Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (September 23, 2013)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

            Today, I would like to announce the addition of a new staff member.  As those of you who are somewhat observant probably already know, Ms. Kelly is having a baby (a girl) toward the end of November.  She has decided that she will not return to GreenMount, but instead devote all her time to her family as they welcome this new, wonderful addition.  We know that Kelly has been a daily source of positive energy and always ready with a smile for everyone.  She will be especially missed by the students who love her so much.  However, we do wish her the best, and I know that Ms. Kelly and her first girl will visit us sometime following the birth.

In her place, we have hired Mr. Robert Bekas, who comes to us with a great deal of experience and training and the unusual credential of having graduated from a university solely devoted to physical education.  Being from Poland, Robert attended the Academy of Physical Education in Warsaw and has a Master’s of Arts in Physical Education, specializing in fitness and strength training.  As a PE teacher at the St. Catherine Laboure School in Wheaton, Maryland, he had seven years’ experience teaching students K-8.  Unfortunately, that school closed in June, leaving its staff and Mr. Bekas without jobs.  Now, happily, he has found a new home and is anxious to start straight away working with our students and staff.  Please welcome him when you have the chance.

Of course, we wish Kelly nothing but happiness and our gratitude for her service to the children of GreenMount.  She has been a wonderful staff member, always willing to do whatever we asked of her and more.  She will definitely be missed.

            Did you know that it has been five years since we were accredited by the Association of Independent Schools of Maryland and D.C. (AIMS)?  It seems like only yesterday that we went through that very labor-intensive process.  And now it is time for our five-year review.  A team will be coming out in the next month or so to look us over and review our Action Plan.  The Action Plan is the result of our Self-Study, which we completed as part of the accreditation process.  This was an educational process for the entire staff as we looked very closely at what we do for students and ways we could improve our practice.

We created he Action Plan five years ago to address the items that we felt needed to be considered over the 10-year period of our accreditation.  When we created the Action Plan, we spared no part of the curriculum or our daily operations from intense scrutiny.  We viewed everything based on our philosophy and mission and made sure that we are true to our beliefs and ideals.  This year, the staff and board members as well as non-board parents took on the task of reviewing the Action Plan and evaluating the status of our actions. Elaine headed the committee and made sure everyone had a job to do.

Today, the revisions are almost complete, and I am editing the final document that is due on October 1.  I know that we will pass muster again for this review because of all the good work that has gone into the Action Plan.  I am very appreciative to all who participated in this process.  And, by the way, my thanks to all of you for choosing GreenMount for your child.  For it is the community that we have created together that makes us find such favor with AIMS.  Of course, it also helps that we are one of a handful of independent schools across the nation that is at capacity.  AIMS likes that about us….

Cheers,

Steve

Weekly Message from Steve Warner, Head of School (September 9, 2013)

Greetings, GreenMount Community,

            Today, we officially begin our first theme as all of the back-to-school business is completed, and the students are looking forward to their first full week of school.  At today’s Morning Meeting we talked about the first theme, “In a Country, On an Island”.  We are all excited to learn what it is like to live on a tropical island and how cultures develop there. Parents, please let us know if you can contribute to our learning with this theme.

Today, we also reviewed our Pillars and have begun with the Academic Pillar and the goal of “putting forth our personal best.”  We hope that parents will reinforce this idea at home as we will be discussing this with the students all week.

            Attached to this bulletin is the list of faculty members and their qualifications.  We update this list each year, and if you are keeping up with this you will see that our years of overall experience have increased not simply because of the fact that a year has passed, but because we have added staff with more years to our roster.  We welcome Luca Ippolito who will be teaching math primarily to students in grades 5-8.  He has extensive experience teaching mathematics with young students and students at the college level.  It appears that his expectations will be very high, and I expect that students will learn a lot of math in his hands this year.  He also was born and raised in Rome, Italy, and speaks fluent Italian.  If any of you want to practice your Italian, make sure to set aside time to talk to Mr. Luca.

Another new staff member that we are delighted to have here is Catherine Young.  She will be teaching music to all of our students and comes to us with over 30 years’ experience and glowing recommendations from former Baltimore County principals, including yours truly.  I hired Catherine in 1991 and can attest to her dedication and work ethic.  She is an accomplished pianist and is learning the ukulele along with our students.

Finally, we welcome John Monahan, a true scientist whose book, They Called Me Mad (not an autobiography), accompanies his other writing for The Baltimore Sun and his regular broadcasts on WYPR with Dan Rodricks when John is the guest on “Science Friday”.  The students have already shared with me that science is going to be “fun!”.  I’ll have to speak to John; we can’t have students having fun with something as important as science!

            Also attached to this bulletin is the Vision Statement for 2013-14.  As in past years, we conducted sessions with parents, teachers and students to determine what they felt our school should look like in five or 10 years.  Each time we conduct this exercise we come up with some truly visionary ideas.  The students especially have some interesting thoughts, like adding a swimming pool, a second story and a high school.  The latter is a great idea and one that expresses our students’ desire to remain here longer than eighth grade.  Maybe if we added a second story….?  Actually, that’s not going to happen.

We are also just one or two students shy of our maximum enrollment, and plans to expand beyond our new learning cottage are not being considered at this time.  We are actually right up against our 240-foot line of usage in the back of the property and in truth the only way to go would be up.

But we are very happy with the number of students and staff we currently have, and the addition of our new families this year has only enhanced the talent and cooperative nature that we always enjoy.  Welcome to all of those of you who are new to GreenMount.  Please know that we value your input and I hope that you will talk to us often about your impressions. And if you have concerns, do not hesitate to address them with us.  My office door is always open.

Cheers,

Steve