Connecting With Area Schools--Annie Wright Schools

It seems that many Heads of School in our region are interested in getting out to meet each other and tour other schools this year. On Wednesday, November 30th, I met with Christian Sullivan, the Headmaster of Annie Wright Schools in Tacoma. We toured the school and discussed governance models, board work, faculty committees, and fundraising. Annie Wright Schools, which has a co-ed Prek-8 school and a girls-only upper school, has just introduced a five-day boarding option in an effort to attract more regional students to round out their mix of international students who board seven days a week. The school hosts a Scholar Search event in January to acquaint prospective high school students with the school.

Our next school visitors are faculty from Hamlin Robinson School, who will take part in an Educator's Tour, a special event hosted by Vivian Syme. My next meeting with Seattle Waldorf School's Director of Administration Tracy Bennett is Monday, December 5th. On Monday, December 12th, I will attend a meeting of regional Waldorf school administrators hosted by Seattle Waldorf School.

A Virtual Tour of the New Science Room: Planning Begins

During Parent/Teacher conferences, the Science Task Force met and discussed equipment procurement, science curriculum, and began planning the new science room. The space is quite large, and is divided up into a number of smaller rooms. The area we are moving into used to be part of the photo lab when Cornish College of the Arts was in residence here.

You can see the eye wash on the right, just below the 'safety' bulletin board: this room was meant for science!

This area was for making photo prints.  There are two of these rooms.  Lighting upgrade is needed here.

Another shot of the photo print area--plenty of wall sockets available here.  Lighting upgrades are needed here.

Also in the photo print area, on the opposite wall.  This enclosure was for the big sink that held the developer, fixer, and water baths for photo prints.

Culturally Responsive Classrooms--A Workshop by Rosetta Lee

On October 24, four out of five members of our Social Inclusion Committee attended a workshop by Rosetta Lee entitled 'Culturally Responsive Classrooms'.  Ms. Lee is a math teacher at Seattle Girls' School who leads SGS's outreach program. Some of her presentations can be found here. Social Inclusion members are: Laura Crandall, School Director; Lauren Kerr, Grade Four Teacher; Gust Burns, Eurythmy Assistant and Pianist, and Choir Teacher; Emily Affolter, Spanish Language Teacher; and Bryan McGriff, Movement Teacher. All but Mr. McGriff were in attendance at the workshop.

 The workshop was so informative and helpful that the Committee made a request to the Leadership Team that we host Ms. Lee for our March 12 In-Service day. The Leadership Team approved the request, and our group will meet with Ms. Lee in the new year to talk about our school's diversity work. This will allow her to tailor our In-Service day for our school's needs. Some of the questions I developed as a result of the workshop that may provide good break-out discussion topics for the day are:

•  How do you influence school culture through your role?
• Identity formation—as educators, we are responsible for co-authoring it.  How can we support kids’ identity plans? 
•  How does our own internal dialogue shut us off to or influence what we take away from the speaker? 
•  What do I (we) communicate to students from our own inner monologue?
•  How can we increase diversity within the parameters of Waldorf curriculum? 
•  What are age-appropriate ways to discuss culture and cultural differences? Mental Models—what is yours and how can you challenge it? 
•  How is our (school) culture co-created? Are our classroom processes and projects allowing all kids to participate and shine? Is the path to success clearly delineated? 
•  How can our classroom instructional approaches accommodate a wider range of 'codes and modes'? 
•  Critical self-assessment of the school (fish in water)—what are the distinguishing behaviors? 
•  What are we talking about when we say ‘diversity’?

A Snapshot From the Minnows Preschool

Vegetable soup day in the Minnows class means plenty of work for all the students, and delicious results!

Connecting With Area Schools--Giddens School Visit

I recently spent part of a morning touring Giddens School with Head of School Robert Kogane.  Mr. Kogane and I first met last May at the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools (PNAIS) Heads' Conference.  Giddens School is perhaps most well-known for being one of the most ethnically and economically diverse schools in the area.  As Bright Water School sharpens its focus on creating a more diverse school community at the student, parent, faculty, and board level, our Social Inclusion Committee and I will be reaching out to other area independent schools to make connections and to learn about any diversity work they have or will engage in.

Mr. Kogane has an impressive work history in education in the Seattle area. He has set specific goals for students and faculty, and is emphatic about providing both teachers and students with the resources they need to succeed.  While Giddens School's classrooms are quite different in a number of ways from Bright Water School's, both schools have students who are actively engaged with their teachers and the learning process.

