January 5, 2020
Dear LREI Community,
Happy New Year! I trust that this note finds you well, having found enjoyable and meaningful ways to connect with friends and family, even given the challenges of our unprecedented circumstances.
It was a pleasure to welcome my colleagues back to the school year yesterday. We shared stories of rest and rejuvenation and our plans for the new year. We talked about personal and institutional priorities and thoughts about ways to achieve the latter. Much of the day was spent planning for the coming weeks of school, the first two of which will be online, followed by our planned return to campus, as well as time spent planning for the year as a whole. I thought it might be helpful for me to share some of my thoughts about the coming months as these commitments and resolutions will guide our work together.
- While the final days of the first term presented challenges, I am proud of our work in keeping students and adults healthy and safe, and, of course, for the excellent educational experience that our students have had this year, whether in school or at home. As we have done all year, we are adjusting, adapting, and learning and will continue to do so. I will communicate more regarding our partnership with you and our expectations focused on keeping the community healthy as we approach our return to in-person schooling on January 19.
- We remain committed to the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan, shared this summer and on which we made significant progress during the fall. More than committed, we are resolute regarding our work to accomplish our stated goals, to increase our pace, to broaden involvement, and to plan for the future. Divisional updates to come. Dates below.
- We travel to campus each day through a changed City, or more accurately through a changing city. What will happen months from now as we more fully emerge? How can we involve our students in thinking about the next iteration of our great metropolis? We need to continue to look for these opportunities. A long term project, for sure.
- I was energized by our students’ interest and involvement in the election process. They considered their close attention to be a responsibility. How can we support the students in keeping this civic-mindedness front and center? In all candor, there is a resolution embedded in this resolution. We as a community, led by me, need to see civic-mindedness as including being open to a number of points of view. We have to trust that we are all committed to the community’s mission, even if that commitment is expressed in a variety of ways, and that our children are skilled enough to hold more than one idea in mind at a time.
Healthy in-person education, an excellent progressive program whether in person or via LREI@home, working towards justice and equity in our community and in the wider world, participating in the rebirth of our city, fostering civic participation – this is a good list of resolutions for the remainder of the year. Not a surprising list as all of the items on it are essential to LREI’s mission, particularly to this year, and generalizable to 100 years of LREI’s progressive ideals.
I hope you and your families are identifying your resolutions – maybe reading more during our increasingly digital lives (I know that this is on my list), finding time to be outside even if just to walk around the block, connecting with neighbors, fostering an interest? What’s on your list?
I wish you and yours well in the coming year. I wish our community well as we head into a time of uncertainty, hopefully, to be followed by a time about which we can be more hopeful.
Peace and Health,
Reminders:
School Updates:
- “Welcome Back” Community Gathering, January 11, 2021, 7:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Link found on the Community Calendar.
- I invite you to join the divisional diversity, equity, inclusion facilitators and me for an update on LREI’s DEI plan, published last summer. Lower school families are invited to join a conversation on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, at 6:30 p.m., middle school families on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, at 6:30 p.m., and high school families are invited to join us on Wednesday, January 20, 2021, at 6:30 p.m. Links to these events will be found on the Community Calendar, as well.
Other Events:
- We invite families of 4th -10th graders to our annual Young Alumni College Panel on January 7, 2021, at 6:30 p.m. This is a time to hear from recent LREI grads concerning their transition to college. Always a great evening. You can find the Zoom link on the Community Calendar. (Parent of 11th graders, you will have your very own College Process Kickoff Night on January 12, 2021, at 6:30 p.m.)
- The high school play, Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, will premiere on Friday, January 8, 2021, at 6:30 p.m. From Director Joan Jubett:
A rhinoceros appears and tears up a town square, trampling everything in its path. Where did it come from? Should everyone ignore it or argue the merits and motives of a rhinoceros rolling through? Perhaps going back to talking about nothing is a better idea, until another rhinoceros appears. And another. Wildly ridiculous and beautifully incoherent, Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros sneakily packs an important punch of a message. The rise of European Fascism in the 1920s and 30s and the founding of the Iron Guard in Ionesco’s home country of Romania is the backdrop for one of the great Absurdist plays of the 20th century. Don’t miss it. The LREI HS Theatre Department invites you for an unprecedented and exciting evening of *theatre/film/theatre* on Friday, January 8th at 6:30 pm. After the screening, join us for a talkback where we’ll chat about the importance of art in the face of fascism as well as learn from students what it was like to film on a green screen in their homes.
Come one, come all! The students worked especially hard on the play this fall, clocking in many hours of after school Zoom rehearsals. Show them some love and show up!
- Please remember to sign up for lunch for the week of January 19 and beyond no later than Wednesday, January 13th.