Dear LREI Families,

The school is virtually empty. The seniors graduated in a spectacular ceremony last Friday, the fourth graders moved up to middle school yesterday and the eighth graders became ninth graders this morning. All three ceremonies were lovely- a mix of reminiscences of days gone by and thoughts about the future. All three ceremonies featured songs written by some number of students in the room. A nice coincidence, though not a surprise.

Whether the high school students finishing on Friday or the lower and middle school students exiting today, the energy used in bursting out of the school was quite amazing. Some of our youngest students just began to run, willy-nilly, as they left the building. Others sulked out, clearly sad to say “Goodbye” to teachers and friends. It was likely that both groups shared a bit of both emotions. These are good things to feel on the last day of school. It is reasonable to feel excited about time to focus on other endeavors. It is reasonable to feel a sense of loss when the people and activities who populate your days–all day, every day, for most of the year,– just stop coming together. It won’t take long for the children to create their own summer rhythms. Longer days, different adventures, new friendships and many ways to grow and to learn. All should be savored as all too quickly the conversation will turn to the looming school year.

For this this evening, however, a pat on the back, or handshake or, more likely, a hug, or two, as congratulations for a school year well spent. You should be proud of your children. They worked hard and were quite successful. Well done, all.

Thank you to all LREI families for all that you did this year to support your children and to support the school. You are terrific partners.

Celebrate a year well navigated, enjoy whatever the summer brings for your family and we look forward to seeing you in September.

Best to all,

Phil

LREI’s Academic Teams

The LREI high school robotics team performed very well in all practice tournaments and made a good showing at the New York City FTC Championship Tournament on March 13th, in this its inaugural year. The team made up of all 9th graders with one 10th grader learned a lot from the experience and hopes to build on this years success during next year’s season.

The middle school robotics teams had another great season at the FIRST Lego League Tournaments.  This year’s theme was “Smart Move.”  Teams were challenged to find innovative ways to efficiently transport people, objects or information across different spaces and present their plans to a panel of judges.  Judges “looked for teams whose quality research, innovative solutions, and creative presentation best reflect an in-depth understanding of the various scientific disciplines and issues involved with the Project.” At the Manhattan FIRST Lego League Tournament, LREI’s Advanced Middle School Robotics Team made of veteran team members earned the 2nd Place Award for their project presentation on the use of Maglev trains to improve our subway system.  The Rookie Team composed of 6th graders earned the 3rd Place Award for their project presentation on the use of biofuels in cars.

The middle school Rube Goldberg team finished 5th out of 24 teams in this year’s competition. This annual contest challenges students to create contraptions that accomplish a simple task in a very complicated manner. This is our 4th year in the Fay School/MIT/GE/Mc2 competition. We had 12 students from the sixth-eighth grades involved this year, the biggest turnout yet.

Not really a team…..

This year marked a watershed moment for LREI and for the Advanced Advocacy Media class, as the senior fall class received kudos for two collaborative pieces. The film “201 Varick Street” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYLzh8RofRg), an investigative work of the dark goings-on at the hidden immigration detention center located just minutes from 40 Charlton, received a recognition award from the Educational Video Center’s Youth-Powered Video Film Festival and third place prize at the NYC Social Justice Expo, competing against hundreds of students from schools across the five boroughs. “Insure Our People” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg-0zq2sxNAwas) a vivid call to action for healthcare insurance reform, was an official selection of the prestigious Westport Youth Film Festival.

Summer Grants

Each summer, LREI awards summer grants to support program development. Two years ago we began awarding a series of travel grants to support travel by LREI employees that does not have to be, though may be, related to the curriculum. This year’s grants include:

Travel grants were awarded to:

• Mark Bledstein, high school history teacher, who will travel the southern rim of China with nine other educators and four history and language specialists from the University of Colorado;
• Nick O’Han, high school history teacher and school historian, who will travel to a number of sites in order to continue his research into the history of the School and the life of our founder, Elisabeth Irwin;
• Meghan Farley Astrachan, high school drama teacher / director and Performing Arts Department Chair, who will travel to the South of France this summer and will follow the Trail of Ochre in the village of Roussillon. Where the trail will creatively lead her no one knows….

