About East Coast Leadership Academy
Rethinking education in New Brunswick and beyond.
East Coast Leadership Academy (ECLA) is a private school located at the heart of Fredericton, New Brunswick. ECLA is deeply rooted in the community and focuses on holistic education for every student, incorporating personalized and experiential learning across the community. This approach empowers students to uncover their passions, develop their skills, and realize their unique potential.
At ECLA, we prioritize global competencies such as character and citizenship development, collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. We’re dedicated to providing expansive educational experiences that transcend conventional classrooms. While upholding the New Brunswick Curriculum, we differentiate our instruction through flexible student grouping to optimize their achievements. Collaborating with community partners, we also provide students with access to enriching experiential learning opportunities, fostering a well-rounded educational experience.
Welcoming your child to ECLA.
We are dedicated to providing a tailored and progressive educational experience that addresses the unique developmental needs of our students. Currently, ECLA welcomes students from traditional grades K-7. This cohort is on a foundational learning journey carefully designed to suit the earlier years of formal education. Additional middle school and high school grades will be added in succession, ensuring that ECLA students have a seamless transition through to high school graduation.
Students can achieve more.
At ECLA, we hold the belief that each student is a unique individual, possessing their own set of strengths, passions, interests, and abilities. Our goal is to uncover your child’s academic strengths and personal interests. ECLA is committed to collaborating with a team of experts to ensure that your child experiences innovative learning environments, guided by teachers who tailor the curriculum to suit individual needs, interests, and aspirations.
Students need to reach their potential.
Students need to reach their potential for their own benefit and for the good of the community. Conventional educational systems often emphasize standardized instruction and assessment, with limitations on providing personalized support and resources for each student. As an academy rooted in progressive, evidence-informed educational methods, we offer parents an alternative learning experience for their children.
The community supplements the classroom.
We foster partnerships with local organizations, involving them in diverse roles such as becoming instructors within our team, facilitating hands-on experiential learning experiences both at our location and off-site, and offering in-kind support through materials or mentorship.
Character develops equally with intellect.
Our educational approach nurtures the holistic development of students, encompassing their cognitive, social, and emotional dimensions. We achieve this through both the academic curriculum and a wide array of co-curricular opportunities.
We are inclusive & diverse.
We celebrate students from diverse backgrounds, and embrace and appreciate each student for their unique individuality, cultural backgrounds, and differing interests. Every student is an individual, and we aim to meet them where they’re at and help them reach their potential.
Our Vision
To have every student reach their potential and discover their passions.
Our Mission
To create a learning environment based on personalized, experiential, and community-based learning, where each student reaches their potential – academically, physically, socially, and emotionally.
Our Founding Story
What happens when you combine an award-winning, civically-engaged entrepreneur with an award-winning, deeply-read, and passionate educator? East Coast Leadership Academy (ECLA). ECLA grew out of a need. For Kara Angus, it was a need to find a safe, engaging environment for her children. She grew up in Fredericton and benefited greatly from the public-school system. She is a champion of the power of community to make life better for everyone; however, when faced with a decision for her own children she found a school system that was struggling to meet the basic first steps of getting students to walk into the school to learn to read and to learn to do math. More importantly, she felt as if the system neither had the time or interest in parents like her who were eager to help make things better.
Rather than dwell on her frustration, Kara reached out to the one person she knew who had spent a lifetime thinking both about how to create the ideal school environment and about how to move the public education system for the betterment of students, families, and the Fredericton community: Chris Treadwell. Chris had won national awards as the principal at Park Street, had worked internationally to better education, and had worked at high levels in the Ministry of Education. His reputation as a champion of public education and a fierce advocate for New Brunswick was beyond reproach. Her proposition was straightforward. Absent a high functioning public or private school in Fredericton, what if we create one.
For Chris, this offered an opportunity to pour his 40+ years of experience, reading, and thought into creating a model school—one focused on personalization and breaking down the barriers of the school building to demonstrate how the best education is community-based education. Moreover, it offered a chance to work outside of the system to first build the school and then work with the public system to share the lessons learned more broadly throughout the system. It was a new wrinkle on public-private partnerships to take advantage of the best parts of both worlds.
As a person who grew up in poverty and saw education as the way to ensure he lived in insulated housing through the cold New Brunswick winters, Chris understood the urgency of now. When he was young, he had to leave some of his friends who did not see the value of a good education behind. As an adult approaching the end of his working career, ECLA serves as his last best shot at foundationally changing New Brunswick education, bettering the lives of New Brunswick young people, and creating the New Brunswick of the future.
ECLA is founded on the principles of transparency and sharing of lessons learned. If you are a public school educator, come visit. We are open to collaborations of many sorts. We have also assembled an advisory group of international educators who are also at your disposal. If you are a community partner, come learn how you can impact the educational impact of New Brunswick and become something beyond just another field trip. If you are a parent, join us in raising the level of education for your child and for all children in the province.
Being collaborative and innovative is not always easy; however, together we can make a difference in education. Is there a higher cause?
COMING SOON:
The ECLA Community Fund
At ECLA, we’re deeply committed to creating an inclusive educational environment that represents diversity, and enables students to learn and collaborate together on a level playing field. With this vision in mind, we’ve established the ECLA Community Fund, a non-profit initiative managed by a dedicated board of directors.
Currently still in the development phase, The ECLA Community Fund seeks sponsorships and contributions from the community to provide tuition support to marginalized children who might not have the means to access a private education. We firmly believe that the classroom should be an inclusive space, reflective of diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and that education should be a tool for social equity and personal growth. To make this vision a reality, we are instituting an application process through which interested students can apply for tuition assistance. Our board of directors will carefully review these applications, selecting recipients to attend ECLA with either discounted or fully paid tuition. This initiative embodies our commitment to fostering a welcoming and enriching educational experience.
We greatly look forward to bringing this program to fruition. Announcements will be made when the program is finalized and we’re able to begin accepting applications for tuition support.