Category: Uncategorized

So Long

Dear LREI Community,

Goodbye to the 2010-2011 school year! All three divisions have now dismissed for the summer. The shelves have been cleared, bulletin boards bared, lockers emptied. Even the classroom pets are being packed away!

As I wrote in my blog earlier this month (scroll down to the previous post), much has been accomplished this year; so much growth, so many successes. The whole that is all of our accomplishments is surely greater than the sum of its many, many parts. I am proud of our students and their teachers and all of the other people who work in the school each day. Thank you and congratulations. Thank you, families, for entrusting your children to us, for supporting the Parents Association and for the many ways you support the School’s progressive program.

So off we go to summer break–time at home, time away, time with friends and time with family. Time to tend to interests crowded out by school work; time to find new challenges and opportunities. Time to experience life, to be out in the world-whether close to home or farther afield.

Time, and our relationship to it, may change the most as we head to summer–for some a gift, for others a challenge. Longer days; mornings, starting late and meandering into even later evenings. Time to use. Maybe even time to waste.

I hope that whatever the longer, slower days of summer bring to you and yours, that you enjoy your time together, enjoy the warmth and the opportunities of the season and that we see you all back here, at LREI, happy and healthy, in time for school to begin anew in September.

Best to all,

Phil

The Year’s Successes

I am often asked, at this point in the year, “So, how was the year? Successful? Are you happy with the way things are ending?” My answer, invariably, is “Yes.” We always have a good year. Children learn. They are healthy and happy. New families join, seniors graduate to terrific colleges. Some things change for the better, some stay the same, also for the better. So, “Yes,” we had a successful year this year. Can we demonstrate or illustrate this? It is not always easy to measure the success of a school (which is surprising given how much time we spend measuring out students’ progress.) Clearly, there are some indicators of how well we performed this year. What follows, in no particular order, are my thoughts on some of our successes.

To measure success in the divisions, we can look to awards, accolades, championships, publications, etc. To name a few:

  • The high school robotics team came in first in their division in the NY region, advancing to the world championship where they came in 25th. Upon their return to NYC, they began to “deconstruct” the 24 robots ahead of them and are planning for next year’s competition.
  • A group of high school students won the award for best documentary at the Toronto Student Film Festival
  • The 7th/8th grade girls’ basketball team ended their season in first place. All other inter-mural basketball teams, in the middle and high school, made it through at least one round of playoffs.
  • A number of other teams won championships or tournaments or, in individual sports, had students who came in first place—cross-country and track are two examples.
  • Our recently published literary magazine IE is excellent this year, as always. This volume is just one example of LREI’s terrific student publications, which include the yearbooks—Expressions and Really Red—and our high school newspaper, The Charlton Label.
  • Throughout the three divisions there are a multitude of other demonstrations of learning—publishing parties, art shows and museums.
  • In all three divisions, weekly gatherings are student led.
  • We produced four major theatrical productions plus at least four smaller plays that came out of the classroom curriculum. In addition we held two seasonal concerts for the bands and choruses in which roughly 25% of the school participated.
  • The number and variety of the field trips taken by our students is a true sign of our success as a mission driven school.
  • A good number of faculty and administrators presented at conferences and workshops in New York and nationally.

Outside of the academic program:

  • From an enrollment standpoint, we had a fantastic year. Many, many applicants for all spots. We were able to fill grades Fours-Nine with excellent students and families. We are excited about the LREI community’s newest members and all that they will bring to the 2011-2012 school year. We have enrolled our largest class of 9th graders ever at 63 students. Almost 75% of eighth graders are moving up to ninth grade!
  • We are thrilled by the college options and choices of the class of 2001. Congratulations to them and thank you to our new college guidance team. The colleges in which our seniors are enrolled are excellent, highly academic, diverse and inspiring.
  • Teacher turnover is at an all-time low.
  • Thanks to the generosity of the LREI community we are poised to meet our Annual Fund goal, though are still hoping that we will see an additional increase in participation. Thank you to all who contributed and to all who helped to solicit donations. Thank you, in advance, to any who will contribute between now and June 30th. The Big Auction added significantly to our Annual Fund successes bringing in at least $250,000. Thank you to the organizers.
  • We are proud of our successes in making the school accessible and inclusive. We feel successful about the ways in which we have worked with students and families on issues of equity and justice.
  • The Parents Association had a successful year with ever increasing levels of participation in their various events. Surely a sign of success.
  • As you may know, almost a year ago, LREI was awarded a grant from the Edward E. Ford Foundation to fund our work in looking ahead a number of years and adding to our high school program in ways that will assure that we are preparing our students for their future, even though we don’t know where it will take them or us. The redesign team has made excellent progress and our work will continue into the summer and fall. As do all E.E. Ford grants, we were required to match the $50,000 with $50,000 from the LREI community. At last accounting, we had raised $67,000 in gifts to this fund. Thank you to all who contributed.

