GIRL POWER: HAWTHORN LEADERSHIP SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

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GIRL POWER: HAWTHORN LEADERSHIP SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

By: Karyn Meyer

Imagine a hallway filled with girls chatting excitedly as they prepare for class, all dressed in matching uniforms, their hair thrown into ponytails without much thought. There are no boys to impress or distract; the focus is on the day’s science and engineering classes, or after-school robotics club.

This is the environment planned for Hawthorn Leadership School For Girls, a public charter school for grades six through 12 opening this fall on Kingshighway Boulevard. It’s the vision of founder and executive director Mary Stillman, daughter of former Sen. John Danforth. “When my family lived in Washington, D.C., I attended high school at Holton-Arms, an all-girls independent school. Focusing on rigorous academic challenges in that setting was such an empowering experience.”

It was one that stayed with Stillman as she attended college and law school, eventually working as a lawyer and a professor at Washington University...