Scanning 50 Years of Life at The Meher Schools The first personal computer came to market the same year The Meher Schools was founded—1975. We got our first computer in 1983, when Apple Computer donated a computer (an Apple IIe) to every school in California. For the first few years, we used ours only to maintain class lists. Gradually we began to incorporate Access and Excel for some of our record keeping, but we still had to use paper forms to gather information. A major turning point came...

Meet Jenna Chalmers, our new registrar. Jenna began working at the school last month. Her role involves helping current and prospective elementary school families navigate the application and enrollment process, managing the student data system, preparing reports, and supporting other administrators in their work. Prior to joining our staff, Jenna worked as a video game designer ( The Sims , SimCity , Spore ) and developed apps for the STEM toy company GoldieBlox. She says the skills that are...

Lara photographs a student’s “tree house,” which she’ll upload to the Artsonia site. Artsonia sent her this light box to help her take quality photos. Our students take home a lot of art they’ve made at school, and it’s always hard for parents to decide what to keep and what not to. Lara Cannon had the same problem when her two children were here—and she’s the art teacher! She’s since found a solution, a website called Artsonia that creates an online digital archive of students’ work. “I...