Dear Families,
As the current temperatures confirm, summer is still with us, albeit approaching its waning days. It has been a season unlike all its predecessors. We immersed ourselves in preparation for a possible return to campus, hybrid style, only to have our plans held in abeyance as we learned that the status of COVID-19 in Los Angeles had necessitated a pivot to remote learning. The faculty and staff embraced the change, and we collaborated as a teaching community to create Remote Learning 2.0.
Today we will continue to reflect on the past to inform our practice and prepare students for an unknowable future. Most importantly, however, we will focus on the present. That is why we are particularly excited about our theme for this year, Embrace the Moment. This call to the community encourages and promotes the qualities and dispositions that we aspire to model and instill in our students. We want them to cultivate mindfulness, resilience, and gratitude while capitalizing on opportunities, taking risks, making a difference, and living fully in the present. It is proactive; it is empowering; it is aspirational.
There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday, and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do, and mostly live. —The Dalai Lama
As we begin our school year, we will heed the Dalai Lama’s words as we care for your child by building trusting relationships and their social-emotional well-being. We will know your child as a student and support their academic growth. And we will cultivate their development as a democratic and socially-just member of a global community through our human rights and racial literacy curricula. Facing the new year, we will strive to Embrace the Moment … and, might I add, make it count.
With warmest regards filled with optimism,
Denise