Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (May 12, 2014)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

            If you missed Taste of Summer this year, you missed our best event ever.  Thanks to the hard work of parents and staff expertly led by Jill Goodman, we all enjoyed wonderful food (the tuna was my favorite), a huge silent and live auction, and best of all, the opportunity to have some fun with so many in the GreenMount community.

 Among the most impressive auction items were the mosaic tiles that students from every grade created.  They were absolutely stunning!  Each student was given a small portion of a painting and asked to duplicate it in his or her own style.  Some students chose oil paints, water colors or acrylics, while some chose to use just markers and pens.  None of the students had an idea of how the final product would look, but it was simply amazing how beautiful and true to the originals the mosaics are.  If you now own one of these treasures and have buyers’ remorse, I predict that one day your investment will produce a significant return.  Can’t you imagine these works in a children’s museum?  Otherwise, you will retain a truly unique work of art.  My special thanks go to  Jon and Chrissy Maxwell, Tim Parmer, and Elizabeth Reed for hatching this idea, organizing the students and assembling their work for display. This project served as a significant learning opportunity for students as well as a great model for demonstrating how a team of students can come together and create something of significance.

            I would also like to take the opportunity to thank so many of you who expressed their best wishes to me on the occasion of my retirement.  I won’t go into how much it means to me for parents to be so generous with their comments, but I do appreciate your positive words. A few parents asked if I was sad that this was my last Taste of Summer event. My reply is that I am sad that I have to wait another two years for the next one!  And I’ll be here for next year’s Walk to the Green. In the memorable words of The Terminator, “I’ll be back,”

Cheers,

Steve

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