Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (May 14, 2012)

Greetings GreenMount Community,

            Power to the Parents!!  If we could choose one way to showcase the community spirit that exists so strongly at GreenMount, it would be Taste of Summer.  All year long, parents make significant contributions of their time, expertise and considerable energy, but this one event seems to be the steamroller activity that engages so many and with such energy.  The troops muster as a “call to arms” is signaled. From every doorway in our school community come chefs, landscapers, artists, floral design specialists, auctioneers,  lighting experts, and a plethora of “worker bees” who almost trip over each other helping with the planning, solicitation, setting up, serving, and clean-up.  Never will you see a more dedicated, hard-working group of parents.  And it will be a significant stretch for anyone on the planet to find someone like Jill Goodman.  I hope that everyone realizes the professionalism and intelligent approach to development that she has brought to our school and her sense of taste, which gives our small school, big school class and sophistication.  We love being different at GreenMount, but adding some real class helps us realize that we can also compete well with other schools for talented, caring families.

            Taste of Summer was a very successful event and, once the counting is done, I am sure we will realize our monetary goal.  But as Jill points out, the value of this event may be greater than that which is measured in dollars and cents.  Everyone was just having fun and appreciating each other.  We got to see the social side of our community and appreciate so many other things about grown-ups other than the fact that they are parents of our students.  We got to see some interesting dancers, too! 

            Finally, we must consider how this fantastic event affects our students.  Many of them enjoyed a night away from the watchful eyes of their parents and had control of the clicker (I know what that feels like).  But more importantly, they understand that their parents are part of a larger community that works together to achieve many things for our school, and for them.  We also see evidence of the contributory spirit of parents in our kids.  This morning, students coming into the gym saw that we were cleaning up and immediately asked what they could do to help.  They get this from you and already have learned the value of cooperative group efforts – a great bonus of the CO-OP.

             At today’s Monday Morning Meeting, we were treated to The Soul Seven production that our Destination Imagination team will take to compete in Tennessee.  It was excellent!  And tomorrow WBAL-TV 11 News will be here to see the production and to do a story on our kids.  Stay tuned!

Cheers,

Steve

                

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (April 16, 2012)

Greetings GreenMount Community,

            On May 7, at 6:30 p.m., we will have our All Family Meeting, and as part of the meeting I will present a brief “state of the school” address.  Basically, I will be telling you that the school is prospering and we are in a healthy state financially.  We anticipate that we will have nearly full enrollment of about 102 students when we open our doors in September.  With that expectation we have made some staffing changes, which I now present to you:

            Ms. Pam will be moving to take over the 2^nd/3^rd grade class and Ms. Tanza will become the 4/5 homeroom teacher.  Ms. Elizabeth will not have a homeroom this coming year.  We have been in the process of hiring a new full-time teacher to be responsible for middle school language arts along with other teaching duties for the lower grades.  It is interesting to note that I have interviewed 15 individuals for this position, five of whom the entire staff will interview next week.  We have had a great response to our position posting on the AIMS web site and many of those who responded are very talented.  We will know by next Friday which candidate we will be hiring.  Other full-time staff positions will remain the same.  However, until we complete the schedule, we will not be able to tell you what each teacher’s responsibilities will be.

On the part-time side, I am sorry to announce to you that Mr. Ellis will not be returning next year.  It seems that his incredible talent as a musician has resulted in more and more requests for his presence as such and he has decided to dedicate his full time to the expansion of his art.  Mr. Ellis has long been an important and creative member of our community and has become the friend of all he has met.  He will be missed in the classroom, playing for our theme events and herding eighth graders around the jungles of Costa Rica. As this Monday newsletter goes home, he has not yet shared the information about his departure with the students and I expect he will be talking to them tomorrow during his classes.  I think it safe to say that the students do not read my head message, so please keep this information confidential until tomorrow.  The Cultural Studies program will continue, but in the form in which it originated.  That is, Cultural Studies will only be offered for students in grades 6-8.  Mr. Fletcher will be taking on that responsibility as part of his teaching load.  More to follow…

            You have heard me talk often about our efforts to have students understand the meaning of excellence.  We have been working with students to foster an intrinsic desire to do excellent work and, indeed, such is the case with many of our students.  A wonderful case in point is the fact that this weekend our Destination Imagination team (The Soul Seven) competed in the state finals, having won the regional finals already.  Their hard work and pursuit of an excellent solution to their “problem” has resulted in the opportunity to compete in the GLOBAL competition to be held Memorial Day weekend in Tennessee!  This is an outstanding accomplishment, a tribute to excellence and a very special way for our school to be represented on a global scale.  This recognition also is a tribute to our efforts as a school community to foster creativity, risk-taking, and innovation.  Additionally, it is a credit to the support of parents like Linda Pietila and Dale Meyers, who provided the encouragement and support for this team to reach such heights.  We are all very proud of the parents and students who have earned The GreenMount School this recognition.

Cheers,

Steve

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (March 13, 2012)

Greetings GreenMount Community,

                This morning, at our Monday Morning Meeting, we unveiled our new climbing wall and discussed safety and certain rules to follow.  Ms. Kelly will be receiving some personal staff development from Gary Dunn, of Alpine Inspirations, who has donated his time and energy consulting and then finally installing the holds on the wall.  Gary is very knowledgeable and has created many walls for gyms and specialty venues that offer this kind of activity.  He was very impressed with the job that our parents did in creating the wall and especially the mural, completed by Chris Marsico last week, which gives the authentic look of a rock face.  You should come in and see it.  Please make sure that you have completed the release form so that your child can participate in climbing activities.  For your peace of mind, here are some rules we will be following:

1. No one is allowed on the wall without adult supervision.
2. Students may not place their feet above the center line of the wall (4 feet from the floor).
3. A student starting from left to right on the wall must wait until the student in front of him/her has passed the center point of the wall under the basket.
4. Mats must always be in place (doubled) before any climbing can be done.
5. All climbers will be spotted as they climb.
6. Students will report immediately any holds that seem loose.

Today, we received some especially good news: our two teams who participated in “Destination Imagination” returned from this weekend’s tournament with first-place recognition!  This is quite a feat as they competed against teams throughout the city and county region.  Particularly significant is the fact that other schools in the competition typically have more students from which to choose; our small population would seem, therefore, at a disadvantage.  But these are GREENMOUNT STUDENTS who are confident and creative!  They only need to be given the opportunity and they rise to the occasion.  The students listed below (omitting last names) were coached by Linda Pietila and Dale Meyer, who gave a great deal of their time meeting with the students after school each week and sometimes on the weekends.  We are truly grateful for their participation.  I must mention how difficult their jobs are as coaches.  The students have to come up with solutions to the “problems” on their own.  The coaches can only be Socratic in their approach and cannot participate in the final product the students create.  They do, however, present the students with many problems to solve to teach collaborative work and critical thinking.  The competitive piece is the creation of the students only. 

The next step for our teams is the state competition, from which they could go on to a national and then the world competition.  Wow! This is a big deal!

Congratulations to our GreenMount winners:

GreenMount Soul Seven:                                                  

Chloe B.                                                                        

Eliza P.                                                                              

Sydney S.                                                                    

Tali S.                                                                              

Jeffrey O.                                                               

Tess P.                                                                       

Cecelia R.

 Gr 8t Kids:                                                                                                            

 Annie A.

Shanda N.

Casey Y.

Mattias H.

Nina D.

Elias M.

 ON TO STATE! – APRIL 14 

Cheers,

Steve