Environmental Magnet School Opening

The classrooms of Goodwin College’s new magnet high school — the Connecticut River Academy — will welcome the first class of about 160 freshmen and sophomores Aug. 30. The academy is an interdistrict magnet high school with an environmental studies theme that hopes to utilize its access to the Connecticut River to engage students in river ecology studies and other environmental explorations. Each year, an additional class of students will start at the academy, eventually filling grades 9 through 12. Through an early college model, these students will have opportunities to earn college credit while still in high school. Linda Dadona, most recently an administrator at Nathan Hale-Ray High School in East Haddam, will be the principal of the new school.