Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (November 18, 2013)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

            By now, you have learned that this will be my last year as the head of school here at GreenMount.  I plan to retire, and I hope to get it right this time.

You may know the story of how I tried to retire eight years ago and failed miserably.  The one year that I spent away from a school was agonizing.  However, that year turned out to be one in which I learned many lessons.  My brother-in-law enlisted my help in writing a program for compensation of faculty in independent schools, about 400 of which he works with around the country.  It was during that year that we traveled around the country, visiting many private schools and trying to sell my program, that I got a firsthand look at the world of private education.  We did sell the program to two schools, but they were both located near Los Angeles, California.  One was in Pasadena and the other in Belair.  Both were pretty fancy-smanchy.

The hard part about working with these schools was that they were 3,000 miles away, and getting to face-to-face meetings was grueling.  In one case, we had a meeting at 1:00 p.m. in Belair, for which we left BWI at 7:00 a.m.  We had our meeting, went back to LAX and landed in Baltimore at midnight.  I could feel the blood clotting in my legs on the return trip!

Then came the day late that summer when I got a call to come and interview at a little school that I thought was called the Green Mountain School.  Was I going to move to Vermont?  Long story short, I got the job, and each day since has been a dream come true.  Former colleagues became instantly envious of my good fortune as I described life as the head of the GreenMount School.  And still, seven years later, I consider myself extremely fortunate to have landed in this beautiful place.

But now it is time to move on.  Grandchildren, golf, and old friends who have been after us to join them in the retirement world will somehow have to take the place of the joy I experience every day at GMS.  The good news is that there are many days left to enjoy, and I plan to make them the best of my seven years.  I also find comfort in knowing, without a doubt, that my replacement will be an exceptional school leader.  GreenMount has become well known as a desirable destination (just look at our amazing staff) and I am sure that there are a number of folks out there who will jump at the chance to be part of this community.

            Finally, I must make a confession: at today’s Monday Morning Meeting, I lied to your children.  I told them that there will surely be a replacement for me who will love them as much as I do.  To me, that’s not possible.

           

Cheers, 

Steve

           

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (November 11, 2013)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

            Five years ago, we completed an exhausting process of self-evaluation in order to become accredited as an AIMS school.  That effort was successful, of course, and this week we will be visited by a team as part of our five-year review.  The Association of Independent Maryland and D.C. Schools is diligent in their effort to make sure that all members of the organization meet their standards and demonstrate sustainability and devotion to the school’s philosophy and mission.  The visit on Thursday targets our Action Plan, which was developed during the accreditation process.  The AIMS team will interview teachers, parents, and board members along with the administration in order to assess our progress in meeting our goals.

            We are proud of our progress over the last five years, during which time we have added substantially to our student enrollment, going from 78 students to 110 in that short time span.  This is an especially notable accomplishment in light of the fact that many independent schools in Maryland have seen significant decreases in enrollment.  Additionally, many of our Maryland schools are suffering financially because of their efforts to fill seats by drastically discounting tuition.  Indeed, some schools that have done this have had to close their doors simply because they reduced their income with this practice to the point that they could not pay their bills.  At GreenMount, we have an advantage because of our size and the fact that we carry no debt except for the rent we pay for our buildings.  We also budget a set amount for tuition assistance each year so that we know ahead of time what we will be spending in aid to families.

Also, this year we are creating a new strategic plan that looks into our future and the maintenance of our institution.  This plan will include a financial plan that will ensure the sustainability of the school for many years to come.  Those of you who have young children at our school will be happy to know that the plan will provide for many years of continued service to our families and their children.  It should be reassuring to everyone that we have established ourselves so well financially.  Of course, tuitions and our expenses will rise, especially as we seek to retain the excellent teaching staff we have here at GMS.  However, with your help as a parent co-op, we are able to mitigate many of our expenses.  You are also generous in your giving to the Annual Fund, which is necessary to cover the additional 7 percent of our expenses not funded by tuition.