There are many other examples of success waiting to be included on the list above, a list that could cover many pages and still leave out something or someone. We should be proud of these accomplishments; they are exciting and say a great deal about what we value, about our students and teachers and how they spend their time.

To shift focus somewhat, we should also be proud of those things that are less easily seen, such as the four year-old who learns to separate from a parent, the first grader who learns to read and the third grader who begins to learn to do research. We should celebrate success in learning math at all levels, in being a scientist searching for answers and in speaking in a foreign language. We must give pats on the back all around for robots built, for essays written, for literature deconstructed. This list, too, is long, as long as the list of each of our students is, as we know that each of them stretched intellectually this year.

Another indication of success, I am convinced, are the many, many conversations that are going on concerning the next steps in the growth of LREI’s program, about projects for the summer and plans for the next school year. These are not plans to remediate failure or to fill giant gaps, but are the result of thoughtful reflection on how best meet the school’s academic mission. This sort of ongoing reflection and innovation are essential to our mission. It is a great success when our teachers, at the end of a busy and taxing school year, continue to plan for the further development of our program. This is clearly the path to increased success for LREI and to achieving the true potential of our progressive program.

Finally, I spent a number of hours over the past week meeting, in small groups, with all of our seniors. The goal of these exit interviews was to get some feedback from our oldest, wisest and most mature students. Their comments and thoughts were honest and constructive. The students have high expectations for themselves and for their schoolmates and, most importantly, for the school. They were encouraging about the directions the school is currently taking and clear about those things that should not change as well about areas where the students felt we should focus some attention. More so than the specifics of their comments, their ability to be self-reflective, to make mature and constructive suggestions and to hold themselves accountable for some of what they wish would have happened during their time in high school are the true successes of our program. Along with their families, we have fostered decent, caring, smart and hard working citizens who are going off to college able and eager to have an impact on their new communities, to learn and to succeed.

Congratulations to the Class of 2011

We are so proud of the seniors’ acceptances to a terrific set of colleges and universities-a wonderfully varied and interesting list! Working individually with Carey Socol, our Director of College Guidance, and her associate Analisa Cipriano, LREI ’05, in order to choose schools that match the students’ specific academic and personal ambitions. Our seniors are confident that they have chosen exactly the right schools for them. The college process, which also involves families, advisors, teachers and the high school principal Ruth Jurgensen is comprehensive and inclusive.

Click here to see a complete list of acceptances earned by the class of 2011.

Now that they have chosen the schools that they will attend for the next four years, what will the members of the class of 2011 take with them to their new campus homes? We know, through the experience of our alumni, that the class of 2011 will arrive academically and intellectually prepared to succeed. College will be challenging, as it should be, but our alumni tell us, year after year, that they have had the academic preparation required to thrive in the next stage of their academic career.

One tool for success was noted at this past January’s Alumni College Panel by Lily Wiggins ’07. (Lily is currently attending Pitzer College. She started at LREI at five and is the recent recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Indonesia next year.) Lily told us, “LREI really fosters good relationships between teachers and students. When you go to college, you have the confidence to email them, to get into the classes you want or meet with them outside of office hours because we were used to meeting with teachers at LREI.”

We hear this quite often. LREI not only prepares students with the necessary academic and communication skills, but also with the ability to be advocates for themselves and their beliefs. Taylor Bello ’10, noted:

“My bio class, my chem lab and my chem class all have over 300 students, which was bigger than my whole high school. That was a big change, but because the relationships between teachers and students at LREI are so strong, I was able to go up to professors, talk to them, so they could recognize my face when I raised my hand in class and call me by my first name. Don’t be afraid to talk to professors when you get to college because it makes a huge difference and LREI definitely prepared me for that.” (Taylor is a pre-med student at Boston College. She started at LREI in ninth grade.)

