The beginning of LREI’s school year is filled with opportunities for students, teachers and families to get to know each other. Welcome conferences, sharing family photos, overnight trips (leaving as early as the first day of school), LREI 101, curriculum nights and potlucks, to name just a few such occasions. As a community we spend considerable energy getting to know each other from our first moment together. We find students sharing stories about summer adventures, sharing goals and challenges with teachers and spending considerable energy getting to know classmates. Much of the activity built into the first few weeks is in service of teachers getting to know the students in their classes. Parents, new to LREI and returning, share hopes and concerns with teachers, listen to curriculum presentations and ask their children, “Tell me about school today,” and begin to get to know their parent colleagues. No matter what age you child is I encourage you to meet their friends’ families, as you are able. This may just mean attending a school organized gathering one evening.
We find that the time teachers spend getting to know students and families is also time well spent. The better we know our students, and we get to know them very well over the course of their years at LREI, the more precisely we can support their achievement and mature in our work with these students as they become their older selves. The better we know our students the more effectively we can help them to grow as people and as learners, the better we can help them to navigate social and intellectual bumps-in-the- road; the better we can support their journey from lower to middle school and then from middle school to high school and through the involved college process.
Thank you, families for the energy and time you put into getting to know the school and your children as learners. Thank you teachers, as always, for the time and intelligence you bring to the task of truly understanding your students. These efforts will enhance student achievement while making the community more enjoyable and cohesive.