Program Development Grants were awarded to:

• Rebecca Schwartz and Gina Goldmann (first grade teachers) to fund their work on the first grade literacy/word study program;
• Kate Treitman, fourth grade teacher, to travel to San Francisco to visit Angel Island in support of the fourth grade immigration curriculum;
• Rebecca Schwartz, first grade, and Randi Reinhold, third grade, who will use their grant to support the creation of anti-bias education resources for the lower school faculty;
• Beth Binnard, Fours teacher, and Rose Reilly, math specialist, to research and develop a year long math curriculum for the Fours that will be in line with the lower school math program, in general.
• Matthew Rosen, seventh grade humanities teacher, in order to identify and develop additional resources and reading material, focusing on primary sources, for the seventh grade study of Colonial America;
• Wendy Bassin and Heather Brandstetter, fifth grade core teachers, to add to the fifth grade’s study of ancient civilization and life by creating a unit that asks the students to make comparisons between the ways ancient civilizations produced food and the ways we do so currently;
• Stephen Volkman, seventh and eighth grade science teacher, in order to create several new units for both the 7th and 8th grades, establishing yearlong themes for each grade and integrating a number of new concepts into the course of study;
• Karyn Silverman, high school librarian, and Tom Murphy, history department chair, to support their redesigning of the ninth grade history curriculum in order to better integrate information seeking/management, organizational, and technological/media skills with the history content;
• Margaret Magee, high school science teacher and ninth grade dean, in her work creating a new on-line information source for ninth graders and their families in order to foster an easier transition to high school;
• Vinay Chowdrhy and Stephen MacGillivray, high school media studies teachers, who will be remapping the Media Arts curriculum in order to better balance film theory and history with production skills and creativity;
• Micah Dov Gottlieb, high school assistant principal, who will be creating a new twelfth grade science elective called Green Energy.

June 3, 2010

Dear LREI Families,

As we sprint towards the end of the school year—two weeks filled with all sorts of special events and celebrations to go—it seems like a good time to congratulate members of the faculty on some of their successes this year. I asked the faculty in all three divisions to volunteer specific honors earned this school year. The responses were:

• Ana Chaney, middle school math teacher and math department chair, completed Bank Street College of Education’s Leadership in Mathematics Education program and earned a Masters’ of Science in Education.

• Micah Dov Gottlieb, high school Assistant Principal, was chosen to represent Brooklyn College’s Educational Leadership program at their NCATE (National Council of Accreditation of Teacher Education) accreditation. In addition, he will be working with PBS on an episode of a new program called “Do The Math.” His record label “The Brooklyn Label” will be showing children how math is used in the recording studio. The group that will be featured is DobleFlo (a hip-hop duo), which features LREI alum Luis Lopez, ‘03.

• Matthew Rosen, seventh grade core teacher, was awarded an National Endowment for the Humanities grant to attend a summer institute at Yale, The Lost World of Early America, in which he will explore themes in colonial American history, such as race relations, politics, economics, family and community life, and rites of passage.. In addition, he was selected to be a recipient of the Richard Koppenaal Scholarship for superior academic achievement at NYU where he will continue with his graduate studies in English Literature and Writing in the fall.

• Deborah Damast, lower school movement teacher/middle school dance teacher, was the recipient of the Outstanding Postsecondary Educator award from the National Dance Education Organization for outstanding contributions to dance education nationally and in the community. This award is given once every two years and nominations come from colleges and universities across the nation.

• High school English teacher Ileana Jiménez has recently been awarded the Distinguished Fulbright in Teaching Award (which is different from the Fulbright Teacher Exchange). The Fulbright will allow Ileana to spend six months in Mexico conducting research at a major university, providing professional development to local teachers, and completing a capstone project on gender and education. Her Fulbright will extend from January through June 2011. She hopes to bring her research on gender and education back to both our English program and the high school’s program re-design focusing on global education and diversity.

• Vin Scialla, high school music teacher/jazz band director was recently offered an album and distribution deal with Random Chance records for Snehasish Mozumder & Som, whom he performed with at Lincoln Center Out of Doors.