An important component of LREI’s preparation for success in college is providing our students with a range of academic experiences. According to Kai Furbeck ‘10, (Kai, who started at LREI in Kindergarten, is now finishing his first year at Brown University):

“Academically, [at LREI] there’s a lot of room for self-directing and self-motivating and pursuing things you wouldn’t necessarily get a chance to pursue in the classroom. I got the opportunity to take a lot of honors courses where I would meet with teachers individually outside of class or in small groups, and basically, anything you could think of that you wanted to learn, there would be a teacher who knew something about it and could either jump in and learn about it, or if there weren’t many teachers who knew about it, you could find someone willing to learn about it with you and you could both jump in and just sort of explore anything you were interested in. That was one of the most valuable opportunities I had here.”

In addition to providing a range of academic experiences, our students value the variety of co-curricular opportunities they have. According to Jeffrey Adler ’08, “One thing that’s great about LREI is that you’re able to pursue completely different passions at the same time…. A lot of my friends when I went to college, they were like ‘How can you do that? You can’t really manage that.’ The basketball players were like, ‘Theater?’ And all of the theater people were like, ‘Sports? No way.’ But only at a place like LREI can you become the type of person where you can do so much. I am really grateful for that.” (Jeffrey is currently a student at Occidental College and began at LREI at 5. His younger sister Jaquie is in the LREI class of 2019—the third grade.)

In what other ways does LREI prepare its students for the rigors of postsecondary life? What other experiences enable our students to be as successful as they are? According to
Ana De La Cruz ’10, currently a freshmen at Georgetown University, who started at LREI in the eighth grade, “We also got the chance to take classes at NYU. It prepared me so much for college. I took a journalism course and it really helped me improve my writing.” (Ana was speaking of our College Preview Program through which juniors and seniors can take classes at NYU. LREI is the only independent school participating in this program. Students enroll in these classes in addition to all of the requirements for their grade).

Speaking of the lasting impact of her time at LREI, Kamillah Aklaff ’07 added:

“We had all of these amazing speakers come in during our assemblies and all these just really exciting events. People at Tufts are always so impressed when I say that x person came to speak to us in high school and I went on all these trips in school. That was when I think we really got to apply our critical, analytical skills. And then that helped me as I learned and grew at Tufts. I think that I have grown academically and personally and socially in a number of ways at Tufts, but I still always think back to my time at LREI. When I think about how I’ve sort of flourished into this person who is passionate about sociology and doing all these social justice initiatives, I think a lot of that came from my time spent at LREI and all of the skills and values that I learned while I was here.” (Kamillah is a sociology major at Tufts University. She began at LREI at five.)

Confident, connected, passionate, competent, well rounded—our students leave LREI eager and prepared as they go off to college. Once again, please join me in congratulating our seniors as they head off to the colleges and universities of their choice and as they prepare to use all that they learned at LREI as active and involved young adult members of society.

Click here to see a complete list of schools in which the class of 2011 has enrolled.

Click here to read last year’s college blog and list.

Hard Work and Excellence

Congratulations to the scores of students and faculty whose talent, and seemingly limitless energy, created the spectacular that was LREI’s production of Hairspray! We are so proud of your hard work. Along these same lines, please join me in congratulating our 7th-12th grade basketball teams—all of which had fantastic seasons. Special congratulations to the players and coaches of the 7th/8th grade and varsity girls’ teams who won league championships! The 7th/8th grade team had an undefeated season. What an achievement! For those who have not had enough of exciting LREI roundball, the last two games of the middle school intramural basketball league will be played on Friday (tomorrow) at 3:30 and 4:15 in the Thompson Street Athletic Center. Come on out and cheer for your student athletes. Whether actors or athletes, or both, our students work hard in the classroom and in so many other ways in the community. We congratulate you and thank you!

Just as producing a play or a championship basketball season requires practice, so to does excellent teaching. Your LREI faculty is dedicated to on-going professional development. This focus on teaching practice can take many forms. Weekly faculty meetings are essential to our examination of what is happening in classrooms. At times these gatherings are focused on the students and their participation in the community. Sometimes the discussion is about procedures and protocols. Often, faculty share strategies, ask for input, review resources and engage in activities that allow the adults to better understand the students’ learning. At times these are informal conversations while often there is a more formal presentation and feedback process. The middle school teachers, for example, participate in a practice called “Critical Friends Groups” that requires structured classroom observations and feedback. The majority of faculty meetings happen by division, though full school faculty meetings happen throughout the year, as do the academic departments. I spent a terrific hour with the lower school faculty earlier this week in a math workshop led by Rose Reilly, lower school math specialist, and Ana Chaney, middle school math teacher and math department chair. The adults grappled with sophisticated math concepts embedded in an elementary math challenge and discussed how best to open these up to our students. A great afternoon. There is a lot of conversation about practice at the meetings of the committee that is looking ahead 10 years at the future requirements for the high school program. (To hear more about this, join me for a discussion on March 8th at 8:45AM in the Sixth Avenue building.)

