News & Weekly Letters

With the end of the year approaching, the conversations at school are beginning to turn to the upcoming graduation ceremonies. We’re excited by the prospect of celebrating our Kindergarten, 5th, and 8th graders in June. It’s one of my favorite moments of the year; I love the mix of joy at cheering on our students’ success, pride in what they have achieved, and nostalgia–particularly when it comes to students leaving us for high school–at the passing of time and the sensation of another page being turned. If I’m being completely honest, I tend to shed a tear or two.

Yesterday’s Field Day is the perfect cue for a letter about sport–a subject I don’t usually discuss with you. It might not be very obvious, but I am passionate about sports. Even though I still run regularly (despite an uncooperative knee), I must admit that my glory days are behind me. I am more of an armchair athlete nowadays (as Andria can testify–if it’s a sport and it is televised, I will watch it). My sporting “career” was punctuated by very few victories and a wide range of sprains and fractures of all sorts–I was a puny kid, ill-equipped for physical prowess on the icy, windy sports fields of the Ardèche.

Earlier this week, Sara Weintraub and I had the pleasure of traveling to Denver to participate in a conference at the International School there. We met our counterparts from all over North America with whom we worked on possible future professional development courses for our staff, among many other things. The conference took place at the ISD, and we had the opportunity to visit the campus. I am always curious to see what the classrooms, wall displays, and (even brief) interactions with teachers and students tell us about a school.

I’ve been meaning to write this letter to you for a while now, but as you know, time flies, and I have so many things to tell you that it almost slipped my mind to share our MAP Growth winter results with you. I had a lot of positive feedback on my first message about the fall results, and I am delighted to be able to share the latest results with you today.

Philippe, who officially joined our team this week, would like to offer a course in financial literacy to our middle schoolers next year. I researched the suggested content for similar courses in France and found that the recommendation is for students to learn to read bank statements using Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” as a reference (a short story all our 8th graders know well, thanks to Mr. LeMartelot).