Dear LREI Community,
With apologies for interrupting this last moment before the 2017-2018 school year, I write to send a brief new year’s greeting. There is complexity in the night before the new school year. Those of us who are knee deep in preparations for tomorrow are so very excited, as are many of our students. For many families (mine included), while it is clearly time for us all to get back to the routine of the school year, to look forward to the achievement and growth that are to come, this evening brings a bit of mourning for the relaxed pace and family time that summer offers. Sigh.
For those of you who have children who will begin their first school year tomorrow, a bittersweet moment — great joy and opportunity and, alas, some loss. For those whose children will have their last first day of schooling tomorrow, much the same.
While the summer of 2017 brought seasonal highlights to many, it also brought, to our nation, hatred and division and mystifying and dangerous responses from our leaders. It will not surprise you to hear that when the staff returned last week, the summer’s events, the openly expressed bigotry and violence, the threats and assaults and murder, were part of our conversation along with discussions of how to speak with your children about these issues.
The issues before us are both quite simple and quite complex. We have been and will always be clear with our students that hatred cannot be tolerated and will be given no quarter in our community. While the topics can be challenging to discuss and are certainly troubling and scary, and while the causes of the hate are many and complicated, our response, seems to me, to be fairly simple. “No!” “Stop!”
More complicated are the issues of free speech and of armed protesters, for example, among many others. These complexities create opportunities for conversation, debate, understanding, and growth. How about the question of statues and history and heritage? Who should be honored in our public spaces? Who shouldn’t be? What do we do as our nation, and its values, evolve? Do we honor winners regardless of how they achieved their victory? I am looking forward to participating in and hearing about these conversations.
While this summer’s events are challenging, they are not too challenging for your children when guided by their skilled teachers and examined in an age-appropriate manner. This is what we do and have always done, and it is how we connect to the larger world. Rest assured that the teachers have discussed the issues and are well versed in how and when to engage in these sorts of conversations. While we expect that our older students will begin discussions of Charlottesville on their own, teachers of our youngest students will be thinking of ways to make meaningful connections between children’s questions and their understanding of the world around them in the days to come.
We look forward to continuing the partnership between LREI and the families that make up our vibrant community.
Warmly,
