Back to School Night

Many educators would gladly skip right by Back to School Night. Comfortable doing most anything in front of rooms full of students, they are struck uncharacteristically shy when faced with a room full of adults. Each year I ask each one of our “stafulty” to stand, introduce her/himself, and simply share a kind job description: Kindergarten teacher, Middle School Science, Athletic Director, etc. Many confess that those few minutes (seconds?) are the most nerve-wracking of the entire year.

In contrast, I love Back to School Night and always have. I love the opportunity to meet parents, to describe goals for the year, to encourage a partnership between home and school that will best serve our children. As a teacher, I frequently engaged parents in some sort of activity that returned them to a student mentality. We can forget that our middle school years, for instance, were not always perfect. As a Head of School, I believe it is my job to clarify and reinforce the philosophy and mission of our School and to support the work of my staff. Anyone who knows me understands that I am passionate about what I do, about working with students and teachers and parents, about creating educational communities that demonstrate honesty, integrity, and respect.

So it was with a combination of deep pride and surprising internal emotion that I addressed an assemblage of parents for my last Back to School Night as a Head of School this evening. Intending to talk about this and that, my inside voice noted that, hmmm, I was talking about the other thing. It may be that I got a little hot and bothered about  parents behaving badly (though I refrained from using that term). None of us is perfect, is how I believe I said it.

Then I watched my extraordinary stafulty bring it home, as it were. They exemplified our mission and our honor code. They articulated how we differentiate instruction for the range of students we embrace and how we work with every child to help her to develop into her best self; how we take the time to sit down with every student to help him create goals that are attainable with hard work. I smiled when the middle school faculty consistently referred to The Best Year Yet — a phrase my father used at Thacher School that I now know will live on here at Lake Tahoe School. It is very human to wonder what one’s legacy will be. Tonight I feel very good about mine.

First Week of My Last Year

Forty-six years ago I entered the field of independent school education as a part-time teacher at Green Fields School in Tucson, Arizona. Head of School Nancy Masland took a chance on my college-dropout self and hired me to teach PE, coach a variety of sports, and fill in here and there. Truth to tell, I was the “plus one” accompanying my husband, who was the real catch. Our combined salary was $8,000. We had an 8-month old daughter, Hillary, and bought a house for a grand total of $19,900.  The enrollment of Green Fields never broke 100 while we were there (it is now thriving), and consisted of grades 3-12. To say we started “in the trenches” is an understatement. And yet…I would not now be a Head of School in Incline Village, Nevada, beginning my 46th (and final) year in education had I not experienced such a remarkable beginning.

This past week was the first of the year. I am cognizant of the weight of that statement. I will retire on June 30, 2018. The choice is mine, with the support of a strong Board of Trustees. My goal is to shepherd Lake Tahoe School through one more year and hand a healthy, thriving educational environment to a well-qualified and equally passionate successor. Between now and then, I find myself revisiting the schools and students (nine of them) with whom I have worked over nearly five decades. It is for that reason that I have started this blog. Whether or not any reads it is not important. What matters to me is a forum in which to share memories and lessons learned, to give credit to the multiple generations of students, teachers, administrators, and parents who taught me along the way. If doing so reconnects me with any of those former souls and/or provides a bit of wisdom to help teachers just diving into their own trenches, that will make me glad.