In addition to in-house opportunities, there are many offerings in the wider educational community. Among the conferences and workshops that LREI faculty members have participated this year include:

  • We sent 13 teachers and students to the National Association of Independent School’s People of Color Conference.
  • Ana Chaney, math department chair, and Rose Reilly, LS Math Specialist, attended a national math leadership conference.
  • Four early childhood teachers attended the 92nd Street Y’s Wonderplay Preschool Conference, at which LS librarian Stacy Dillon was a presenter.
  • High School teachers Mark Bledstein and Amy Chang attended a workshop at the China Institute.
  • Teachers from all three divisions attended a conference focused on educating girls. High school English teacher Ileana Jimenez (currently on a Fulbright scholarship in Mexico) was a presenter.
  • A number of middle school teachers attended workshops on literature and history offered through the New York Public Library.
  • The New York Association of Independent Schools hosts dozens of workshops throughout the year. Our teachers attend many of these, including the annual diversity conference organized by Chap, our Director of Diversity and Community.
  • The senior administrators attend their statewide affinity conferences—gatherings of people in similar positions from around NY State. Namita Tolia, Ruth Jurgensen, Michel de Konkoly Thege and I are members of the planning bodies for our conferences.
  • Cari Kosins, Director of Afterschool and Summer Programs, Clara Campos, Associate Director of Afterschool, attended the National Association of Independent Schools’ Annual Conference, where I was a panelist discussing the head of school’s role in a school’s diversity efforts.

Combine all of these experiences with ongoing school-wide conversations about our diversity themes and progressive education, the topic of our two full day professional days, and you have a rich educational experience for LREI’s faculty and staff. Our faculty is dedicated to ongoing reflection and discussion of how best to serve LREI’s 600 students. Asking questions such as, “How can we provide the most intellectually challenging progressive education, each and every day,” or “How best to respond to new challenges and possibilities?” is an essential to our success. A faculty focused on growth, as ours is, is indispensible. I am continually impressed with the thought, creativity and sharp thinking that come out in these discussions. Thank you teachers!

Finally, two opportunities for the wider LREI community to experience the faculty’s expertise:

  • The third term of our adult classes, Adult r(ED), begins after Spring Break. Click here to see a listing for these courses. I highly encourage you to participate. Whichever class you choose, you will have a terrific experience.
  • Participate in a book discussion with one of our four nationally recognized librarians by attending Well-REaD, on Thursday, April 7th from 6:00PM-8:00PM. Choose a book, read it, attend the discussion. This is an adult event. Learn what it is that makes your children love the books they read (and the librarians who help to choose them.) All four books are fantastic; the discussions will be as well. If you want to participate and have not ordered a book, stop by the Well-REaD table in the Sixth Avenue lobby on Friday, March 4th and Tuesday, March 8th-Thursday, March 10th.

Necessary and Expedient

U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 3
“He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

I started writing this note earlier in the week just as President Obama was finishing his State of the Union address—a moment each year that requires a deft balance of leadership and politics. I was struck by two of the themes of this address, both of which, in my opinion, fit the “necessary and expedient” requirement—collaboration and preparation for an unknown and uncertain future. Hard to argue with the importance of these two goals yet also hard to understand why they are held out as so difficult to achieve. You should expect us to foster these essential habits in your children each day. We certainly expect to see them in the students’ behavior. I accept that our current two party system is inherently antagonistic—bringing together officials who represent a variety of viewpoints and beliefs, people who may strongly disagree with one another. I accept that their work is hard and that sometimes compromise represents loss and, therefore, may be unwanted. I would suggest that, as we teach your children, there is often a larger purpose than the obvious “us vs. them” and that no matter how hard it is to get along, no matter how easy it is to get lost in the immediate details, no matter how much we may want to win the day, in order to be successful communities must find a way to communicate, to hear each other, to see the world for a moment through the experience of another whose life is quite different from your and to focus on the larger issues. For many of us, in our personal and professional lives, there is no choice but to create alliances and to get along. I don’t know why our elective representatives allow themselves to opt out of this most reasonable of expectations. I can’t imagine a discussion with the students, of any age, in which they counted sitting next to someone they disagreed with as a significant accomplishment. We don’t call this a momentous achievement. We call it lunch.

