A Year of Growth and Learning
Dear Friends,
This is our last Bulletin of the year. Crazy, I know! But fear not! You will still be hearing from us this month in The Chronicle, which is our biennial newsletter; the yearbook; student progress reports and preschool letters; and some regular updates on the Annual Fund (please please please give…)
Teacher Appreciation lunch is on Wednesday. Thank you in advance to those of you contributing dishes, flowers, or drinks for this beloved event! It is a highlight of their year, sitting down to eat and reminisce about all the wonderful things they did with your kids.
A few weeks ago, during teacher appreciation week, I wrote a few words about each of them to share at staff meeting. In honor of all their work this year, here’s what I said:
Abby– For your steady, calm, loving warmth for, and faith in, our youngest friends…
Amy- For mama-bear arms, rosy cheeks, and multiple deep pockets full of stories that keep children in your thrall!
Andy- For equal parts laugh-with-abandon and heartfelt, impassioned, radical instruction!
Bev- For gentle, embedded, and truly joyful play play play play!
Chris- For sharing your infinite toolbox of infinite tricks with generosity, skill and fun
Courtney– For deep caring (and presence) for each and every maddening, magnificent middle
Cynthia– For mirthful smiles and endless go with the flow patience…
Dave- For stalwart care, humble reliability, and D and D dastardliness!
Elende– For artful, attentive intuition and creativity, and gentle kindness to all of us
Ella– For earnest punctuality, GCS loyalty (alum that you are), and general sweetness!
Emily- For enduring, educational, empathetic, eloquent, empowering Emily-ness!
Jenny- For always taking each and every child’s needs and dreams on as though your own…
Josie– For knowing how to get the very best out of (or put the very best into) kids even when they’re not at their best…
Julie L– For that unwavering, warm, full-faced smile, beaming out at 24 demanding, urgent, teeming tweens…
Julie S-B– For stick-to-itiveness, and so much love from drop off, through nap/no-nap, and all the way back again!
Kara- For superhuman strength, hot-glue miracles, and the enormous admiration of 140+ kids (and us!)
Katie– For a lap that seems to hold infinity toddlers and finding the joy in the tantrums, tears and triumphs!
Kiah– For fiercely, intensely caring, and an enduring devotion to team, to families, to children, and to teaching…
Kim– For carrying the learning of 140+ kids on your strong shoulders while running, uphill, backwards, over roots and rocks, through tunnels…etc!
Lauren– For running with EVERY SINGLE good idea with a bottomless well of passion, excellence and unbridled enthusiasm!
Lindsey– For weaving poetry, self-discovery, empathy and love into the hearts and minds of our forest dears!
Marcy– For gently learning the Center School’s soundtrack, and your heartbeat/drum beat encouraging each child…
Rebecca– For unflappable, earthy, groundedness, and that brainy, always humming mind!
Sandy– For trickle-up, contagious, fierce love of and belief in the power of nature, and children, in all their bounty.
Sara– For powerful, never-ending, teacher/human solidness and unmatched grit underpinned by LOVE and HOPE…
Sarah– For walking a mile in every child’s shoes and embedding social justice and rigor thoroughly into your teaching…
Synphany– For infinite directness, humor, and vision, truly seeing and gently challenging every child and teammate…
Tayler– For pure love, empathy, and compassion beaming into our School community…
Val– For keeping the bar high, the aesthetic glorious, and the love for each child in bright, technicolor evidence!
Vanessa– For rockstar-level power and energy channeling all the love, rigor, and care, in rich abundance.
And though you’re not teachers, exactly:
Amanda- For your brilliant, intricate, prescient mind and a heart the size of Jupiter.
Veronica- For using the language of numbers to express your powerful belief in the Center School mission, and a bottomless candy dish!
Thank you, Center School staff, students, parents, guardians, and friends for a year of growth and learning!
And send it into the world,
Charlie Spencer
Head of School