdiocese.
Despite this passion, these are indisputably challenging times. Since the 1960s, enrollment in Catholic schools has dropped from a peak of more than 5 million students to just over 1.7 million students today.
Against this backdrop, the obvious question is: How can Catholic education in the Boston Archdiocese chart a more successful future? After two months as superintendent, a few tentative thoughts come to mind.
In my view, the future belongs to schools with a clear vision and a keen understanding of the local educational landscape of their community.
School leaders need to understand — from a parent’s perspective — what the other options are in the same community. Since many of these options — namely, district and charter schools — are free, the Catholic schools that will survive will be those that offer parents something the free schools don’t. This could be higher quality, smaller class size, stricter discipline, or a distinctive school design or curriculum.
Some Catholic school leaders wrongly believe that they should de-emphasize faith as they seek to market their schools in a broadly secular society. This is a mistake. Given competition from free district schools and free charter schools, a Catholic school will not prevail by positioning itself as a tuition-charging secular (non-religious) school. Our schools can “go further with faith.” What Catholic schools offer is something more transcendent than any secular school can ever offer. This is our strength, not a weakness.
Several Catholic schools in the Boston Archdiocese understand all of this, including Bellesini Academy, Notre Dame Cristo Rey High School, St. Benedict Classical Academy, Sparhawk Academy, and St. Paul’s Choir School. These schools are very different from each other, but each offers a clear vision, strong Catholic identity, and strong academics.
Article in the Milford Daily News, August 20, 2018
New school for boys, focusing on outdoors, to open in Millis
by Alison Bosma
MILLIS – Sparhawk Academy admissions director Raymond Le Grand paused on a stroll through 56 acres of meadows, streams, ponds, and woodland Monday morning, to point out a pair of deer leaping through the trees ahead.
This is where a good chunk of class will take place at the new school for boys, opening this fall.
“We see education moving more and more away from the outdoors,” Head of School Bob Sylvain said. “A lot of the emphasis is on testing and being at your desk all day long. Our experience is that boys are more engaged (when they can get outside).”