We also watch your children preparing for an uncertain future. We see them making connections between various disciplines; between what is happening at home and what is happening in the classroom. They solve complex problems. They are self-reflective and bold. They are willing to take risks and are supportive of their classmates. Not only do we expect these behaviors each day, we actually see them each day. Very much the stuff of progressive education. You should be proud of your children. Ultimately, what we need is more LREI graduates sitting in the hallowed halls of government.

On a different note, as many of you know our high school juniors and seniors are able to apply to take a class at New York University as part of the NYU College Preview Program. These students take on the full workload of a college course in addition to their six major subjects at LREI and whatever extracurricular commitments they have made. The seniors are also in the thick of the college application process. Attendance and requirements for the NYU classes are the same as they are for “official” college students and only the professor knows that they are high school students. The LREI students who took courses at NYU last semester are:

• Lidor Foguel—Calculus II
• Rachard Kemp—Black Urban Studies
• Aaron Naves—Black Urban Studies
• Luca Schliemann—African Cultures
• Grace Tobin—History of Modern Ireland II
• Ian Tsang—Developmental Psychology Across the Lifespan

Each of these students earned an A or B in their course. Congratulations on a job well done!

Finally, by now most of you have received your re-enrollment contract(s) for the 2011-2012 school year. If you have not, you will quite soon. If you have, a reminder that these documents are due back to us by February 1st, 2011, next Tuesday. Please do not hesitate to contact Michel de Konkoly Thege, Associate Director, or me with questions.

Best,

Phil

LREI in the Community

Not surprisingly, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter Break are busy ones at LREI. So much to do, so little time. In this week’s blog you will find announcements of, and invitations to, many events including the Book Week events (the Literary Evening, classroom visits, assemblies and the annual book fair), to a number of other Parents Association events and to a long list of students events including the Winter Concert, the Afterschool Share/Instrumental Concert and a variety of grade specific opportunities. In the coming weeks, I encourage you to read the blog and other announcements carefully – I wouldn’t want you to miss a moment of all that is being offered.

Less well know, but very important to our progressive program, are the many ways in which our students and teachers are out and involved in the wider community. These endeavors include:

•Second graders are leading the Lower School’s participation in LREI’s support of the St. John’s Food Pantry. LREI has a long relationship with St. John’s. We send a significant amount of foodstuff to this program, helping to provide nutrition to many thousands of clients. In fact, we will share half of the profits from the sales of our upcoming community potluck cookbook with St. John’s. Thank you, second graders. Also at St. John’s, middle school advisory groups regularly assist with the packaging and distribution of foodstuffs to pantry clients.

•Fifth and Sixth graders participated in the VT MIDI Project. “The purpose of the Vermont MIDI Project is to encourage and support students in composing and arranging music. A community of professional composers, teachers, pre-service educators, and students engage in mentoring and online discussion of student work.” Students worked on original compositions, were mentored on-line and submitted their final projects. Three LREI students were among the 19 chosen to have their pieces performed in concert in Burlington next week. Congratulations to middle school music teacher Matt McLean and to his students. On December 16th, Dr. Sean Reed, director of Brass Studies at NYU, will lead an ensemble of NYU faculty and student musicians (along with other professional musicians) in performances of student compositions.

•High School English teacher Ileana Jimenez writes on her blog, Feminist Teacher, “After much planning and rehearsing, half of the students in my Fierce and Fabulous: Feminist Women Writers, Artists, and Activists class and I finally got up on stage at TEDxYouth Day held at the Hewitt School in New York. The theme of this year’s TEDxYouth was “Be the Change,” and all talks were live-streamed globally. During our 16 minute talk, each of my students and I spoke about how we came to our feminist voice.” Congratulations to the members of this class who truly connected learning and life, classroom and their community. Congratulations to junior Grace Tobin who, in addition to her participation in TEDx, also spoke before a City Council hearing.

•Lower School Librarian Stacy Dillon was a presenter at the 92nd St. Y’s Wonderplay Conference where she spoke on the topic of using wordless picture books in the classroom to foster imagination and support literacy.

•Jennifer Hubert Swan, Library department chair, led a seminar hosted by the Ocean County (NJ) Library to teach librarians and educators how to write and deliver book talks that keeps kids hyped and hungering to read the book. Swan will also discuss the “Best of the Best” teen books from 2010.

•Junior Lucia Zerner received a Gold Award from Families with Children from China for performing over 250 hours of community service.

