A Gazette editorial in February of 1996 noted that a quiet revolution was underway in the Island’s public school educational landscape. The Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School was planning its inaugural year and would open its doors the following September, creating the first new regional school on the Island since the regional high school was created in 1969.

For much of this quiet revolution, the man in charge has been Robert M. Moore, who became the charter school’s first full-time director in 1998. This week, Mr. Moore announced his pending retirement, at the conclusion of the 2017/18 school year.

The charter school calls its head of school a director rather than the more traditional title of principal. But in reality, Mr. Moore is known as Bob, by parents, his colleagues and his students, from the shyest kindergartner to the most mature senior.

He may be one of the few heads of school anywhere where being sent to the office is viewed as a good thing. Donuts with Bob is a popular pastime for the fifth graders where he often talks baseball or just listens to the kids talk. Kindergartners get to know him personally too at morning meetings and when he frequently visits the class to read to them.

Mr. Moore has had a long distinguished career in education, teaching in Brazil and Tunisia, and being the middle school director at the progressive Little Red School House in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, before coming to the charter school. His philosophy of education can be summed up in two words: student led.

When Mr. Moore arrived on the Island, the charter school was just two years old and served a little over 70 students, ages nine to fourteen. Its facilities were essentially a long hallway and several trailers. Today the school has a charter for 180 students, spanning kindergarten to senior high school. Each year there is a waiting list of families who want to participate. Its infrastructure has also blossomed, growing throughout the years by adding classrooms and recently a state of the art science lab.

Over the years the school has become an integral addition to the island’s educational landscape, not really in competition with the other schools, but offering a different option and style of education. Many students have spoken about this in their graduation speeches, noting that they had not found a place at other schools where they could be themselves and grow as independent learners. Of course, credit goes to all the teachers and administrators at the charter school as well as Mr. Moore. Taking a school from inception to one with deep roots is no easy challenge.

As both Mr. Moore and the charter school look to the future, the Gazette wishes them well.