• Elizabeth Simmons, seventh grade Core teacher, will attend the Klingenstein Summer Institute for Early Teachers. The Institute brings together approximately 75 teachers from across the country and around the world, and is especially designed to make teachers more effective leaders in the classroom and throughout the school.

• Early childhood librarian Jesse Karp’s first novel, Those That Wake, will be published by Houghton Mifflin in Spring 2011. The young adult novel centers on two teenagers who stumble upon a dark force that secretly manipulates society, and their struggle against it. In addition, Jesse’s Graphic Novels in Your School Library, a non-fiction book about using comics and graphic novels in education, will be published by ALA Editions in Spring 2011. Finally, he is currently serving his second year on the American Library Association’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens Committee, a body devoted to selecting the best graphic novels for ages 12-18.

• Stacy Dillon, Lower School Librarian, has been selected to be a member of the Newberry 2012 committee. What an honor! As you may know, the “Newbery Medal was named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.”

• MS Librarian and Library Department Chair Jennifer Hubert Swan has been accepted into the Cullman Center Institute for Teachers Summer Seminar taught by author Karen Russell this July, and will be chairing the 2012 YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) Award for Excellence in Nonfiction committee starting in September. She is also a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute in the School of Information and Library Science where she teaches evening courses in young adult and tween literature.

• Karyn Silverman, high school librarian, is currently Chair of the Frances Henne YALSA/VOYA Research Grant Jury, which awards an annual fund to research supporting the Strategic Goals and Mission of YALSA, and am currently a member of the YALSA Nominating Committee, which is charged with finding qualified candidates for all award committees and governance positions. In addition, I will be teaching a graduate class on Young Adult Literature at Queens College this summer.

Each summer, for many years, LREI awards summer grants to support program development. Two years ago we began to award a series travel grants to support travel by LREI employees that may be, but does not have to be, related to the curriculum. For a complete list, visit my next post.

We also had a very successful year for some of our academic teams. I have posted these on this blog, as well.

It is surprising how quickly it happens, but the long ending of the school year has started. Signaled by the first lower school potluck earlier this week, or maybe it was the middle school Performing Arts Showcase last week (a great new event), and culminating with the school’s 65th commencement exercises in June, the end is beginning.  Between now and then, when the ending ends, we will host 14 lower school potlucks, the middle school musical (tomorrow evening, Saturday afternoon and evening), senior project presentations, the senior banquet, MS and HS awards ceremonies, the fourth grade immigration play, the Spring Concert, field day, Stir the Pot (buy your tickets now) and the Afterschool share and instrumental concert, among others.  I encourage you to make time not only for your child’s events but also for events that sound interesting, maybe featuring students in another division.  This is a great way to see what is going on at LREI.

One event that took place this week and that was a very big deal in the life of the School was this past Monday’s High School Ribbon Cutting—a small ceremony for the high school students and faculty inaugurating our newly enlarged high school campus. After some thoughtful words from Ruth Jurgensen, high school principal, and Michael Patrick ’71, Board Chair, the ribbon was cut and the students streamed into our newly expanded facility.  They were so excited!  Maybe it was the beautiful cake provided by the PA, but I like to think that it was the new classrooms, the student lounge and the courtyard.  A very exciting morning indeed.  However, I think that the next day may have been even more exciting.   The hoopla was over and, from the student lounge to the new seminar room, the students had made the building their own.   In one day we went from brand new to well used.  Fantastic!  Stay tuned for information about an all LREI Ribbon Cutting event—coming soon!

As with the new high school spaces, in the midst of all of the big events of the season, I encourage you to keep your eye on the day-to-day, the “regular.”  While the big moments are exciting, and I surely don’t want to minimize their importance, the day-to-day learning, hard work, struggle and success continue to be our main focus.  So, while you are finding time to be with children at big moments be sure to ask them about the journey that took them there.  These will truly be things of which to be proud.

Each spring the media is filled with stories about the state of college admissions—it is either a difficult year for the students or a difficult year for the schools; there is a generous amount of financial aid available or institutions are cutting back. And so on. Whatever the particular challenge of the particular year, the college admissions process is complex, interesting, often misunderstood and always challenging. As our college list for the class of 2010 begins to take shape, I thought it might be helpful for LREI families to gain a better understanding of how our college list is an expression of LREI’s mission.

