Helen Atkinson has taught for three years at Independence and plans to graduate the first full class of students from our small wacky and wonderful school in June 2008. She figures that this will be one of the highlights of her whole career. She grew up in a small town in the north of England; went to an outward bound high school in a castle in Wales (where she rescued sheep off cliffs); went to college in Canada where she trained as a nurse and got an English degree in a French speaking city in Quebec; worked as a hotel receptionist in Paris; got a Masters degree in public health in Leeds, England; bicycled and walked, all over the moors; and then ended up in Baltimore in 1981. Since then, while her three boys were young, she worked as a community organizer. During this time, she helped started various small schools—partly as a way for her own kids to attend public schools throughout their entire school lives. After 10 years working at “North Ave” running programs for new teachers, she decided to do what she had always dreamed of and feared—teach! But it had to be the right school…