Margo LaPointe

The Tenacious Founder of SEA VIEW LEARNING

Margo LaPointe
The Tenacious Founder of SEA VIEW LEARNING

It was a cold November evening in 2021, and Margo was sitting in a dimly lit living room with some friends. The phone rang, and the voice on the other end said, “Margo, I just spoke to your co-founder, who is weeping. It doesn’t seem like you & she can get along, so shall I call the parents of all the students and tell them that the school has to shut down?”

Little did the person on the phone know, Margo had just lost her lifelong best friend and was grieving with friends in a friend’s candle-lit living room.

As the saying goes, “when it rains, it pours,” and this November was a blizzard for Margo.

Blindsided by the phone call and overwhelmed with emotions, Margo responded with a firm NO, as shutting down the school was never an option.

Two days later, Margo was ready with a fully-fledged proposal and called a Zoom meeting. A proposal that was complete with SWOT analysis identifying challenges, investigating staff actions, and delineating achievable solutions was presented to her staff and employees.

The investigation was so thorough that the staff who were under investigation resigned immediately, followed by the investigating team themselves. Soon enough, Margo found herself standing alone at the gates of her school, staring into the dream-filled eyes of her students.

To understand what transpired after this, we must first go back in time and glimpse Margo’s childhood and upbringing.

A childhood that built the grit

For most of her life, Margo was raised by a single mother, who was an entrepreneur. Instilled the importance of education and tenacity in Margo and her siblings and empowered them with the life lesson of working hard to earn what they want in life.

Later in Margo’s life, the man that held the role as that of a stepfather, a Special Forces officer, became an essential part of Margo’s childhood. A Green Beret Son Tay Raider and Purple Heart recipient, he was part of the family role modeling and embedding hard work, showing up for others, grit, and resilience in Margo, and her teachers added to this.

With abundant care, nurture, and stability, teachers and coaches brought out the best in her, which had a lasting impact on young Margo. Believing in paying it forward, she started creating opportunities for the future generation every chance she got.

She says, “I had formidable childhood experiences that laid the foundation of my philanthropic engagements and also the school culture I have established at SEAVIEW LEARNING.”

Receiving a Business degree, a bachelor’s degree from Bridgewater State University, and graduating from the University of Oxford program with honors, Education evidently played a significant role in Margo’s life.

“I had formidable childhood experiences that laid the foundation of my philanthropic engagements and also the school culture I have established at SEAVIEW LEARNING..” – Margo LaPointe

The resurgence of SEAVIEW LEARNING

Picking up from where she was left alone to fend for herself and her school, Margo was faced with the arduous undertaking of course-correcting the mistakes made by her former staff.

A single mother of two, Margo had just two weeks of Christmas holidays to pull off the unimaginable. Hiring a new teaching team, creating a curriculum, collecting material, training & orienting the new staff, and building the middle school classroom from the ground up was some tasks to be completed within 14 days.

Amidst all this, when giving up seemed easier, Margo told herself, “If you do your job, the school will stay open. If you do your job well, the school won’t lose students. If you do your job excellent, the school will grow along with the number of students”.

And this is precisely what happened.

When students returned to school after the holiday break, they were in for a surprise. They found new teachers, an updated curriculum, a new classroom, and everything else that was lacking a few weeks ago.

Margo had turned things around, practically turned over a new leaf, and breathed life into SEAVIEW
LEARNING.

Consequently, the school didn’t lose a single student by the end of the academic year, and under the leadership of Margo, it came back much stronger.

“I envision a school culture of wellness, social & emotional learning, holistic education of children, collaboration, stewardship, project-based learning, student growth and successfully achieving year-end goals.” – Margo LaPointe

It’s all about SEAVIEW LEARNING

The middle school wing of SEAVIEW LEARNING saw thrice as many enrollments in the academic year of 2022, out of which 100% of students from the previous year applied for re-enrollment. The school also witnessed younger siblings of current students enrolling, which is delightful news
for Margo.

SEAVIEW LEARNING expanded, adding a new building on the campus, and the accolades for Margo’s hard work and resilience followed.

It established a National Board of Directors, hosted a former Olympian as a guest speaker, and by the end of the year, SEAVIEW LEARNING won the Top 5 Private Independent Middle Schools in Massachusetts and Greater New England award by the end of the year Boston Parent’s Family Favorites.

Furthermore, the school was also placed in BOSS 2022 Best Private Elementary School on the South Shore – an award-winning Elementary and Middle School program.

Margo attributes the successful resurgence of SEAVIEW LEARNING to her team, Kathryn “Miss Kat” Oteri and Daniel Badger.

While Miss Kat was instrumental in designing and executing a fun-filled lower elementary program in record time, the founding director of the Badger Wilderness Guides, Dan Badger led the STEM build phase of the project-based learning capstone program Margo designed. Dan Badger’s untiring dedication to educating students was boosted by his sons and their Boy Scouts pack, who volunteered off-hours to keep the building construction project on track.

Kat and Dan led the Houses in achieving specifically assigned tasks, knocking them out of the park.

The dedicated visionary - Margo LaPointe

Earlier in 2022, Margo and her students were assigned the essay question, “What’s more important; the destination or the journey?”

