Spring News and Notes
Dear Families, I hope this note finds you well and rested after your children’s Spring Break. I want to use this week’s blog to share a few updates and thoughts.
- First, it is my pleasure to announce that Sandra “Chap” Chapman will be returning as our Director of Diversity and Community next year. When Chap began in her current role last July it was as Interim Director of Diversity and Community. As you know there was a small, dedicated group of parents, teachers and administrators who interviewed a number of candidates and hosted half-day visits by Chap and another finalists. Thank you to those parents who attended the group interviews and to the members of the PA and the affinity groups who participated in interviews and discussions. In the end, it was clear that Chap was the best candidate and I am thrilled that she will be continuing her work with families, faculty and students in all three divisions.
- As her first official act, Chap has asked for me to remind you of two events next week—actually one event being offered at two times. We invite you to participate in ”Bringing the Conversation Home: Strategies for Addressing Challenging Diversity Topics Your Child Brings Home,” happening on Tuesday, April 8th at 8:45AM in the Sixth Avenue cafeteria and Thursday, April 10th at 6:00PM in the Charlton Street cafeteria. These conversations will focus on real situations that have occurred in LREI homes throughout this past year. The situations deal with issues of class/wealth, race/ethnicity, gender, and family structure. These have been interesting and fruitful conversations in the past and I encourage you to join in this year. Please RSVP, particularly for the Thursday evening session, as it will only take place if we are expecting sufficient parent participation. You can email Chap at schapman@lrei.org or let the receptionists know that you will be attending.
- Over Spring Break 47LREI students traveled overseas on school sponsored trips:
- Fifteen eighth graders traveled to France with their French teachers Sharyn Hahn and David Lee. This group visited Paris, Versailles, took the train (TGV) south to Avignon, and Aix-en-Provence, then off to Nimes, St. Jean de Vence, Monaco, Aise, and Nice.
- Nineteen eighth graders traveled to Spain with Gabrielle Keller, Middle School Spanish teacher, Margaret Andrews, middle school math teacher, and Victor Diggs, seventh grade core teacher. This group went to Madrid and Barcelona, visiting the new Prado, a comprehensive Picasso exhibit at the Reina Sofia and the Sagrada Familia Cathedral as well as strolling, shopping and eating along the Ramblas in Barcelona.
- Thirteen high school students visited the Gunter-Stohr-Gymnasium, the school with which we have had an exchange program for the past five years. These students stayed with a host family in Munich, attended school, visited many museums, the Royal Residence and Dachau, as well as reuniting with friends made when the German students visited us in October. Many students traveled with their host families over the Easter weekend. Some went skiing in Austria and others visited Verona and Venice.
- Finally, we are nearing the departure date for seven of our middle school robotics team members and their coaches—Sherezada Acosta, Carin Cohen and Steve Neiman—who will travel to Tokyo for a global robotics tournament. In the coming days you might see afternoon bake sales that this group is organizing to help pay for some sight seeing excursions and to support the other US team that has been invited to attend this event.
It was wonderful to welcome your children back to school on Monday. They all seemed to have grown so much in just two weeks! One of the aspects of the spring that makes it such a fruitful time of the school year is that students fully inhabit their grades. When they entered school in September they were essentially still operating as members of the grade they had left in June. For example, new fifth graders still had one foot firmly planted in the lower school. Students’ slow journey through the fall and into the winter supported, encouraged, nudged and demanded their maturation into fully-fledged members of their current grade. Upon returning from a two week break on Monday there was absolutely no part of last year left in them. We have even started to see glimpses of next year from time to time. There is a confidence and easiness in the students in the spring; the student’s work, individually and in groups, is graceful and smooth in a way that it was not just a few weeks ago. Much will be asked of all LREI students in the coming weeks. The last quarter of the school year will require that the students continue to develop skills and competencies while putting to use all that they have experienced and learned in the past seven months. Each child will have a number of opportunities to share with their families and the community all of the abilities that are part of their new selves and that will support them as they, in a few short months, take that step into the next set of challenges.
Best,
Phil