Dear Trustees,
Here we are seven weeks into the school year. It has been an exciting and fast paced beginning to the year as noted by our administrative staff reports. Operating our school, using the models of “continuous process improvement,” “community of purpose,” and “action research,” we strive to work to be better at what we do while involving the various stakeholders of our community.
*This month we have worked to improve the way we do business on several fronts. As noted in Phil and Pauline’s reports they have been busy preparing and training to implement new systems that will improve our productivity and efficiency in several departments and on several fronts.
*The faculty continues to strive to better serve, communicate with and educate our parent body. They continue to use various means of communication to keep parents informed. This year we changed our “Curriculum Night” to an “Information Night.”
*The lower school teachers used this evening to “talk math”..The upper school teachers used the evening to convey a variety of curricula, schedule and programmatic information to parents. The percentage of parents who attend these evenings is about 50%. I think we need to survey our parent population in terms of their interest in these evenings and what they would like to hear about on these nights.*We are experimenting with a different way to conduct 6,7, and 8th grade conferences by offering and suggesting that parents meet with the core academic middle school team of three or more teachers as well as offering individual meetings with special subject teachers. The model used to be parents meeting with just the homeroom teacher. To achieve this, the lower school teachers and specialists created a unique schedule that allowed younger students and older students to spend time together during the school day, thus allowing the upper school teachers to have an extra day to do conferences.
*As you may or may not know we are also experimenting this year with increasing the size of the 7th and 8th grade student population and I will make a mid year report in terms of the success and effects of this experiment. This report will include the input of our seventh grade students and parents. This spring Phil and I will make a projection of the number of incoming seventh grade students. We will be attending at least two middle school fairs this fall and also putting on a fair in Brattleboro mentioned below.
*I continue to meet with the Heads of Schools from area independent schools and this month we met at TGS. Phil led us on a tour of our school and then we met to discuss an independent school fair in Brattleboro this winter and forming an independent day school consortium. Our first meeting was last spring at The Neighborhood School House. The original group consisted of Heads of School from Neighborhood, The Compass School, Hilltop Montessori and TGS. We expanded the group to include Saint Michaels in Brattleboro and will be inviting The Green Valley Waldorf School in Putney and Westminster and the Oak Meadow School, a home schooling resource, not actually a school in itself.
*The Putney area Principals and Heads of Schools have been meeting with Paul LaVasseur, representing Transition Putney, to discuss and develop more concrete plans to provide authentic community service and leadership opportunities for our students. I will report on this again.
*I met with the Principal of Putney Central Elementary School, Herve Pelletier (a current parent of a 7th grader at TGS). I had a tour of the school and the grounds, met some staff, talked about sharing resources etc.... . It was a great visit and resulted in my bringing over our student council to meet with their student council and advisors. Their student council will in turn be visiting with us.
*Pauline, Phil and I are getting out and about to meet with donors, radio stations, friends of TGS, past Heads of School and trustees. It is my intention as well, to do 2 to 4 school visits with a variety of staff, faculty and trustees during the school year. These have always proven to be very worthwhile.
*Teaching American Studies has been fun and very satisfying. As I have said on a few occasions I am ready to quit my day job and go back into teaching. Then progress report time arrived and I was reminded of the time and effort required of teachers to report out to students and parents and the importance of doing so in a quality manner. So being back in the classroom is helping me to remember the many facets of teaching.
*Libby Cowan, Eve McDermott and I attended a New England Association of Schools and Colleges workshop to help us prepare for our ten year reaccreditation and self-study. This is a huge undertaking and will take the time and efforts of staff, faculty and trustees. Eve, Linda, Libby and I will begin meeting with faculty and staff in the next two months to begin the process of looking at the 12-14 standards, forming committees etc... . Jim Mooney former Head of Vermont Academy and now employed by NEASC will support us. This is an 18 month process culminating in the spring of 2013. I will keep you informed.
*Finally, I was able to attend, with some of our staff and faculty, the “Celebration of Life” for Edmund Brelsford. It was an amazing service that lasted for almost three hours. He was an amazing individual who touched so many people. As some of you know he had his 5 children and 6 grandchildren attend TGS, , and was a trustee and much more to the TGS community. We dedicated the Medieval Faire to him and will be dedicating our next Roots and Wings publication to him as well.
Thank you for all you do, in support of TGS. I look forward to working with our new trustees and welcome Bill Helm, Natalie Thomson and Julie Burns to the board. This is an exciting time to be a part of the TGS community. I look forward to working with all of you as we advance the school on so many fronts. As usual, if you have any comments or questions about this report or anything to do with TGS feel free to be in contact with me.
Respectfully Submitted,
Steve Lorenz
Head of School
