The 2018-19 school year is a milestone in the history of Concordia International School Shanghai, as it marks the school’s twentieth anniversary. Over the weekend of August 24, the school community, including a number of founders and original faculty, assembled for a series of celebratory events that paid tribute to Concordia’s history and celebrated its future.
Over the past twenty years, the city of Shanghai has experienced monumental growth, and Concordia has been no exception. When its doors first opened in September of 1998, a staff of seventeen teachers welcomed a student body of twenty-two students. Today, over 1,300 students from more than 30 countries and regions around the world walk Concordia’s halls and are taught by a faculty of 160. The campus, which started with a single building in the heart of Pudong, an area once occupied by marshy rice fields, now boasts 33,748 square meters of purpose-built facilities and state-of-the-art learning spaces.
“We are pleased to see how the seed that was planted in the early 1990’s has grown to this point in 2018 and that it has been a blessing to so many students and families in the Shanghai community,” remarked Concordia’s first head of school, Allan Schmidt.
At an assembly of honored guests that included former faculty, dignitaries and Chinese officials, Schmidt gave an account of Concordia’s exceptional origins. He spoke of the foresight and great efforts taken by the school founders, the local government and the team of advisors who oversaw the project and helped bring about the accelerated construction of the campus.
Ground was broken on the Concordia site in March of 1998 and the campus was completed by mid-August that same year, just in time for the start of school. The rapid undertaking had been so remarkable that Concordia was dubbed the “miracle school” by Shanghai’s US Consul General at the time, Ray Burghardt.
Elaborating on this sentiment, the current US Consul General, Sean Stein, commented that “the real miracle of Concordia is the miracle that happens in the lives of the students, who are transformed through diligent teaching and modeling into extraordinary adults and people who contribute to the world around them.”
Indeed, holding fast to the school’s core values and mission to nurture and educate the whole child within a supportive environment has enabled Concordia to flourish over the past two decades. Through the hard work, faith and cooperation of dedicated teachers, visionary government officials and a vibrant and engaged expat community, Concordia has become one of Asia’s premiere international schools.
The twentieth anniversary weekend, provided the Concordia community a moment to reflect on how far the school has come and on the thousands of lives it has helped shape through its educational and service programs. It also inspired excitement and promise for the next stage in the school’s journey.
“Our vision,” proclaimed Concordia Head of School Dr. Mary Scott addressing the assembly, “is for Concordia to be a global platform fostering deeper learning and transforming lives to lead change in a dynamic and complex world. We want our future as a school to echo this statement and live out this vision.”
Chairman of Concordia’s Board of Directors, Fred Voigtmann, perhaps put it best when he declared: “We can celebrate today but tomorrow morning we have to get up and get ready for our next twenty years.”