While the journey is undeniably essential, running a school takes vision, an eye on the prize, and a clear intuition of the destination. She says,

I envision a school culture of wellness, social & emotional learning, holistic education of children, collaboration, stewardship, project-based learning, student growth and successfully achieving year-end goals. – Margo LaPointe

With that said, critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, community service initiatives, leadership programs, growth mindset, and imparting others equally to children are important to Margo.

She is keen on providing tools and platforms for students to learn all these attributes, and watching the magic happen from the sidelines gives her immense pleasure as an educator.

When asked about Margo’s leadership style, she says, “I lead with the same spirit I teach in a classroom. Like how my coaches, dance teachers, drama instructors, and others brought the best out of me as a child – I wish to do the same with my school children. I like to empower leaders and believe that great leaders make great leaders.”

Margo takes her philosophy of great leaders making great leaders in her hiring process and other walks of life. Hiring individuals for their talent, experience, and skill, she communicates the objective clearly, supports her employees, provides them with what they need, and moves out of the way to let them do what they’re good at.

Taking this a step further, Margo creates opportunities for her staff every chance she gets, promotes them figuratively & literally, invites them to various events and conferences, and includes them in networking initiatives. It is safe to say, people who Margo hires not only get better at their respective jobs but also grow as human beings.

You can often find Margo engaged with her employees, walking shoulder to shoulder with them and making them feel supported. She is the kind of person who spends even her birthday with staff who volunteered to spend the weekend working. Margo is even found supporting her team during parent’s & teachers’ meetings.

She says, ”If someone is volunteering their time to advance our project to make a deadline, there’s no way I am leaving them to do it alone. I will show up and work shoulder to shoulder to help them. On my team, no one should feel alone”.

At the end of the day, Margo believes that her students, employees, and children are her responsibility, and she would go to great lengths to show them support and hand-hold them through thick & thin.

Collaboration, Accolades, Philanthropy, and more

Believing in the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”, Margo has opened up SEAVIEW LEARNING for profound collaborations for the betterment of the school and the communities nearby.

As a Founding Director, Margo partners with The Boy Scouts of
America to use their property and Outdoor Education expert for SEAVIEW LEARNING students.

In addition to incredible academic programming, students are afforded access to archery, fishing docks, BB gun range, obstacle course, BMX course, sports fields, amphitheater, nature trails, and campus beach, as part of their school day.

Her collaboration with the Badger Wilderness Guides allowed students to become CPR Certified, Leave No Trace Certified, and experienced in life-saving skillsets.

Another one of Margo’s collaborations with the Hidden Battles Foundation has created an opportunity for Military, Veterans, Nurse, and First responder families to connect with a community for support as a part of the school culture and a SEAVIEW LEARNING initiative.

Additionally, Margo has collaborated with Special Forces, Green Beret Daniel Fielding, “The Asset Mindset” author, on developing a growth mindset curriculum for a brand new Youth Leadership program at SEAVIEW LEARNING. The said program will include a multifaceted approach to leadership in the local, national, and global communities. Youth Leaders will engage in stewardship opportunities, group discussion, and problem-solving through role play, community service, and programming written by Margo. It will include V.I.P. Featured Guest Speakers such as Colonel Sean Dynan, Commanding Officer of the 15th MEU.

In the act of generous philanthropy, SEAVIEW LEARNING has gifted full-ride scholarships ($18,000 each) to military children and the children of First Responders.

Margo recently met with the Gold Star dad, Massachusetts State Representative Steven Xiarhos, and has his support of the Purple Star School legislation. Once passed by the State, this legislation will allow Massachusetts to join the National Network, which educates school staff to better support military children across the country.

She attended the Military Child Education Coalition Global Summit in Washington DC, also attended by First Lady of the United States Dr. Jill Biden, as well as other prestigious military leaders.

SEAVIEW LEARNING was the only school from Massachusetts in the Purple Star School session, and it seeks to be established as one of the first Purple Star Schools in the state. Margo believes there is no better way to honor her stepfather’s memory than to support this historic legislation and participate in it actively.

Recent achievements of SEAVIEW LEARNING include the first phase expansion from a K-8 model to a K-12 model and Ted Dintersmith, an education reform champion
expressing his interest in SEAVIEW LEARNING’s
innovative education model.

Not to mention Massachusetts State Representative Kathleen LaNatra has offered her support for the hands-on, real-world project SEAVIEW LEARNING’s middle school Civics class has designed.

Lastly, Margo has been invited by The Boy Scouts of America to expand onto additional properties in other states, strategically positioning for national growth.

To conclude,

Margo believes there is no better way to honor the memory of the man who participated in her childhood, Laurence Young. With all the initiatives undertaken for military children, she is on a mission to improve people’s lives, especially the children of heroes serving her country.

If the purpose of education is to prepare today’s students for their future, SEAVIEW LEARNING students will be ready. Under the visionary leadership of Margo and her award-winning team, the real question is; WILL THE WORLD BE READY FOR THE EXTRAORDINARY STUDENTS GRADUATING FROM
SEAVIEW LEARNING?