A Year of Growth
If you took a “first day of school” picture of your child, it’s worth pulling it out as we end the year. Not only is it remarkable to contemplate all the physical growth that has occurred since school started. It’s amazing to note all the academic, social, intellectual, emotional, and character development that has also taken place. I am grateful for all our extraordinary teachers have done to help guide and nurture that growth, and all that you have done as parents as well. That partnership between home and school is an integral part of why our children soar. So, too, is the fact that collectively we provide our students with high, consistent but reasonable expectations and strong support all along the way.
That partnership, those expectations continue during the summer, albeit at a different pace and within a completely different schedule. For children to get the most out of summer and to begin the next school year in the best place, they need a prudent mix of unstructured down time and structured activities, including the reading, writing, and math work we assign that helps keep critical skills in practice. Balance continues to be the key. But it’s delightful to contemplate all the fun, diverse adventures of summer that stretch ahead and that will lead to even more growth by the time we gather in late August for the 2011-12 school year. Those “pictures,” those experiences, those memories will also be remarkable.
My best wishes to you and your family for a wonderful summer!
Further Update on Work on Peer Relationships & Bullying
Before we end the year, I also wanted to give you a further update on our work related to bullying and peer relationships and the main directions we’ll be pursuing over the summer and into the early fall. First, our faculty and administrators will all be reading Barbara Coloroso’s book The Bully, The Bullied, and the Bystander, which is widely regarded as some of the best background reading on these topics. At our opening faculty meetings in August, we plan to have a full day workshop with Susan Swearer, Associate Professor of School Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr. Swearer is considered one of our nation’s leading authorities on bullying prevention and intervention, and we expect to be able to use her as an ongoing resource. We will also begin reexamining and possibly revising our bullying policy and our Code of Conduct. Since we will want this process to be informed by our reading and our work with Dr. Swearer, it is likely this will continue into the 2011-12 school year. We will continue researching what teaching activities we should integrate into Upper School advisory and K-5 homerooms. In addition, we will be determining if the school could benefit from utilizing ongoing services from a consulting psychologist or counselor. Finally, we will be forming a task force including administrators, teachers, trustees, and parents that will meet during the next school year, once faculty and families have regathered from the summer.