The Hiland Hall School
A Progressive Primary and Middle School in Bennington, Vermont
(802) 442-3868
Our Teaching Team is made up of highly qualified and dedicated individuals who have earned M. Ed. Degrees and are state certified. Teachers schedule a parent conference at the beginning of each year and are readily available to meet with parents at their request. Twice a year, teachers write detailed narrative evaluations for each student.
Quena Crain, our Elementary Group teacher,
graduated from UC Davis, and then moved to Penobscot, Maine where she fell completely in love with the lush green of New England. With a love for world-wide education, she worked for several years at World Learning in Brattleboro, Vermont, helping students from the United States travel abroad, and facilitating youth leadership programs for international students. Following this experience she spent two years in New York City earning a Masters in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and K-12 teaching credential at the Teachers College, Columbia University. Music, dance, and exploration of the outdoors are her primary interests and she looks forward to incorporating her own passions, along with those of her students, into her teaching.
Brennan Cofiell, our Middle School teacher,
holds a Masters in Teaching for Social Justice from Marlboro College in Vermont. Before settling into the classroom, he earned a J.D. from California Western School of Law in San Diego and is a licensed attorney by the State Bar of California. While pursuing legal work in Southern California, Brennan worked extensively in youth development with a focus on education, adventure, and empowerment. His teaching philosophy is borrowed from Frederick Douglass, who preferred “to build strong children, than repair broken men” and with that in mind, he left a criminal defense trajectory for Social Studies classrooms in his native New England. Brennan speaks three languages, has resided on four continents and loves living in the Green Mountain National Forest. When not teaching in the classroom, you can find him snowboarding, mountain biking, and kayaking in the mountains and rivers of Southern Vermont.
Our team includes our Founding Teacher, Jessica Howard, as well as Peg Howes both of whom are part-time, and our Director, Drew Kelly.