Local Leadership: How Our School Belongs to the Community

One of my favorite moments at our school is when parents gather to receive their children’s report cards.

In many Haitian schools, grades are handed to students to take home. But in our classrooms, the parents come in, sit at the tables just like their children, and listen as the teacher explains each child’s progress.

Some parents are unable to read or write themselves, so this moment matters even more. The teacher walks them through the numbers, explaining what they mean and where their child is thriving or needs more support. It is a chance for parents not only to understand but to participate in their child’s learning journey.

From the very beginning, I wanted parents to feel included. Too often, schools stand apart from families, as if education happens in isolation. But that was never our vision.

Parents help in practical ways too. On clean-up days, they arrive with tools, skills, and energy — a carpenter fixing desks, a mechanic repairing a gate, mothers sweeping and tidying the grounds. At the end of the year, they join us for celebrations, proud of what their children have achieved.

In the early years, I even visited families at home. I asked about siblings, about their hopes, about what they dreamed of for their children. It was my way of saying: we see you, and we want to walk alongside your whole family.

This partnership has made all the difference. Parents don’t stand outside the school — they are part of it.

Teachers Growing in Confidence

Our teachers have been at the heart of the school’s story from the beginning.

When we started, training opportunities were scarce. In rural Haiti, many elementary teachers only had a ninth-grade education. But I knew that for our school to thrive, we needed teachers who were confident and equipped.

So we set a new standard: every teacher must be certified, and if they weren’t yet, we would support them to complete their training. Step by step, we invested in their growth, paying for courses and encouraging them to keep going.

That commitment has paid off. More than a decade later, every single teacher who has joined us is still with us. Not one has left. They have grown with the school, learned new approaches, and discovered their own voices as leaders.

And it wasn’t only about training. From the start, our teachers helped shape how the school worked. They told me, “Kelly, this won’t work — let’s make it more Haitian.” Their insights made our classrooms stronger, blending my experience as an educator with their deep understanding of culture and community.
Today, they are not just teachers. They are the pillars of our school.

When we first began, I quickly realised that our school would need to do more than teach reading and writing. We would also need to model a different kind of learning environment.

One of the very first rules I set was simple: we never hit children. In many schools in Haiti, corporal punishment was still the norm. But I believed deeply that children cannot learn when they are afraid.

I remember the day one of our teachers slapped a student. After class, I called him into my office. I explained why this could never happen again, and I was clear: if it did, he would have to leave. It never happened again. Instead, something remarkable took place — our teachers became advocates. They began speaking about this change to other educators at monthly meetings on La Gonâve. What began as a rule within our walls started to influence schools across the town.

We also introduced practices that were new to the community. Instead of rows of benches, our children sat around a table, learning together. It felt more like a family, where every student could help another. We used rubric-style report cards that described skills in detail rather than reducing them to a single letter grade. At first, parents and even teachers found it strange. But soon they realised how helpful it was, how much more clearly it showed a child’s strengths and needs.

These cultural shifts were not always easy. But when teachers and parents saw the difference, they embraced them. Over time, our little school became known as a place that did things differently — and that difference was working.

For many years, I travelled back and forth to Haiti regularly. I was always closely involved in the daily running of the school. But as political unrest and gang violence grew, travelling to La Gonâve became unsafe.

At first, I worried. How could the school carry on without me there? The answer came from the very people who had been with me from the start: our teachers.

We promoted two of them into new leadership roles — Director of Operations and Director of Students. They took on the responsibility of guiding their colleagues, making daily decisions, and ensuring that the school continued to run smoothly.

Now, we meet weekly online. We talk about challenges, celebrate successes, and share updates. But the leadership rests in their hands. They know what to do because they have grown with the school from the very beginning.

This is what sustainability really looks like. A school that does not depend on me, but on the strength of its own community. Teachers who began as young educators now lead as directors. Parents who once watched from the sidelines now sit at the table.

Greater Good Haiti was never meant to be my school. It was always meant to belong to La Gonâve. And today, it does.

Looking Back Today

When I look back over the years, I see how much has changed — and how much has stayed the same. We began with 12 children around a single table, taught by one teacher. Today, we have seven teachers, dozens of students, and a whole community that sees the school as their own.

What makes me proudest is not the growth in numbers, but the growth in ownership. Parents who once came nervously to their first report card meeting now walk through our gates with confidence. Teachers who began uncertain are now leaders, directors, and role models for others. Together, they have created something that is bigger than all of us.

Greater Good Haiti was never meant to be a project run from afar. It was meant to be rooted in La Gonâve — in its people, its culture, and its future.

That is what makes me hopeful. Because when a school belongs to the community, it can endure any challenge.

Education lasts when it is built on local leadership. And that is exactly what we have built.