When does the college process begin? Some would argue that it begins on a child’s first day of school as new knowledge and skills are acquired and as children begin to understand themselves as learners. While we are not a school where the primary objective of each day is to move students ever closer to college acceptance—believing, instead, that today’s learning is important for what it offers today, not only for what it will bring tomorrow—it is clear that even a student’s early experiences exert significant influence on their later goals. Over the course of 14 years of school, through a variety of experiences, our students develop into the people who are now in the midst of making this important decision.

I am often asked what our perfect college list would look like. In a conversation with LREI trustee Robert Rosenthal, (LREI ’80), he commented on the similarities between the college list and the Kindergarten. Our Kindergarteners display a diverse range of interests and abilities, family structure, beliefs, as well as the other, more familiar, definitions of diversity (racial, ethnic, socio-economic.) This same diversity is present in our college list, indicating that we maintain a diverse student body throughout the fourteen years, staying true to the mission that attracts families to LREI. Rather than all seniors being drawn to the same group of very similar schools, our students apply to a broad range of institutions, based on their interests, needs and dreams. Technical schools, liberal arts colleges, larger universities, public, private, Ivy League, art schools—you will see all of these and more on our list. We are proud of the seniors—of those who are the first in their families to go to college and of those who are attending the universities attended by generations of kin. We are proud of those who have received generous scholarships and those for whom finances are not a deciding factor. We are proud of the art students and of the athletes, of the scientists and the historians and of those students who are a little bit of all. Looking for the perfect college list? Visit the Kindergarten.

What follows is the most current list of college acceptances for the class of 2010. Numbers next to the names of colleges and universities indicate the number of students accepted to that school. This list represents all schools to which each senior was accepted, those schools that students viewed as “likely schools,” “target schools” or “reach schools.” In a few weeks I will share a list of the schools at which our seniors will matriculate.

Adelphi University                                             Marymount Manhattan College (2)
Albright College                                                  Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Alfred University                                                McDaniel College (3)
Allegheny College                                               McGill University
American University (2)                                   Middlebury College
Amherst College (2)                                           Montclair State University
Arcadia University                                             Mount Holyoke College
Bard College (2)                                                 Muhlenberg College (2)
Barnard College                                                 New York University
Bates College                                                      Northeastern University
Bennington College                                           Northwestern University
Berklee College of Music                                  Oberlin College
Boston College                                                    Occidental College
Boston University                                               Paul Smith’s College
Bowdoin College                                                 Pennsylvania State University, Berks College
Brown University (2)                                         Philadelphia University
Carleton College                                                 Pitzer College
Champlain College                                              Quinnipiac University (2)
Clark University (5)                                            Rhode Island School of Design
Colgate University                                              Sarah Lawrence College (3)
College of Charleston                                         Savannah College of Art and Design
Connecticut College (5)                                     School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2)
Dartmouth College (2)                                      School of the Museum of Fine Arts
Davidson College                                                School of Visual Arts
Dickinson College (2)                                        Seton Hall University
Drexel University (2)                                         Simmons College
Duke University                                                  Skidmore College (7)
Emerson College                                                 Smith College
George Washington University                        State University of NY- Binghamton (3)
Georgetown University                                      State University of NY- Buffalo
Gettysburg College                                              State University of NY – Geneseo (4)
Goucher College (3)                                            State University of NY – New Paltz (2)
Hampshire College (3)                                       State University of NY – Oneonta
Haverford College                                               State University of NY – Purchase
Ithaca College (6)                                                State University of NY – Stony Brook
James Madison University                                Swarthmore College
Johns Hopkins University                                 Syracuse University (3)
Johnson & Wales University                             Trinity College Dublin
Keene State College                                             Tulane University
Kenyon College                                                     University of Delaware
Lewis & Clark College                                          University of Hartford
Macalester College                                               University of Massachusetts, Amherst (4)
Manhattanville College                                       University of Miami
Maryland Institute College of Art                     University of Mississippi
University of Montana, Missoula                     Vassar College (3)
University of New Hampshire                          Warren Wilson College
University of Rhode Island (3)                         Washington University in St. Louis
University of Rochester                                     Wesleyan University (2)
University of Tampa                                            Wheaton College (2)
University of Vermont (2)                                  Yale University
Ursinus College

