Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (February 24, 2014)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

                Our thanks to all of you for helping us enjoy another successful theme event.  Your participation as an audience is extremely important to the students and definitely adds to the success of the program.  I heard many parents asking probing questions and helping our students clarify points that they had rehearsed.  I think it is obvious that students have learned a lot when they can be steered away from their script by your questions and still demonstrate their learning.  I hope you realize that the time constraints of the theme event allow our students little time to share all that they have learned.  You probably have figured out that what you get to see and hear is but a sample of the learning that has taken place.

            Also, you have played an important role in the success of the program by contributing to the gym renovation, which has made a very significant difference in the quality of how we experience student performances.  Most of all, you provide enthusiasm for and support of the theme events by your presence and your encouragement of your children.  We put together three theme events each year to showcase student learning as well as social and emotional growth.  But these events are also a showcase for our school community and the support and participation of parents.  Without your nurturing and obvious interest in your children’s education, we could not hope to have events as successful as the last 20 I have witnessed.  That’s right, I have one more to go to complete 21 theme events and each has been a joy. 

We have already started planning for the theme event on May 22.  Remember, the title is Rembrandt to Rothko and we will be immersed in art from several “movements”.  If you have some ideas for experiences for the students, please don’t hesitate to contact the teachers.  We are planning several trips to the BMA, so if you or someone you know has connections there, please let us know.  We would love to see the art they have in “storage”.

You may have noticed some excavation in the front of the school and a very tall post at the corner of the playground.  The post will have a camera and a listening device to record parents’ conversations about the school. Actually, that’s not true, but I wanted to give you just a little pause.  The post is actually there to extend the Comcast line from the telephone pole at the corner of the church.  The line then runs underground to the school, giving us that coveted access to a high-speed Internet connection.  Right now we have only three megabits per second coming into the building.  Can you believe it?  With the Comcast line we will improve to 100 megabits per second.  This is something we have been working on for over a year and it is finally going to happen!  We are fortunate to have so many parents who are very tech-savvy and who contribute many hours of research and work to improve our technology infrastructure, which gets better each year.  Their work is “Bully”!

           

Cheers,

Steve

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (February 18, 2014)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

                It’s theme week!  That’s right, we are going ahead with the theme event on Friday in spite of all the days we have lost.  This will be a test of our resiliency and our ability to work cooperatively to get a lot done in a short period of time.  As a little preview, let me describe some of what you will see and hear.

            We will begin the morning with some rousing patriotism and the performance of our sixth through eighth grade “recruits”. You will then see that this period in history was a time of America’s expansionism, which included activities such as women’s suffrage, World War I and the sinking of the Titanic.  It was the time of Theodore Roosevelt and “Boss Tweed” as well as many other familiar names in history.  You will be able to follow a timeline from about 1876 to 1917 and our students will teach you some interesting things that I’ll bet you did not know (remember to have a Buddha Day).  The musical portion of the program will interest you as you will hear selections from this time period that you surely will recognize.  The students have learned songs that include everything from trench warfare to lullabies and marches.  You are certainly invited to sing along.

            One disappointment we may have to endure is our parking situation.  You may have noticed that we have had some snow recently and for the rest of the week we are likely to see a significant meltdown accompanied by some rain.  While I know we welcome this change in the weather, it will make for some very muddy conditions on the field, which does not belong to us.  On Friday morning I will assess the condition of the field to see if we can allow parking there.  It may be that we can use the lower half of the field and I will try to mark off areas that are not suitable for parking.  We’ll just have to see how this plays out.  I’m guessing at this point that is the ground will be too wet.

One area that we have not considered in the past is the parking lot across from the Burger King on 29^th Street.  This lot never has any cars on it and there are no prohibitive signs there.  Parking there would be easy for about 20 vehicles and access to the school is just up the slope to a break in the fence. Our neighbors, Potts and Callahan, have agreed to let us use this space, so you may want to consider this alternative.  In any case, we hope to see a great crowd and I know that you will be impressed with the learning that has gone on for the last 53 days.  We are all very proud of our students and I know you will be, too.

            Finally, on another logistical note, I would like to begin planning for our summer spruce-up.  We need painting done and several other organizational and “brightening” activities.  Please let Heather or me know if you would like to help us during the month of June. 

           

           

Cheers,

Steve

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (February 10, 2014)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

                As part of our ongoing professional development, I provide the staff with journal articles, which individuals volunteer to read and then report back to the staff at our next Professional Development Meeting.  Most of the these articles come from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and their publication, Educational Leadership.  The beauty of this publication is that each month the journal focuses on just one topic around which many contributors submit their articles.  For example, the November issue focused on tackling informational text.  In January, the issue was devoted to student mastery.  And this month, each article addressed building school morale.