•LREI high school students participated in the City Year NY Service Day at PS 112/206, sponsored by Students for Service and Joint Schools Activities, Inc. Working alongside City Year corps members, the participants were able to transform a school where City Year has been serving since 2008. In just four hours, the students painted 25 murals, a large welcome sign, and 20 pairs of memory tiles; built and painted 10 bookshelves and three cubbies; and shellacked three existing mural benches.

We are so proud of the ways in which LREI’s students and faculty are involved in the wider community—harnessing their expertise and all that they have learned in the classroom and giving of themselves in the service of others. Well done!

Good Eats!

To:            LREI Community

From:            Phil Kassen, Director

Re:            LREI’s lunch service

Date:            November 2010

The other day I bumped into an alumni parent. We talked about his son and the changes at LREI in the years since his graduation. We also spoke of how the Village has changed in recent years.  He asked if there were any good new places for lunch.  While I could tell him where each of his son’s classmates had ended up, I had no idea of neighborhood places for lunch as I eat in the same place, my favorite place, every day—LREI’s cafeteria.

Each day, in our two cafeterias, we provide a hot entrée, a vegetarian alternative, a homemade soup, a sandwich of the day and a variety of choices of salads and sandwich fixings at our salad bar.  Add yogurt, fresh bread and a variety of beverages and you have the makings of a healthy, delicious lunch.  Each day at lunchtime, early childhood students enjoy a selection of these choices in their classrooms.

As you may know, LREI contracts with Cater to You, a full service food service and catering company, to prepare lunch for over 700 people per day.  In addition to lunch, our dedicated kitchen crew, led by head chef Jorge Lema, provides breakfast for LREI’s employees, daily snack in all three divisions and for Afterschool and often prepares food for evening events.

For over ten years, LREI has had a very productive and collegial partnership with Cater To You (CTY.)  A few years ago in a conversation with Anthony Trentacosti, founder and owner of CTY, we decided that he would try to find a source for local New York State apples rather than buying Washington State apples.  This brief conversation about the quality and source of our provisions led to a variety of changes. These include:

Ø  The elimination of trans fats and high fructose corn syrup from virtually all menu items.

Ø  Meals are prepared with the ingredients from traceable and reputable partners

Ø  The elimination of prepared, frozen entrees.

Ø  The use of many local produce items including apples, pears, carrots, onions, cider and many other seasonal fruits and vegetables.

Ø  The purchase of local free range, antibiotic and hormone free, locally sourced eggs from Featherstone Farms and Knoll Crest Farms

Ø Beef from Creekstone Farms

  • Antibiotic & hormone free beef
  • No growth promoting drugs
  • No artificial ingredients
  • 100% vegetarian diet
  • Sourced verified to ranch of birth
  • Humane animal handling practices

Ø Chicken products are purchased from Bell & Evans Poultry

  • Antibiotic & hormone free poultry
  • Air- chilled
  • Fed an all-natural diet
  • Hydrogenated oil free
  • Hexane gas free

Ø  Milk, in the cafeteria and the early childhood classrooms is from Ronnybrook Farms Milk – closed herd, grass fed, free range cows

  • Grass Fed
  • Antibiotic – hormone free
  • Local NY State dairy
  • Low temp pasteurized
  • Not homogenized

Ø   Fish for entrees is purchased from Litchfield Farms Organic & Natural Seafood: Seafood that is sustainable, traceable, healthy and always fresh

  • A small company that values and treats our customers as partners and friends.
  • Litchfield Farms Organic & Natural is the leader in a new “cultural sustainability” movement. Their products reflect the best practices in sustainable seafood, and recognize and supports local producers and communities. Think Slow Food meets fish!

Ø  BARE – paper products

Other sources for provisions noted above, include:

  • Source Local Produce : Glebocki Farms
  • Partnership with Basis Foods – Sourcing local produce items from the Tri-State Area
  • Partnership with Regional Access– Sourcing New York State Produce and Dry Goods
  • Serving Stonyfield Organic Yogurt
  • Snack Items provided by United Natural Foods– NY State Premier Natural Item Distributor
  • Bread and rolls served in the cafeterias are from Rose & Joe’s, a local, family owned bakery in Queens.
  • Sausage – Chicken and Pork from Faiccos on Bleecker Street

Other products and procedures of note:

