About Mr. Connell

Will Connell chose a career in education because he wanted to help open doors.

“It’s all about access to choices, the kind of choices that allow a person to lead a full life,” he says. “With a good education, you open doors. I want to help open those doors.”

The Underhill Center, Vermont native taught at an alternative school in Roxbury before coming to CCSC. Four years later, he loves the choice he made.

“Teaching at CCSC is hard because there is so much to do and so much riding on our success,” says Mr. Connell, who studied history at Skidmore College and earned a master’s in education from Harvard University. “It is such important work, that when things go well, something genuinely important has happened.”

Mr. Connell loves teaching tenth grade because, as he says, the students are genuine in their enthusiasm for learning. “They’re not too young to be crazy and not too old to be jaded,” he says. “The best thing about teaching is getting to be around kids all day. Kids are authentic.”

Mr. Connell ‘s high school history teacher, Mr. Grant, had a significant impact on him and his teaching style. “Everyone respected him and tried to do their best for him,” he says. “But he was funny, gregarious, and warm. He let us know he meant business, but showed us who he really was and appreciated us for who we really were.”