You may wonder if morale is an issue at GreenMount, and to be honest, it isn’t much of a concern.  However, two articles struck me.  The first is about the language of appreciation.  According to the author, schools typically show appreciation within the school community by having recognition programs or ceremonies.  These are fine, but a better way to show our appreciation for someone else is to speak or write to a person individually – to take the time in the course of a normal day to just say “thank you,” or recognize someone for a job well done.  This is something that our teachers try to do for students as a matter of course.  We don’t often do that for each other.  Adults often miss opportunities to show personal appreciation to colleagues and friends, according to the article.  At our staff meetings we recognize each other for the good work that we do, but even then it is not as personal and effective as an individual effort.  Another factor to consider is that some people do not like public attention, even if for a positive reason.  Those folks welcome that kind of personal recognition.

            The other article that I found interesting involves those “teachable moments” that we all refer to so often.  However, in this article the teachable moments are not those opportunities that we find to teach children, but the ones that occur and provide an opportunity for adults to learn.  Mentioned in the article is a man named Jack Kornfield, who happens to be a Buddhist monk.  In his book, A Path with Heart, Kornfield talks about treating every person or experience as an opportunity to learn.  He suggests that, instead of seeing the frustrating moments of a day as negatives, we treat each as an opportunity to grow as a person and cultivate those qualities we have to deal with people and events.

The author of the article suggests that everyone try to have at least one “Buddha Day” during which we try to find a lesson for ourselves.  So, this weekend I tried to have my Buddha Day.  The burned toast taught me to look more carefully at the inner workings of my toaster.  When I was cut off on the way to the grocery store, I tried to learn a better way to express my feelings with my wife in the car (“Drat, that motorist must be having a hard day.  Perhaps he is just now thinking what a stupid thing he just did and wishing he could apologize somehow.”).  Wegman’s on a Sunday afternoon is a mad house and a good place to learn.  The guy who gets you that piece of fish that you want (three pieces up on the left hand side) needs better directions because he can’t actually see which piece you are talking about.  I learned that you have to say, “Put your hand over the fish rack.  Now go left – No, your left.  Move toward you.  Put your hand down.”

I also learned that it’s better to watch “Love it or List It” than a PGA golf tournament.  The only thing I ever learned from watching golf was what I cannot do.  Watching home renovations in Canada taught me that there is something very strange about the value of a dollar in that country.  Happy Buddha Day!

           

Cheers,

Steve

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (February 3, 2014)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

            Today, I would like to talk a little about our strategic plan.  Like most every organization, The GreenMount School must have a plan for the future in order to establish goals and the strategies to meet them.  A group of parents and staff members are currently working on a plan for the next five years.  This plan considers all of the social, technological, economic, environmental and political factors that may affect our ability to remain resilient in the face of many unknowns.  This is especially true when we consider the economy.  Over the past decade we have felt the impact of a sagging economy and, thankfully, we survived a couple of years during which we saw a stagnation of our enrollment.

Since then, things have improved greatly and, as you know, we are enjoying a stable enrollment that is near capacity.  In fact, this admissions season has been quite busy with more than 40 applications in hand for our kindergarten.  This presents its own “problem” as we have to choose only 12 from a list of some wonderful children and families.

But who knows how long this popularity of our school will last? This and other considerations make the job of the strategic planning committee vitally important.   We must use the data we have and to try to predict which key issues will confront our school.  Things like our facility and our relationship with the city will determine if we must one day look at another location.  Other considerations include the curriculum, teacher and student retention, keeping up with technology, our reserve fund, and building a strong alumni association.  In May, the committee will produce a final draft of the plan for the community and at that time we will all be able to share in the vision for GreenMount.  Then it will be up to all members of the GreenMount community - all GreenMountaineers - to do the best we can to preserve this unique and wonderful institution.

            Changing gears just a bit…what happened to the Broncos??  Denver fans must be as crushed as the Seahawks fans are overjoyed.  But this game illustrates our inability to predict outcomes even with considerable data in hand.  I’m not a betting man, but I will bet that there are a lot of people out there this morning who have lightened their pocketbooks after using that data that they considered reliable.  I doubt that anyone could have predicted a point spread of 35!  This just goes to show us that there are so many things that are unpredictable, including the future of our school.

The good news is that, like the Seahawks, GreenMountaineers come to play and to win.  We have the talent in our school community to overcome any obstacle and to keep this school vital and progressive.  The future may have some surprises for us, but we are ready for whatever comes our way. I predict the next five years will be especially grand for the GreenMount School.  Make sure that you remain a part of our success.

           

Cheers,

Steve