Global Citizenship pathway, honors distinctions provide even more ways to personalize a Cheshire education
In 2022, Cheshire Academy launched an ambitious new academic vision statement: “Cheshire Academy aims to provide the best (anywhere) education in global citizenship.”
Since then, the school has worked to build on that vision’s four foundational concepts: teaching 21st-century skills and capacities, adopting a global perspective, enabling transformative experiences, and fostering individual and collective wellbeing.
With the 2025-26 school year, CA will create the first cohort of students studying for the Diploma Distinction in Global Citizenship (GC), an exciting concentration within the academic program with a greater focus on sustainability, service, leadership and diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.
Given Cheshire’s centuries-long history as an international school, the emphasis on global citizenship isn’t new. However, it is a direct result of the Academy’s 2011 adoption of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme®. The IB’s mission is tailor-made for our focus on international mindedness, which became even cleared during our 2018 accreditation process, in which the Board of Trustees tasked the faculty and staff to develop individual pathways to success and increase our focus on global citizenship.
“We are so excited about this new pathway for our students,” said Dean of Academics Marc Aronson. “As with the IB, students can opt into any amount of the GC pathway they want, but unlike the IB, there are no prerequisites to ‘go for it.’ Students who enroll in the GC Diploma Distinction will essentially be majoring in global citizenship through taking a concentration of courses that carry the GC badge in our curriculum guide.”
Each student will choose from a host of heavily experiential courses, further personalizing an educational path that leads to recognition at Commencement and a special citation on their diplomas.
“Most importantly,” Aronson said, “they will graduate having tapped into their intrinsic sense of global justice and prepared to be change-makers in college and beyond.”
Cheshire has a longstanding reputation for excellence in global leadership, most recently receiving high marks for diversity in the 2025 Niche national ratings. In addition to an overall A+ rating from Niche, the boarding and day school was in the top 5 percent in the Most Diverse Private High School in America category, ranked amongst 5,220 schools.
Cheshire’s 375 students hail from 15 states, 27 countries, and six continents. International students make up nearly 30 percent of the student body, and students of color represent at least 37 percent of the campus population.
The new Global Citizenship program will conclude with a Global Citizenship seminar and capstone project, in which each student works closely with a faculty mentor on an approved topic of their choice. The program was announced along with major curricular enhancements to make Cheshire’s already cutting-edge course offerings even more dynamic and forward-thinking. The changes allow students to further differentiate themselves as leaders as they advance to college and beyond with honors distinctions available on all non-IB courses. Many existing courses have been reimagined as part of the Global Citizenship Diploma Distinction, and CA has opened additional yearlong and semester courses in relevant topics in STEM and the Humanities, including Sustainable Energy, Green Chemistry, Multimedia Reporting, World Religions, and Genetics & Biotechnology.
“Our academic program is grounded in the school’s internationally minded mission statement,” Aronson said, “and these strategic initiatives create individual pathways to success for students.”
