How to Make Maple Sugar

Maple tree
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A former superintendent of schools with the Bedford School District in Bedford, NH, Chip McGee has served as a consultant with Sugar Maple Consulting since November 2018. In his free time, Chip McGee makes maple sugar in his backyard, and taps his neighbor’s maple trees in exchange for free bottles of syrup. 

Maple sap becomes syrup through a process of boiling and filtering that significantly changes its color, flavor, and consistency. Interested parties can transform both homemade and store-bought maple syrup into maple sugar in a few simple steps.

First, maple sugar makers should boil maple syrup until it reduces by half and reaches roughly 260 degrees. Removing the syrup from the heat source, they then begin to stir it vigorously with a wooden spoon until it becomes granulated in texture. The entire granulation process typically takes around 5 minutes. Finally, skilled maple sugar makers can use a strainer and/or a food processor to break large clumps of sugar into fine grains.

An Overview of NHSAA's 2019-20 Professional Development Schedule

Professional Deal
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For 15 years, Chip McGee served as superintendent of Bedford School District in Bedford, NH. He previously worked as a teacher and dean at New York City's The Beacon School and now serves as an educational consultant with Sugar Maple Consulting, a Nashua, NH-based firm he founded in 2018. Alongside his day to day professional activities, Chip McGee maintains affiliations with several organizations, including the New Hampshire School Administrators Association (NHSAA).

As part of its efforts to advance the knowledge and skills of the nation's education leaders, NHSAA offers a variety of professional development (PD) programs and activities throughout the year. For 2019-20, the organization has a full schedule of PD events, and it all starts with the 10th Annual NHSAA Collective Bargaining Retreat for Management in August 2019.

In September and October 2019, NHSAA will hold its Best Practices Conference on School Operations, Finance and Leadership, the Excellence in Equity Conference, and the Innovations in Learning Conference. The group will also co-sponsor the Bradley F. Kidder Law Conference in October. To close out the year, NHSAA will partner with the New Hampshire Society for Technology in Education, New Hampshire Chief Technology Officers Council, and the NH School Library Media Association in hosting the 33rd Annual Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference during the first week of December.

NHSAA's 2020 PD schedule features a Legislative Review workshop in early February and the Personnel Leadership workshop in early March. Another half-day legislative review will take place at the end of March followed by the Best Practices Conference on Social-Emotional Learning, which will close out NHSAA's 2019-20 PD year. More details about the events are available at www.nhsaa.org.