It has been a terrific opening week of school.  

Everything has begun smoothly, as each class commenced the important work of building classroom cultures of respect and self-discipline, the foundations of the responsive classroom. The excitement of the opening of school comes from seeing all the returning students, faculty and staff joined by the newest members of our community.

 

New Faculty

We are so excited to have with us our new teachers, each of whom brings abundant skills and training to our school. 

 

Zak Powers is out new ¾ classroom teacher.   Zak comes to the school with a rich experience and training. He earned his undergraduate degree from Bard in Spanish and Latin American-Iberian Studies.  He earned his Masters in Elementary Education from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.  He did his student teaching at the Henry Lea School where he taught Kindergarten and the Penn Alexander School where he taught third grade.  His teaching experience also includes The Joshua Tree Preschool, the Hardy Williams Academy Mastery Charter School, the Independent Charter School, and the Wissahickon Charter School.  His passions in teaching include the reading and writing workshop format, science and environmental education, and math using a collaborative and inquiry based approach. Zak's references all sang his praises, emphasizing his intelligence, the thoroughness of his research and planning, his high expectations, and his positive relations with his students and fellow teachers. As the Science Methods Instructor and Head of the Elementary Education Program at Penn's Graduate School of Education put it, "he is the teacher I would want for my child."

 

I am also very pleased to announce the appointment of Tony Houston to teach physical education. Tony comes to the school with abundant experience in Quaker schools. He was a student at Abington Friends School, having attended there from prek through 12thgrade. He earned his undergraduate degree from Ursinus.  Since then, he has taught in many Quaker schools, including Westtown, Germantown Friends, Haddonfield Friends, Frankford Friends, the Quaker School at Horsham and most recently Abington Friends.

His demonstration lesson showed his ability to relate well with children, and to encourage their growth with a Quaker mindset.  Among his references, the most recent from Abington spoke of his dependability, his inventiveness and creativity, his strong relationship with kids, and his ability to help children build skills and cooperation.  He also brings racial and gender diversity to our staff.

 

Please also welcome Steve Teare, our new art teacher. Steve comes to LFS with a wealth of experience.  He graduated from and earned his K-12 Art Education certificate from Temple University. He has taught high school and elementary school in the School District of Philadelphia, including the E.M. Stanton Elementary School, the Newlin Fell Elementary School, the Thomas Morton Elementary School and the Edward Bok Technical High School.  He has curated student-illustrated comic book anthologies for the Mural Arts and Asian Arts Initiative. He has been an artist-in-residence with Clementine Montessori, where he worked with students in animation and design.  His references speak highly of his excellent teaching, his rapport with students, his ability to work with adults, his creativity in designing curricula, his professionalism, his abundance of great ideas, his work ethic and his ability to get things done. One of Steve's passions is story-telling which comes out in one of his favorite art forms of comic books and graphic novels.  He reports that narrative art forms are very therapeutic for young people to engage in.  He is a working artist, and is presently working on a graphic novel with a Cambodian refugee.

 

Please join me in welcoming Zak, Tony and Steve to our community.

 

New Kitchen and Website

We hope all of you have a chance to see our new kitchen.  It has beautiful new granite countertops, two new stoves, a new freezer, tile around the outside, and new handles for the cabinets.  The property committee very consciously wanted to retain the homey feel of our lunchroom, but improve the look and functionality of it.   I would like to thank the members of the Property Committee, including Phoebe Titus, Dana Robinson, Carol Martsolf, Skyler Borgman and Harold DeGroat, for all the time they put into this project.

 

We also hope that you have had a chance to see our new website.  Many of you gave us valuable input, which was most helpful for P'unk Avenue, our website designers. The site is beautiful, easy to navigate and accessible on mobile devices, and it shows the school well and tells our story.

 

I hope to see all of you tonight at the Playground Picnic.

 

Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Teacher John.