Finally, one significant change in our college guidance process is that Amy Shapiro, our Director of College Guidance, will be leaving after 10 years at LREI. Amy has added tremendously to the community and to the high school and collegiate experience of hundreds of LREI alumni. She has created a curriculum and process that will continue in the coming years and that will be of great support to her successor. Thank you, Amy, for your thoughtful and intelligent guidance to so many LREI students.

Amy’s able associate in the college guidance office, Carrie Korn, will also be leaving LREI at the end of the year and we will have much to say when the time comes to celebrate her achievements. I am thrilled to announce that Analisa Cipriano, (LREI ’05), will be joining the LREI staff as the College Guidance Associate. We are a few days away from introducing our new Director of College Guidance. I look forward to doing so.

Philip Kassen

April 21, 2010

Dear LREI Community,

Welcome to March—today it was warm enough for adventurous sixth graders to pull out a pair of shorts only a few days after our second snow day of the year. I missed this historic event as last Friday I was in San Francisco for the National Association of Independent School’s Annual Conference. It was a fascinating two days during which I heard a number of engaging speakers. Among the sessions I attended was a panel discussion entitled, “Building Schools for a Digital Age, Imagining Schools of the Future.” During one exchange, the moderator, Wanda M. Holland Greene—the head of the Hamlin School in San Francisco—asked what the panelists thought that schools would look like in the future. One panelist, Milton Chen, senior fellow at Edutopia: The George Lucas Education Foundation, said, “The future is changing, but it’s going to look a lot like the past. We’re returning to an age when kids were taught in a more intimate way.” As recounted on the NAIS web site, he then “cited the intersection of what technology offers with the ideas of progressive education pioneer John Dewey, calling him ‘Saint John.’ Chen said that Edutopia, the Lucas Foundation online space, is very much about project-based learning and integrated studies that break down the boundaries between disciplines.” “Dewey wanted to make kids more responsible for their own learning,” said Chen. Sounds a lot like LREI.

Stanford education profession Shelley Goldman also spoke of Dewey. In response to Chen’s comments she said, “Milton reminds me that I love Dewey, and his quote, ‘Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”

In a conversation of where we all need to be headed, it was nice to hear references to one of LREI’s founders and about one of our ongoing guiding principals.

On other fronts:

· GO KNIGHTS! Congratulations to our JV Boys Basketball Team on winning the league championship!!! We are so proud of you. We are also proud of the members of our other intermural basketball teams—middle school boys and girls 7th/8th grade teams and the varsity boys and girls teams—all of whom made it to their league’s playoffs. There are still two Fridays of 5th/6th intramural basketball left—Friday, March 5th and Friday, March 12th from 3:30-5:30 in the Thompson Street Athletic Center. Come and cheer for our youngest athletes.
· Congratulations to the cast and crew of the high school’s production of Urinetown. Mark your calendars now; the middle school musical is coming the first week in May.
· Speaking of the first week in May….Grandparents/Special Friends Day is coming on May 7th for Lower and Middle School students. We will be sending invitations out very soon. If you have not given us addresses yet, please email them to lsacks@lrei.org. Thanks.
· Our seniors are finishing their last full term of classes and are preparing for their senior projects, which include a six-week internship. We have students looking for internships in a number of fields, including: human rights, film/television/music production, medicine, photography, animation and the hospitality industry. If you are able to offer, or have access to, internships in these fields or in others, please contact our high school principal, Ruth Jurgensen at rjurgensen@lrei.org.

Enjoy,

Phil

Dear LREI Community,

I want to start this note by thanking all who donated to Monday’s collection of materials bound for Haiti. The outpouring of support was inspiring. Thank you also to the middle school students, families and faculty who participated in the organization and packing of your donations. According to our sources at charity : water your donations have already arrived in Haiti. Click here to view a short video about charity : water’s efforts. Thank you to Ella Crivello, (LREI ’08) for connecting us with charity : water.