  • Eliminating canned foods – except canned tomatoes
  • Soups made with vegetable based stocks
  • Salad dressings are made in our kitchen.  The balsamic vinaigrette is amazing!
  • Jorge’s ever popular hot sauce is homemade
  • Eliminating Frozen Vegetables to stay within our seasonal based menus.
  • All natural and organic snacks – distributed through the largest distributers of natural foods in the U.S. – United Natural Foods

Community Contributions

Thank you to all who participated in this past weekend’s Halloween Fair. All of your hard work, collaboration and creativity blossomed into a fun day for all. It was nice to see so many members of the community participating, including a number of high school volunteers. This day was just one example of many LREI events that represent the community coming together for the benefit of all. There are many more events of this type being planned—the upcoming DVD/CD Swap, the Book Fair, the Literary Evening, our new community cook book and Karamu!, our multicultural celebration, just to name a few. This focus on the community coming together for the education and enjoyment of all is a hallmark of communities like LREI.

At the beginning of each school year LREI embarks on another community effort in which both reaching our goal and doing it together are essential—our annual fundraising campaign. LREI’s Annual Fund is comprised of money raised during events such as the Halloween Fair and the Big Auction (coming on May 11, 2011) and cash donations from families, trustees, alumni, alumni parents, grandparents, faculty/staff and friends of the school.

The Annual Fund helps us to bridge the gap between the School’s annual expenses and income from tuition, increases to which we keep as low as possible. Simply put, the Annual Fund allows us to be LREI. It allows us to make decisions that are consistent with Elisabeth Irwin’s original progressive ideals and with our current progressive mission. The Annual Fund supports LREI’s commitment to offering the level of tuition remission that we do, among the highest of independent schools in New York City. The Annual Fund allows us to say “Yes” to providing the same core experience to each LREI student, supporting all families as we plan overnight trips, for example. The Annual Fund allows us to say “Yes” each time teachers want to bring students out into the world. It allows us to say “Yes” to professional development for our excellent faculty. The Annual Fund allows us to take risks and to be creative. It allows us, in short, to do what we ask the students to do. It allows LREI to remain a leader in educational thought and practice.

So here is where the community part comes in. We are grateful to all who have helped us to meet the challenge of achieving our Annual Fund goals in the past. Thank you to the many members of the community who have already contributed this year, including all 34 members of LREI’s Board of Trustees. Our goal is not only to raise quite a significant sum, but also to increase the percentage of members from each constituency who contribute. Please give at whatever level is comfortable for you. Whatever that amount is, if you have not already done so (and, again, thank you if you have) please participate. Thank you, in advance, for supporting our 14-year progressive program.

If you have questions about our Annual Fund, you can contact Brooke Gadasi, Director of Advancement (bgadasi@lrei.org) or me, at any time.

Thank you for all that each family, and each individual, does for LREI throughout the year. You make us a stronger community and a better school.

Warmly,

Phil

Ally Week 2010

October 15, 2010

Dear LREI Community,

We hear fairly often of questions from thoughtful members of the LREI community about the School’s participation in discussions of equal rights for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Having these questions is understandable as our classroom conversations are somewhat different from those in some of our colleague schools.

However, when college freshmen feel that it is okay to humiliate a gay roommate to the extent that he sees no option but to jump off of the George Washington Bridge, it is time for all of us, regardless of belief, to put questions aside and to rise up as allies and say, “No more. We stand together.” When a candidate for governor of New York State talks about being gay as a “less successful option,” it is time to say, “No more. We stand together.” When a group of young men kidnaps and tortures three of our fellow New Yorkers because the victims were assumed to be gay, it is time to join together and say, “No more. We stand together as allies. We will take care of each other.”

I wish these were the only three examples of this sort of behavior, but if we reach into the not too distant past, or if we could see into the not too distant future, we would easily find others. Whether in the media or in the supposedly civil discourse in our governing bodies it is all too easy to find examples of sexuality, gender, masculinity and femininity being used as punch lines and cudgels. Your children are not immune to these societal pressures. As much as they have discussed social justice in school, we hear, from time to time, put-downs and jokes based on sexuality in our hallways and on the playground. It is impossible to put an end entirely to these comments in the world outside our doors. It might be impossible to entirely put an end to them within our community. That does not mean, however, that we ignore our responsibility, and our duty, to try.

We will continue to have conversations with our students about respect, tolerance and empathy for all people. We will continue to organize gatherings in all three divisions, such as the lower school Families Assembly. We will continue to host, “Visibility: Gay and Lesbian People We Love, our biannual photo exhibit. We will continue to march in the Gay Pride Parade. These events allow us to celebrate all that is so wonderful about loving families and communities that are accepting of all. We will continue to welcome, support and care for all members of our community equally.

