Dear Families,
Happy Thursday afternoon! I hope that this note finds you all well and enjoying the slow but steady arrival of spring. Two items from me this afternoon.
It was a pleasure to welcome the incoming ninth grade class on Tuesday afternoon. As we do each year, we hosted a spring gathering for all members of the rising Ninth Grade. This year the group includes 32 members of our own Eighth Grade (equal to 78 percent of the class, including 20 “lifers”) and 32 students from the outside. The students spent 90 minutes meeting each other, hearing from a few teachers and administrators and beginning to get to know their peer leaders, 10 juniors who will be members of the school’s advisory team in the fall. The gathering ends with large bowls of ice cream — it really is amazing how much teenagers can eat — and the distribution of official LREI sweatshirts, a style that you can only get as an incoming high school student. I don’t even have one! Welcome, to the Class of 2017!
- Last weekend my family and I saw “42,” the
Jackie Robinson biopic. I am not writing a movie review, though if you want to read one, there will be a review of “42” in the next issue of the student-run middle school newspaper, the Weekly Knights, available around the building. (You can also read the online student-run high school newspaper, the Knightly News.) We really enjoyed the movie and had a number of terrific conversations later in the weekend. The movie reminded me of a picture from the LREI archives showing Jackie Robinson visiting the school. In this picture, you see Mr. Robinson accepting a check for the NAACP from two students and the then director, Randolph Smith. The taller student is Mr. Smith’s son, Kent, who is currently a trustee. When looking for this photo we also found a letter written to a high school student by none other than Branch Rickey, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1945, a high school student, Seth Shapiro (his mom was one of the school’s founders), wrote an article about Jackie Robinson for the school’s newspaper. In it, he wrote, “’In this devastating war, bullets knew no discrimination. The hot pieces of metal tore into black and white skins alike. Here at home there must be no discrimination either, to race, creed, or color.” In the picture below you can see Mr. Rickey’s reply. What a great connection to the school’s and the City’s past!
