At the Schoolhouse Door

Message from the Head of School

August 2, 2010

Dear SRV Parents:

I feel very fortunate to be joining the SRV community as Head of School, and I'd like to share a few thoughts on that feeling.

This will be my 29th year in education–as a teacher and administrator, and way more as a student. In fact, it feels as if I've never not been going back to school in September! But that is looking back–September always turns my gaze ahead. School is new every time, regardless of the number of years or number of schools one has attended or worked in. I think in part this is because we are all new every time we meet ourselves at the schoolhouse door. There's a binary vision to that.

When our son Spencer started school, Joe Segar, his first principal and my boss, sent me a poem by Howard Nemerov: "September, The First Day of School." Nemerov wrote as a father observing himself as he delivered a young boy to his teachers, and I always read it as father, teacher, and son. School binds us together in a rich, complex life tapestry. School grinds together, Nemerov says, the alphabet and Shakespeare; integers (I loved Lauren's reference to Grace's use of this word in her August letter last year) and Euler's law; the chance for a life opened up and set free by law or phantasy.

My child and I hold hands on the way to school,
And when I leave him at the first grade door
He cries a little but is brave; he does
Let go. My selfish tears remind me how
I cried before that door a life ago.
I may have had a hard time letting go.

The father in him has arrived at the same door of his own letting go as a boy, a lifetime ago, while also realizing that he will return, still the student, but with the pangs of the parent, for the same young man finishing 18 years hence. He thinks of the incredible act of trust it is to place him in the hands of his teachers, trust in the very functions and foibles of school itself. It's a hand off that we all make every year, with greater and greater ease and less ceremony after that first big day. The first time is the biggest hand off. Nemerov writes, summoning a humble desire,

May the fathers he finds
Among his teachers have a care of him
More than his father could. How that will look
I do not know, I do not need to know.
Even our tears belong to ritual.
But may great kindness come of it in the end.

I've carried it with me through many first days, as our own children started their school careers and as I prepared for new students in my own classes. It is the peculiar privilege of people who work in schools to enjoy an inaugural day of our own every year as we watch the newcomers enter the schoolhouse doors. I had 22 of my own student first days, 18 with each of my children, not counting college; and now my 29th as a teacher. But each time I am new.

Clearly, our family will continue arriving here for a while. Lesley, Ariel, and I moved into our house on Possum Hollow Road during that big thunderstorm on June 25th. Our other daughter, Hilary, visited last week (with her dogs; the house shrank further), and as I write Lesley and she are en route to Texas where Hilary will begin a year as a teaching fellow, working in kindergarten. She's going into the family business. And I am standing at the schoolhouse door again as her father, her teacher, and my own school leader.

For a while, I want to enjoy my newness and the particular lens it gives me through which to view SRV. It is a binary lens, after all. Seeing a certain slant of light, hearing a overheard conversation or a colleague's laughter, witnessing an accomplishments in art, music, math; ducking into a fort in the woods, the fragrance of crayons, snap me back into another school time and place–the little textures that root me in the wholesomeness and sense of familiarity with this place. But I guess I would like to hold on to that feeling of newness that returns with each September.

Allow me to express my gratitude for the gracious welcome and superb guidance and introductions of our administrative team: Lauren (Assistant Head of School), Laurie (Admissions and Institutional Advancement), Kim (Admissions Assistant, 2 days), Nava (Business Manager) and KJ (Office Manager). The institutional wisdom and professional guidance are in place for continuity and a terrific year. We are all only a phone call or e–mail away–and ready to be supportive and helpful.

Here are a few events in the immediate future to which I look forward:

Water Ice Night: I look forward to meeting the families that will be new to SRV next Thursday, 8/12, at 6:30–8:00.

Family Picnic/Parent orientation on September 10, 5:30–7:30.

Back to School Nights, September 20–23. Please know that I'll make myself available prior to the classroom programs for informal greeting on each of the nights. Picture days are also this week.

New staff: Rachel Caplan (MC teacher), and assistant teachers Carol Lastowka (3–day pre–school), Sunday Casey (5–day pre–school) join us. You will learn more about Rachel, who hails from Chicago's Francis Parker School (a prominent progressive K–12 school), in the September FREEP. Carol and Sunday are a little more familiar faces as current SRV parents and alumnus.

This packet contains numerous important forms, some of which must be returned to school. Please give them your attention and, if any of them seem perplexing, ask for guidance from the right person on the administrative team. Our web site contains the updated Parent Handbook and School Directory and back–up info that you'll find helpful all year. Please contact the office for the password for the directory.

Please know that I look forward to greeting you on various upcoming occasions, and of course on the Big Day: Wednesday, September 8th. On behalf of my colleagues, thank you in advance for your trust. See you at the schoolhouse door.

Warmly,

Todd R. Nelson
Head of School

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20 School Lane : Rose Valley, PA 19063 : 610.566.1088 : office@theschoolinrosevalley.org