Dear Parents:
We have had a busy close to June! Summer campers arrived on Monday, June 28 for their first two week session. Some of you may have seen me talking about our summer programs – and our new drama offerings – on FATV’s Inside Fitchburg June 15th. I will be discussing them again on Groton Cable Access TV’s Around Town on July 8. If you are looking for a special opportunity for your child from July 26 – August 6, contact Emily Lent (elent@applewild.org) about the drama electives. They include a one day “stage fighting and combat” workshop with two leading area stage choreographers.
I will be introducing our new Admission Director Emily Bracchitta at various gatherings this summer, including on the Groton channel July 8. If you have a suggestion for a gathering or activity at which Emily would be welcome, please let her or me know. She spent several days with Terry Perlmutter and our staff in mid June and is eager to get to know our families and surrounding communities. My thanks to Terry for assuring a smooth transition.
We also helped the Crocker family celebrate 100 years on “Crocker Hill” at a family reunion over the June 25 weekend. There were 86 members of the family in attendance, ranging in age from 2 months to 92 years old and from as far away as Montreal, California, and New Jersey! What we call Crocker House was built in 1910-11 by CT and Fay Crocker and called Applewild, hence the 100th celebration – and the name of our school. It was particularly meaningful to me that we were able to celebrate 100 years with the Crockers in the same year that we also celebrated our 50th graduation. More information will be in the fall Cider Press.
For those who did not attend the Ninth Grade Graduation on June 16, I include the concluding remarks from Nina Duggan, Gordon Lacey, and Riley Smith. They provide a moving reminder of what it means to be an Applewild student. I shared them with the Crocker family members as part of my welcome to them. As you can imagine, the attendees were both touched and impressed that their gift to the school has made such a difference over the past 53 years (We opened in 1957 but did not graduate ninth graders until 1960).
I have also attached an excerpt from my remarks at the Eight Grade Luncheon. Several parents appreciated my remarks about ethical behavior and asked for a copy. It is interesting that the ninth graders made similar key points about core values in their concluding remarks.
Calendar Changes
Enclosed with this mailing is a twelve month calendar, together with orientation trip materials for Upper School. As I wrote last summer, this past year was the last in which we will publish a “pictorial calendar.” The calendar on the web is more reliable. The enclosed provides you with key dates, including changes to year end.
At the year end faculty meetings, the Upper School faculty and Administration decided to split the graduations for eighth and ninth grades that will occur in June 2011. This will give us all a specific opportunity to celebrate each class. Note that graduation for eighth graders will be formally on Friday, June 10. These students will still be expected to attend Recognition Day the next Tuesday and Ninth Grade Graduation on Wednesday. Moving Up Day for fifth graders is an internal celebration, so we will put it where it best fits in the last few days of school.
Summer Faculty Work
Several faculty members are on campus in July to continue our investigation of best practices in teaching mathematics. My thanks to Janet Cowan for developing a program for our participants. Others will be on campus learning more about the Activ Board with Lynda Gregson and Mike Grant. Jenn Buck, Michelle Janoschek, and Pam Meehan are attending summer workshops in math instruction, and Michelle and Milissa Cafarella will be learning more about our new Digi-Block manipulatives initiative that also arose out of the mathematics review. More about that will also be in the Cider Press. Jen Caldwell is attending a conference on differentiation and will be leading a summer reading group of faculty focusing on Rick Wormeli’s book Fair Isn’t Always Equal. All faculty and many on the staff will be reading The Third Teacher this summer as a result of a Department Chairs’ initiative.
Faculty will also be working with our new librarian, Amelia Herring, to assure her transition to Applewild. Amelia comes back to Massachusetts after having lived in Harvard and graduating from Bromfield High School. From there she went to Vassar, graduating in 2005 with a degree in Psychology. After working as a writer in Boston for four years, she moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington library program, from which she graduated in June 2010. Amelia was an assistant librarian at the Suzzallo Library at the university and did directed field work in a community library, where she worked with young children, and at University Preparatory Academy, where she worked primarily with Middle School students.
After reading Outliers last summer, the Mathematics Department adopted a more formal approach to summer math work. Since the school year in the US is 40 – 60 days shorter than that of students in Asia, it is not surprising that, over 12 years of schooling, our students are 1 - 2 years behind in math. We want our students to be more competitive than that! The Math Department has also created a couple of summer math problems for faculty, too, so we are both reading and computing this summer, just as our students do. Remember that the summer reading packets are online. If you want hard copy, contact your student’s Division Head.
While we all have “summer work” to complete, then, we also need to provide some down time, what I call ‘summer clock” time, for ourselves and our children. Find ways to provide them plenty of time for the unstructured play of summer that creates independence, problem solving ability and self-awareness. Have a wonderful summer!
Sincerely,
Christopher B. Williamson
Head of School