My blog from Houston, Texas. Updated most weeks, usually on Sundays.
As an aside, the concert itself was yet another major tour-de-force for Ms Natasha Ramírez, the Music Teacher for the Lower School’s International Section. It was a privilege to experience the wonderful performances by our students, and to be amazed yet again by the high standards that Ms Natasha is able to elicit from our young students.
Shortly after 11 am, I escorted Gus for an inspection tour of the Levant Foundation Building. The original plan had been for a more extensive tour, but a heavy thunderstorm at the time made the decision to stay indoors a very wise one.
I especially liked Gus’ style when speaking with Mr Willie Roberts. Having just ascertained that the school’s financial position was healthy during his discussion with Mr Nicodemus, Gus proceeded to instruct Mr Roberts to order some Apple iMac computers for the Lower School, “with delivery by Monday please”. I admired Gus’ initiative as well as his taste in computers; meanwhile Mr Roberts dutifully made a note of Gus’ instructions - interestingly in this day and age, using a pen on a piece of paper.
After our walkabout, Gus and I joined five of his friends for a pizza lunch in my office (well, Gus’ office for the day). With Ian, Jacques, Maurits, James and Ali joining us to serve as Gus’ advisory panel, lunch proved to be an enjoyable as well as productive time – Gus sat in the Head’s chair, he used the phone to call home, and he consulted with his panel of friends as a committee to formulate some instructions for change – mainly in the areas of less homework, more sports and better food.
•Not too much homework
•Get flags (for football)
•Introduce cricket (the sport)
•Introduce baseball
•Introduce high school football
•More time for the International Festival
•Have a sandwich bar
•For Francophonie, the Primary School gets assorted chocolate, cheese, etc
•King’s Day licorice and give Cote d’Or (chocolate) at least one time every week
•More steak at lunch
•Give home-cut Belgian fries
•Have an all-you-can-eat buffet
•Milkshakes
•Nacho bar
•Fried chicken once in a while
•Better P.E.
•Baseball Stadium
•Football Stadium
•Whatever shoes
•Personal iPads for school
•Better edgication (sic.)
•No more spelling tests for 4th and 5th Grades (subject to teachers’ agreement)
•Less cheap products
•Dance program for all grades
•More history
•More physics
•More math
•More chemistry
•More science
•Martial arts gym
•Our shirts don’t need to be tucked in (on certain special occasions)
We held two sessions for the State of the School address, the first being at 8:00 am and the second starting at 6:30 pm. Each session lasted for about two hours and represented a feast of transparent communication that touched upon nearly every aspect of the school. I was the opening speaker, and I focussed on admissions, retention rates, curriculum reform (especially the PYP), concluding with an outline of a range of initiatives that are currently underway.
My address was followed by Mr Boualem Maizia, who spoke about matters affecting the French Bilingual Section. He was followed in turn by Ms Gwen Bergman and Mr Greg Walsh to discuss College and University admissions, Mr Hank Nicodemus to discuss the school’s finances, Mr Ronald Jackson (Advancement and Fundraising), Mr Don Davis (the school’s master plan and the imminent start of our next major building project), Ms Karen Joyce-Marie (the new Head of School Search), and proceedings were wrapped up with concluding comments by Mr Mark Schroeder in his role as Chair of the Board.
If you prefer simply to see the visuals of the presentation, you can download a copy of the entire PowerPoint presentation for offline viewing by right-clicking HERE (38.5 MB) or by right-clicking the image to the right (also (38.5 MB).
I think Awty is unusual in making so much information freely available in such an interactive and public manner. If you have not already seen the State of the School address, I encourage you to set aside the two hours it takes to watch the video.
My only regret about the State of the School address is that Gus was not Head of School four days earlier than he was - or alternatively, that the State of the School meetings had not been held four days later. I’m sure that Gus would have handled the challenge brilliantly :-)
Head of School - for just a day
Sunday, 12 May 2013