Director’s blog, April 2011

Hello and welcome back from Spring Break. Whether you found yourself in a far-flung locale or here in NYC (with the least “springy” weather of any Spring Break in memory) I hope you had good times with family and friends. As we enter the last quarter of the school year, I offer a couple of updates:

  • The admissions season for the 2011-2012 school year (next year) is officially over. Now we can look ahead to next fall when we will have wait lists in all grades, Fours-Ninth. We will enroll our largest ninth grade class ever – over 60 new excited, eager and talented freshmen will arrive in September. This growth is an essential component of LREI’s strategic plan and includes 75% of our current eighth grade continuing on to ninth grade.
  • Speaking of admissions, we are in the home stretch of the college admissions process. I look forward to sharing lists of acceptances and final choices with you in the next few weeks.  Congratulations to the class of 2011!
  • The 11th grade spent yesterday visiting Bard College and Sarah Lawrence College as a way to learn more about how to visit and evaluate schools. Today, the juniors got back on the bus with Director of College Guidance Carey Socol and her Associate, Analisa Cipriano LREI ’05, and set off to visit Brown University and Connecticut College.  Not to be left out, 10th grade families will meet with our college guidance staff next week to begin their journey.
  • As you read in a recent email from me, our high school robotics team came in first in the recent NY/NJ championships. Before they leave for the world championships at the end of this month they would like to share their robots with you. Members of the middle school and high school robotics teams will be out in Little Red Square before school on Monday, April 25th. Stop by and congratulate your robotics champions.
  • The 25 honors projects created for the coming trimester by our high school students include: a ninth grade study of non-Euclidian geometry, a tenth grade study of the Watergate scandal and a group of five students studying organic chemistry.  We will also have an eleventh grade student studying the portrayal of Christ and Christ-like figures in cinema, another studying stem cells and a third focusing on Before Night Falls: Spanish Literature and Poetry.  We will also have a senior focusing on drawing human anatomy.

There are so many special events and classroom projects this month and during May and June. Participating in these is a great way to see the power of the education your children are engaged in each day. Choose a concert or play to attend.  How about cheering for a middle or high school baseball team?  Take time to see how your children and their schoolmates apply what they learn in class, ask questions and find new answers to old problems. Of special note, please make time to attend the all school benefit to support relief efforts in Japan on April 16th. More information coming soon.

Lastly, I draw your attention to the Parents Association’s Red is Green Committee’s plans for Earth Week—April 18th – April 22nd.

  • We are asking that students give a pledge of one thing they will do to help the environment. For example- Lily, Kindergarten: “I will turn lights off when I leave the bathroom“. These pledges will stream on the TV in the Sixth Avenue lobby during Earth Week. Please send your pledges to redisgreen@lrei.org.
  • Monday April 18th – after school, children will decorate canvas tote bags and we e will have a demonstration of how to make green cleaning supplies. (The recipes will be posted in the blog.)  We will also have a petition for people to sign about stopping the use of plastic bags.
  • Wednesday April 20th from 6:00PM-8:00PM – the PA will host a presentation/workshop with Jamie Cloud (LREI parent) of the Cloud Institute on Sustainability. This will be an interactive and enlightening evening during which participants will think about sustainability and their relationship to the planet. Basically, how you can start thinking in new ways to help us “operate the planet” in a more effective, sustainable manner. For more information, see is www.cloudinstitute.org.  All LREI adults and students in the fifth grade and older are invited.  It is very important to RSVP to redisgreen@lrei.org
  • Thursday April 21st – children are invited to attend an after school gathering during which they will learn to plant and care for their own seedlings.

Best, Phil

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