Just before the start of school in August, Whitefield Academy in Smyrna opened the doors to its new lower school building, Brostrand Hall, named for former principal Jeanine Brostrand, who retired in 2018. The $17 million project, the largest underwritten by the Leaving a Legacy Capital campaign, includes a 40,000-square-foot building with 19 classrooms, a dining facility with a commercial kitchen, offices with collaborative spaces, and better access to the covered outdoor play area.

August saw the opening of a new facility on the Marist School campus off Ashford Dunwoody Road. The Goizueta Center for Immersive Experience and Design, located on the bottom floor of the Wooldridge Center, is now the centerpiece of the school’s STEAM 2.0 initiative, created to increase students’ exploration of STEAM subjects. Among the programs it supports are robotics, engineering, 3-D design and printing, virtual and augmented reality, immersive media and media studies, podcasting, broadcasting, documentary filmmaking, and music technology.

That construction noise echoing across the Sandy Springs campus of Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School is the school’s latest growth spurt. A new 60,000-square- foot upper school humanities building is in the works with classrooms for English, history, religion, and world languages. In addition, the space will be home to the school’s Program for Global Citizenship, offices for college counseling and faculty, and the campus store. The target completion date is fall 2021.

Lisa Baker was named head of school and camp at High Meadows, a Roswell-based International Baccalaureate institution with 300 students in pre-K through grade 8. Her experience and passion for social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and outdoor education align with High Meadows’ mission and focus. “Lisa is an experienced independent school leader who identifies as an educator and celebrates childhood and child-centered learning, both highly regarded values of High Meadows,” says Javier Estrella, chair of the board of trustees, who led the search. Prior to taking the post, Baker was the head of upper school at Bancroft School in Worcester, Massachusetts. She received her Certificate of School Administration from McDaniel College, a master’s in school counseling from Johns Hopkins University, and a bachelor’s in English from American University.

Work is wrapping up on North Cobb Christian School’s latest campus addition. A 38,000-square-foot complex will open its doors in late 2020 as a hub for creativity and innovation. Inside, students will find a STEM center with labs for physics and robotics, makerspace, and collaborative areas outfitted with computers, 3-D printers, and scan- ners. There’s also a laser engraver, a CNC router for woodworking and metalworking, a soldering station, table saws, sewing and textile construction machines, and more. Classrooms, offices, and a new parking lot are also part of the project, designed with ex- posed ceilings and garage-style doors for open-air learning. “Essentially, if you can build it, break it, or blow it up, it will happen in our makerspace and robotics lab,” says Upper School Principal Megan Strange.

New leadership is in place at the Lovett School’s 521-student lower school, where James Choi took the helm July 1. Choi was the former assistant head of the lower school at the John Cooper School in Texas, where he created a mentorship program to help first-year teachers make the transition into a new setting and developed a culture of continuing growth. Before heading to Texas, Choi was on the faculty at Greene Hill School in Brooklyn. His educational credentials include a master’s in teaching literacy and childhood education from the Bank Street Graduate School of Education in New York, a master’s in education from Columbia University, and a bachelor’s from Colgate University.