            You may have noticed that I mentioned the word, institution, rather than organization.  It is the goal of a good organization to morph into an institution where, by our definition, a group of people follow ideas and ideals rather than other people.  For example, we begin every staff meeting with an examination of our philosophy.  That conversation and others verify the fact that our staff is true to GreenMount’s ideals, always looking for ways to make our craft better in order to practice them.

            To all of our veterans who have served our country, we say “thank you for your service.”  This morning I told the students about my dad, who landed on Omaha Beach with the 29^th Division on June 6, 1944.  All the years I knew him, he never talked about that dreadful day.  I do know that he was the only survivor on his landing craft and that by some miracle he made it across France without a scratch.  He was a very modest man and never sought recognition for his service or the fact that he received a Bronze Star for his actions in combat.  It was not until I was older and he was gone that I could appreciate what he endured for his country.  I hope you have a chance to express your thanks to your heroes, especially on this solemn day.

Cheers,

Steve

           

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (November 5, 2013)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

            Have any of you ever experienced “phantom pocket vibration syndrome”?  Sure you have.  This is when you think that your cell phone in your pocket is vibrating when it actually isn’t.  If you have experience this more than a few times you are probably part of the “Net Generation” or an older “Gen-Xer”. You have become very dependent on your cell phone and the social connections that you must have in order to survive.

Have you ever driven more than five miles back to your house when you discover that you left your phone at home? Yep, you’re hooked!  In my day we drove until we saw a phone booth (remember those?) along the side of the road to make a call.  And I can count on half of my hand the number of times a phone call was important enough for me to pull over at a phone booth.  Today, phone booths - when you can find them - serve a different purpose.  This past summer, in London, my wife wanted to take a picture of me in one of those famous English phone booths.  I complied, but holding my breath – phew!

            Our AIMS conference yesterday turned out to be very worthwhile and informative.  In addition to the workshop on how different generations are using technology that I attended, we heard a great keynote from Dr. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist and Director of the Laboratory for Perception and Action at the Baylor College of Medicine.  His presentation was a fascinating look at how our brains mature and how educators can use this awareness to help students use their capacities to their fullest.  He talked a lot about the “plasticity” of the brain and how we can train it to be more receptive and creative.  Indeed, our staff has done some research on teaching creativity and you have also done a lot to hasten your children’s curiosity and creative nature.  He said that unless we intervene in the brains of our students, their brains will always take the path of least résistance.  I am sure you can read a lot into that statement.

But Dr. Eagleman talked more specifically about how our brains are wired and how we can make them function better by forcing them to create different pathways between neurons.  I do not have enough allotted space in this newsletter to talk about specifics (and I can’t remember most of them – my myelin sheath is deteriorating), but I was struck by some notable similarities between what he said and what we do here at GreenMount:

• We must use provocative, creative questions in our discussions with students – we do that
• We must have students experience ideas and situations – we do that
• We must allow students to delve deeply into subject matter – we do that
• We must stimulate emotional engagement with subject matter – we do that
• We have to create an enriched environment for learning – we do that too.

It is always nice to hear experts validate our philosophy, isn’t it?

I also attended a workshop (allude to to in my opening paragraph) delivered by Dr. Larry Rosen from California State University.  He has done a great deal of research on technology and how it affects different generations.  His main point is that we have to deal with a generation of students who are ultra-dependent on social interaction through technology.  I have noted that if I call my daughters on the phone, I may never hear back from them.  Conversely, if I text them, they reply in seconds - really?

Dr. Rosen’s fear is that our children are not developing FTF interactions.  (I’m sorry, that’s “Face-To-Face”.)  He says that students today cannot go more than 15 minutes without some form of technological communication, and that children are even sleeping with their cell phones on vibrate.  Once again, I see GreenMount students and families as outliers here.  I do not see our middle school students suffering from anxiety because they haven’t had time to text someone.  Whatever you are doing to foster human interaction, keep doing it.  Help us to keep our students from suffering from FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)!

Cheers, 

Steve