I invite you all to join me next week, Ally Week, in wearing an “Ally” sticker. Wear it to work and share one with a colleague. Wear it in your neighborhood and explain to friends that you are spending a week publicly being an ally to all who have to hide a piece of themselves or risk discrimination and violence. Wear it in your home and take time over breakfast or dinner to speak with your children about what your family believes. (Stickers will be available at the reception desks in both buildings.)

We understand that these conversations may make some adults uncomfortable and that this discomfort may begin with the assumption that we are discussing sex with your children. While we do, at appropriate times, discuss sex with your children, it is important to remember that discussions of sexual orientation are not always discussions of sex. While the kids understand this, it is we adults who are sometimes made uncomfortable. Lets look to the children to find the simple truth-we are discussing fairness. Nothing more. Nothing less. At LREI, our conversations begin from the point of accepting as fact that being lesbian or gay is what people are, not a choice one makes.

It is time for each of us to support our children in creating a more just future where discomfort gives way to equality. It is time for us to say, in no uncertain terms, bigotry in any form, against any one, is wrong. Hatred is wrong. We stand together to protect the rights of each and all.

If you would like to join me for a discussion of any issue reflected in this letter, I will be in the Sixth Avenue cafeteria on Wednesday, October 20th at 8:45 AM. I look forward to seeing you then.

Warmly,

Phil Kassen
Director

21st Century Progressive Education

Late last year I had a fascinating conversation with a group of middle schoolers about the technology that is so central to their lives. I mentioned that when I was a kid we did not have answering machines or VCRs and that I remember the very first calculator I used—four functions, bright red LED numbers and completely amazing to us all. I told them that we used to have to get out of our chairs to switch the channel on the TV and that we had to carry change in our pockets in order to make phone calls from the street. How different the world is now and how quickly technologies come and go! The students had a fairly easy time grasping the changes in concrete “things.” Harder for them to grasp the ways in which life and lives have changed—careers that have come and gone, pastimes that have passed and societal norms whose evolution has fundamentally altered everyday human interactions. Our conversation ended with the logical question—what’s next?

“What’s next?” A question we at LREI frequently ask ourselves. The middle school students with whom I was speaking will graduate from high school in 2016 or so. Their kindergarten schoolmates will move on from LREI in 2023. Move on to what? What’s next for them? What options will these, now, children, soon to be young adults, have when they graduate from college in 2027? Most immediately, what sort of preparation must we provide to them for success in a world that we cannot imagine?

We discuss “What’s next” a lot during various administrative and faculty meetings. More formally, and focusing mostly on the high school, we have been examining what new strands our current program, as innovative and demanding as it is, might require in order to prepare our graduates for what will come just a few years down the road. What are the competencies that will allow your children to be successful no matter what the future holds? In order to support this investigation and the creation of new program, we applied for a grant from the Edward E. Ford Foundation. Late last June the Foundation informed us that, through a highly competitive process, we had been awarded a $50,000 grant to support this effort. The grant will be matched by an equal sum from within our community. We will use this $100,000 to fund the faculty’s work in creating the curriculum for the coming decades. While our initial focus will be the high school, we intend for lessons learned to quickly filter down through the middle school to the lower school. We will visit other schools, meet with leading educators in a variety of settings and attend conferences all in coordination with LREI’s historic mission. We are thrilled that the E.E. Ford Foundation supports our vision of 21st Century progressive education. Through our initial research, we have been pleased to find that much of what we hear will be essential in the future is currently at the core of LREI’s historic mission—connecting school learning with life, the ability to work with colleagues, resilience, adaptability, cultural sensitivity, sound reasoning and communication skills and a deep understanding of a variety of content areas. Much of what we have been doing so well for the past 90 years is what will be required in the coming century.

A committee of teachers and administrators is beginning its work. In the coming months this group will team with the faculty as a whole and will invite the high school students and interested parents into the discussion. We are looking forward to this challenging work and to the conversations that it will create.

I invite you to join me to discuss our efforts to prepare our students for the future on Tuesday, October 19th at 8:45 A.M. in the Sixth Avenue cafeteria.

In addition, I invite you to meet Carey Socol, our new Director of College Guidance, and to hear about LREI’s college guidance process on Tuesday, November 9th, 8:45A.M.-9:15 A.M., in the Sixth Avenue cafeteria.