HEADLINES……December 14, 2012

Today there was another school shooting.  This time in Connecticut.  Reports are still sketchy, but it appears that there were many victims, including many children.  We are all in a state of disbelief.  How can this happen?  What could possibly drive someone to commit this kind action? 

For us, the question of how we tell our children also emerges.  Our children are all at different places in their development so there is no right answer for our whole school. Our students will not be told about this news at school today.  We ask that parents, after the facts become clearer, use some time this weekend to talk with your children about this tragedy if that’s appropriate for your child.  We urge you to limit their screen time this weekend. TV and video images are especially powerful for kids, and they absorb the images and words that come at them electronically, often without having much time to process what they see and hear.

 What will be most important to our children is our reassurance that they are surrounded by adults who are committed to keeping them safe. Even as we grieve for the families in CT, try to keep your children’s weekend as normal as possible. (How you explain the thousands of extra hugs they’ll get is up to you.) We’ll join with you in the week ahead to let them know that they’re in a safe place, and that the adults at home and at school know how to keep it that way.

On Monday, our teachers will monitor things and discuss the situation with individual children if needed. It will be discussed in classrooms only in an age-appropriate manner.  The teachers of our younger grades may choose not to discuss this matter at all, although we will all be available to any child who needs reassurance.  I would also like to remind parents to use discretion when discussing this in the school.  Remember that many parents have different comfort levels of sharing with their children that should be respected.

Finally, I hope that you will join us in holding today’s victims and their families in the Light.

Dan Hendey

Announcements & Reminders:

Ordering Photos: An email will be sent later today with information about ordering school photos. Be sure to take a look; orders placed by this Sunday will receive free shipping for delivery to the school.

Holiday Gathering: Please join us on Thursday, December 20 at 1:45. We’ll gather in the Community Room for some singing and holiday cheer, followed by cookies and some visiting time before dismissal. (Please bring a plate of cookies or other tasty treat to share.) We’ll dismiss at our normal time of 3:20. Buses will operate as usual and our After School Program will be available for those who need it.

Winter Break: Friends School will be closed from December 21 through January 2. Classes will resume on Thursday, January 3.

Admissions & Next Year:  If your family has a younger sibling you hope to enroll next year, please be sure that Mary knows. Siblings receive priority in the admissions process, and it helps if we know they’re on the way.

Open Houses: We’ll be holding a preschool Open House at our Friends Schoolhouse facility at 611 E. Prospect Ave. on Saturday, January 5 from 9:30 – noon.

Our first K-8 Open House will be held on Friday, January 11 from 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (Mary will be looking for volunteer tour guides for this one. Let her know if you’d be willing.)

HEADLINES…………………………………..December 7, 2012

I once read a quote ---about fishing, oddly enough---that’s stuck with me for years. “The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent fishing.”  For those of us who don’t fish, I believe we can substitute activities of our own choosing while still keeping to the spirit of the quote. For instance, I don’t think I get charged for the time I spend reading, or for any time I spend on a beach. I don’t think time spent petting dogs is deducted, and I’m sure nobody deducts the time I spend in deep conversation with children. I’m also firmly convinced that we never, ever, get charged for 2-hour delays or snow days.

My fondness for delays and cancellations is just as strong today as it was when I was 8. Some of you know that I have a fascination with weather, and a special love for big snow storms. I don’t really enjoy winter overall. I find it to be long and gray and cold and tedious, so when something dramatic, like a blizzard, intervenes to disrupt the monochromatic monotony, I’m happy.  I follow weather developments assiduously, reading forecast discussions, meteorology web sites, and forums and message boards frequented by my fellow ‘weather people’.  I know about the possibility of storms long before they appear, and I follow their approach with excited anticipation.  It’s all I can do sometimes to contain myself, to bite my tongue when I want to tell my fellow 8-year-olds that I’m seeing the possibility of a snow day ahead.

In my imagination, delays and snow days come as beautifully wrapped gifts. They’re lovely presents chosen just for us by heaven or nature or the universe or whatever generous entity has us in its sights on a particular day.  They are gifts that come with a message telling us to slow down, to be kind to ourselves, to do something with this gift of time that we wouldn’t otherwise do. I got an extra half-hour of sleep this morning,  and then wrote a long, newsy email to a favorite friend. As children trickled into school after 10 this morning,  I asked what they’d done with their extra two hours.  Many of them slept a little longer on this dark morning. Others read, or played with pets or siblings. A few had big breakfasts with their families, while some others had done some Hanukah or Christmas preparations. There was a slow softness to the morning. I wondered if it had less to do with weather, and more to do with the extra time we’d all had to begin another busy day. A morning without the rush.

I’m aware that it’s easy for me to enjoy these departures from normal because my nest at home is empty, and I have an employer who not only understands weather delays, but imposes them.  It’s harder when the demands of work and children compete with the desire to make good use of these surprise gifts. Still, I urge you to try. I urge you to use the surprise delays or cancellations of the coming winter to indulge in things you’d never have time for otherwise. Build traditions with your children, things that involve hot chocolate and general coziness, good books and sleds or snowballs, writing letters to grandparents and special friends.  Children grow up quickly, you know, and given the warming of our planet, snow days may soon go the way of the dinosaurs.

Happy weekend---

 Mary Ziegler

Assistant Head of School