Each year our high school students host a number of Coffeehouses—informal open mike evenings of music and spoken word. The students have decided to devote the Coffeehouse on February 6th to support of the relief efforts in Haiti. I join the students in inviting you to come together with fellow members of the LREI community on Saturday, February 6th, beginning at 6:30PM in the Performing Arts Center, 40 Charlton Street for this benefit event.

From MicahDov Gottlieb, High School Assistant Principal—This Coffee House will be an entertaining event in support of a worthy cause. We already have a great line-up of high school, middle school, faculty, and community members set to perform. If you are interested in performing or helping out in any way, please contact Micah at MDGottlieb@LREI.org. Mark your calendar now!

All money raised during the Coffeehouse, and other fundraising efforts, will support the work of two organizations. One, Partners in Health, has been involved in healthcare efforts in Haiti for many years. Learn more about them at www.pih.org. The second, The Harris Rosen Foundation, was founded by LREI alum, Harris Rosen, ’57. The Rosen Foundation is working with Haitian communities in Florida to send money and supplies to Haiti. The Foundation is also beginning to plan for rebuilding efforts including funding the development of earthquake and hurricane resistant housing.

In addition to the Coffeehouse, all proceeds from this year’s Karamu! celebration—this Friday night—will also be used to support these two organizations.

A number of LREI community members have asked how we plan our responses to events such as last week’s earthquake. In general, we allow ourselves the time to make deliberate decisions about our involvement. Our responses to world events must address LREI’s educational and social justice missions. Through our responses we teach about the specifics of the events, about the politics and history of the region, about how we can use current circumstances to think ahead to the “next time,” and about activism. Finally, we have to plan for our ongoing involvement, if any, and as events slow somewhat we find time to learn from our actions. To the point of ongoing involvement, we have decided that next February’s Coffeehouse will be a second fund raiser for organizations involved in rebuilding efforts in Haiti.

Thank you again for your interest and involvement.

Best,

Phil

Dear LREI Community,

Happy New Year and welcome back for LREI 2010! It was fun to greet your children on Tuesday. The students were excited to see their friends and teachers and to begin classes again, while at the same time it seemed to be a little bit of a challenge for them to leave the restful habits of Winter Break behind.

On Monday, the faculty gathered for our second colleague led professional day. Much of the day was spent in workshops that allowed teachers to engage in conversations with colleagues from all three divisions about a variety of topics—gender issues in education, learning to draw, the architecture of NYC, math in everyday life and Flash animation, for example—while examining how to have the teaching and learning of these topics, and others, meet the progressive mission of the school. It was an energizing day and a joyful celebration of the school and our talented faculty.

On Friday, January 22nd, the Parents Association’s Multicultural Committee will present Karamu!, our annual multicultural celebration. (Karamu means “joyful celebration” in Swahili.) The evening begins with a delicious potluck supper in the Charlton Street cafeteria. If past years are any indication, dinner will present a tremendous range of enticing offerings from families in all three divisions, representing a range of cultures and tastes. Following dinner, attendees will be treated to a series of performances reflecting a variety of artistic traditions. This year’s performers include a Latin alternative band, West African drummers, Irish dancers and our annual multi-culti dance party. My favorite part of Karamu is that it illustrates the importance of exploring those traditions—culinary and artistic—that are unique to specific cultures while also reinforcing those values shared by all cultures—a need to connect with each other, food as a cultural messenger and the arts as a center of celebrations. How are we the same and how do we differ—together these questions allow us to better understand others and ourselves.

Sign up sheets to help produce Karamu! will be posted in the Sixth Avenue lobby in the coming days, as will sheets to sign up to contribute to the potluck. If you would like to sign up and do not visit the buildings often, you can email Juliet Burrows at julietburrows@mac.com or Holly Glass at hcritch@earthlink.net. Tickets will go on sale on Tuesday, January 19th. I hope to see you at Karamu!

Best,

Phil

P.S. If your contact information—address, phone numbers, email addresses—has changed since we distributed the directory in September, please contact Mary Shea, mshea@lrei.org, as she is preparing an updated directory for distribution in the coming weeks. Thanks.