NYSAIS conference notes

November 08, 2017

NYSAIS conference notes

Last week, I attended the New York State Association of Independent Schools’ Heads of School conference. The opening keynote was Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian Nobel Peace prize winner, who became a social worker during the war, and helped organize an interreligious coalition of Christian and Muslim women called the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement. Thousands of women staged pray-ins and nonviolent protests demanding reconciliation and the resuscitation of high-level peace talks. The pressure pushed dictator Charles Taylor into exile, and smoothed the path for the election of Africa’s first female head of state, Leymah's fellow 2011 Nobel Peace laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Gbowee is the founder and president of Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, which provides educational and leadership opportunities to girls, women and the youth in West Africa. She talked about fostering engagement in independent schools. I would have liked to hear more about her work in Liberia.

The second speaker was Dr. Charles Vogl, the author of a book The Art of Community, Seven Principles for Belonging, and frequent speaker on community and belonging. In addition to citing statistics on the alarming increase of loneliness, he took us on a personal journal as he described what building community looked like for him as a divinity graduate student at Yale, struggling to find a community for himself. His beautiful talk resonated with me as I thought of how we build community at Woodland Hill and how we might continue to do so effectively. As an example, I was in the kitchen working with the students on lunch clean-up and was next to two Middle School students who were chatting and drying dishes together intensely talking about school work, grades and expectations. They sorted through their problems through drying dishes and talking. The practical life activity of being in the kitchen and talking together is therapeutic. (Remember that when asked to volunteer for pizza lunch too!)

We also heard Dr. Timothy Snyder, Yale history professor and author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. He talked about the definition of democracy, what history has taught us, lessons that we need to pay attention to right now and what changes have happened recently that must be addressed. It was extremely interesting (I frankly struggled to keep up and wished I had a pause and rewind button that I could back up to repeat!). I encourage you to view this C-SPAN interview with him that is only 30 minutes and touches on many of the same points.

We also heard from the Executive Director of the National Association of Independent Schools, Donna Orem, whose talk entitled Tipping Point for Schools Today gave us an overview of who our current students are and some statistics about them, including population projections for children, increased student debt, tuition affordability, differences between millennials and Gen Xers, and new ideas for school models. Interestingly, we already have some of the ‘new’ aspects to our school, such as student-centered classrooms, fewer lectures, more project-based learning, fewer ‘traditional’ teachers, and an emphasis on work-ready skills for the future.

Our NYSAIS board retreat was very interesting, but also very disturbing as it was focused on sexual misconduct and abuse. The attorney, Caryn Pass from Venable, LLP, reviewed best practice on hiring, employee handbooks, mandated reporting and what to do to ensure the safety of our students. She also provided a workshop on hot legal topics in education practice, which covered a lot of what was presented earlier at the confernce.

Our new lunch providers, Tierra Farm, have been making a nutritious lunch twice each week. Each week I have solicited feedback from the teachers who have noticed what the children are eating and have been asking them what they like and don’t like, and each week the lunch has improved. Small things like the size of the pasta or the amount of rice have been adjusted to better meet the tastes and needs of the children. We would appreciate your feedback too. Please email me with any thoughts or ideas on school lunch. skambrich@woodlandhill.org

Charles Vogl

These are my mentors: to my right is Pat Werner who has been the Head of School at Washington Montessori School for the past 42 years and is retiring this year. She was my Administrator Trainer in 2000 when I first started as Head of School. To my left is Dane Peters, former Head of Brooklyn Heights Montessori and also former Board member on the NYSAIS and AMS board who helped me learn good governance and board service.