The Puzzle: Blog

Along our journey recapping highlights from our fall school visits to Vermont, North Carolina, California, Texas, Georgia, and Florida, we have yet to make a stop in the Midwest.

Luckily our Director of Communications, Julie Landis, traveled to the state of Michigan to visit three unique schools in the state's southeastern region, many in Metro Detroit. She shares why the Great Lake State has more than just great lakes, but also great independent schools.

1. Leave your preconceptions of Detroit at home. Detroit is a booming, up-and-coming Midwest city with a low cost of living. With its past problems in the rear view mirror, the city is attracting investors (including the likes of JPMorgan Chase), innovators, and young adventurers.

2. Thrillist just named the 21 best bakeries in America, and Sister Pie in Detroit made the cut. It was also named the #1 unexpected food city in North America by National Geographic in 2017. We hope you're hungry!

3. Ann Arbor, where Greenhills School is located about an hour outside of Detroit, is home to the sprawling University of Michigan. With a big-city feel and small-town values, Ann Arbor is a laid-back, family-friendly city that's full of character and charm.

4. Need a break? The Center for Mindful Wellbeing at Greenhills is a device-free room where students have access to mindfulness activities, guided meditation, and yoga, among other activities and tools. Students are invited to end their school day with “tea time” after classes.

5. Greenhills students excel both on the field and in the classroom. Many members of the varsity boys soccer team — which made it to the state championship this past fall — are advanced physics and calculus students.

5. Twenty-five minutes north of downtown Detroit, Detroit Country Day School (DCDS) is spread out on three campuses. The school just completed a Middle School expansion, is currently constructing new Lower School buildings, and is adding a Film Studio to its already robust Upper School arts facilities.

6. Speaking of facilities, the athletic facilities at DCDS are out of this world. Their indoor turf field, which is large enough for full-scale game play in many sports, means students don't have to battle cold Michigan winters to enjoy daily recess, athletic practice, or P.E. classes.

7. DCDS's take an EPIIC approach to its curriculum — learning that is Experiential, Participatory, Image-Rich, Interdisciplinary, and Connected — which immerses students in what they learn instead of being passive recipients to learning.

8. University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe Woods opened up the John and Marlene Boll Campus Center this past fall. The Center is a hub of activity with community gathering space for students and alumni events, a 14,500-square-foot gym, batting cage, tennis and volleyball courts, fitness center and weight room, and eight basketball hoops.

9. Faculty at Liggett are experts in their fields but also comfortable relying on student choice and voice to drive learning; teachers provide scaffolding and structure, but students make meaning out of what they learn. In summer of 2018, a teacher was named the 2018 Michigan History Teacher of the Year and honored at a state ceremony.

10. Michigan's oldest coeducational independent school, Liggett draw students from more than 50 zip codes, including the central city of Detroit.

These three schools just scratch the surface of the unique learning (and living) communities in Pure Michigan and the Midwest in general. If you're at all curious about exploring a job search in these areas, have a conversation with your Placement Associate.

Or apply today to work with CS&A as a job seeker to find your next teaching or administrative job — whether in Michigan, nationally, or internationally.

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