During my time at Giddens, Mr. Kogane and I discussed academic goals and benchmarks, financial aid, and diversity.  It was from this conversation with Mr. Kogane that I saw an opportunity to make improvements to our financial aid program in an attempt to support families entering the school at the preschool level.  Up until last week, financial aid was only available to families in the kindergarten if the child would be of first grade age the following fall.  There was no financial aid in the preschool.  While this made sense for our school once, as we look at expanding our economic diversity, financial aid must be available at the preschool level.  I'm excited about bringing financial aid to preschool families.

As we finished up our time together, Mr. Kogane extended an invitation to our faculty to visit Giddens anytime and see the classrooms in action.  We look forward to continuing our relationship with Giddens School.

Future Focus: Science News

As a part of our ongoing focus on School Culture this year, the Leadership Team and the faculty as a whole have been looking at various elements that contribute to who we, Bright Water School, are.  We are also looking at who we want to be.  Thus far, we have been working with the School’s Mission Statement and Core Values, diversity, our ’branding’ (physical representation via brochures, website), and our programs.  We will undoubtedly have more to tell you about this study as the year continues to unfold, and as we begin to move the work from who we are into who we want to be. 

Before the new year begins, the entire faculty will review the Mission Statement and Core Values.  At our January 2 in-service day, the Board of Trustees and the Leadership Team will engage in a half-day working retreat, some of which will pertain to the Mission Statement and Core Values.

In this study of School Culture, when looking at programs our Leadership Team very quickly decided, and the faculty agreed, that we would like to bring our science program to the fore.  Bright Water School intends to be recognized for and known for its science program, and to provide an optimal science program for students. We also aim to strengthen our middle school.  To that end, we have formed a Science Task Force.  We have acquired an additional classroom, complete with lockable storage closets to keep equipment safe and organized.  Having a dedicated space for middle school science studies will allow for the program to expand and deepen in a way that is not possible at present. 

Currently, middle school science equipment storage is woefully inadequate, despite best attempts at organization.  A dedicated science room will allow teachers and students to sink into science with more depth and space, much as having a dedicated woodworking room has been essential in forming the foundation of our sturdy woodworking program, and as our theater has been for our eurythmy program. Providing a proper space for experimentation and for equipment will allow faculty and students to fully attend to lesson content and thus enhance learning.

But it’s not just space and equipment that we will focus on with this endeavor.  Professional development will fuel our efforts, and teachers will engage in appropriate trainings now and in the future. Another of the things we envision is to hold a science fair within the next five years.  Our hope is that many area schools would participate in such a fair, not just Waldorf schools. 

This is the beginning of what we see as a three to five year process.  We intend to have the new classroom ready this year.  It is because of our expansion and augmentation of this program that our auction theme is Science.  We hope to get each and every one of you interested in and curious about our science program.  Science doesn’t just take place in the middle school.  Our youngest students are engaging in physics studies every day, inside the classroom and out.  For the younger students, science equipment is shovels, buckets, planks of wood, and wheelbarrows.  Students in preschool through grade three engage in ‘stealth’ science, whereas students in grades four through eight take up overt scientific studies of botany, physics, organic chemistry, and more.  

Bright Water School has applied for a grant to help fund the start of the program and the set-up of the room.  This may also be the focus of our fund-an-item at the auction on March 12, 2012.  Below is more information about our Science Task Force.  Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have about this undertaking.  
Our Science Task Force is:

• Beth Simpson, Grade Five
• Trish Bondurant, Pedagogical Chair
• Bryan McGriff, Movement Teacher
• Laura Crandall, School Director
• Ellen Davis, Operations Manager  

The Task Force is responsible for:

• designing how the room will be set up and used
• inventory of current equipment
• shopping list of needed equipment
• costs of stocking the science program, annually, for three to five years
• sketching out professional development recommendations

Time to Play: It's Fun and Fruitful

Our Parent and Child class enjoyed circle time one recent, clear morning. There is plenty of play to be had in our Early Childhood classes: Parent and Child, Preschool, and Kindergarten. In the November/December issue of Scientific American, in an article entitled, 'The Death of Preschool', by Paul Tullis, the fruits of childhood play are illuminated. More and more preschools and kindergartens are bringing in academic lessons via lectures and tests, despite research that shows these activities work against the learning process and can be detrimental to later academic work. Although most educators understand this to be true, they feel pressured by parents and by standardized testing to show 'results' at an early age. Bright Water School's early childhood program protects the younger years and allows children to grow and develop as they were meant to: through play, movement, and exploration.