" From the Board" Newsletter

" FROM THE BOARD" NEWSLETTER

January, 2019 - Edition 2

A warm greeting to the Escuela Americana community, on our Second edition of “From the Board” Newsletter!

The relevance of Escuela Americana Bylaws

Dear EA Community:

Happy New Year! Wishing you all the best as we make a brand-new start for 2019 and the second half of our school year. During the November edition , we provided guidance and clarification to the strategic role of an Escuela Americana board member and invited you to our round-tables for improvement ideas.

Thanks to everyone who participated during our round-tables. Based on everything that we talked about and everyone’s inputs, we have listened to what you had to say about board member elections. We are pleased to tell you that we are moving towards updating our bylaws in order to better reflect this.

Why update?

Since the nature of Escuela Americana is an association, board members are elected by EA parents. We are proposing that our bylaws reflect for future elections, that an ad-hoc election council is formed prior to elections to review the applications and ensure they meet the criteria for being a board member (Series 100) . The election council members will be appointed by the board but will not be board members to ensure independence. Potential election council members may include former board members, current parents in leadership organizations, and those who uphold the EA spirit.

Updating bylaws to allow for a revised board member selection process would also mitigate the risk of high turnover of board members, which in turn has the consequence of ensuring control over the endurance of EA’s mission.

All board members are volunteers, fiduciaries (having the nature of trust), oversee the General Director, guard the strategic mission & vision, adding value through the 5 established committees (Advancement, Governance, Finance, EAX, and Buildings & Grounds) which will engage additional community stakeholders.

The board believes that we need to update bylaws to drive the school in the strategic direction that we wish for the future and allow for board member election to conform with the present world-class private school standards -- driving the right parental behaviors and minimize posing risks to such critical issues as AdvancED accreditation, the General Director’s continuity, and having a sustainable strategy for teachers and staff to follow.

The desired board member must be fully competent in his or her ability to separate their own child’s interests from the broader interests of the school. Furthermore, board members need to be fully capable of reasoning beyond the perspective of their own child’s experience. Board members need to add value with their wisdom, rather than subtract value by consuming board time with day to day administrative matters that are entirely the responsibility of the General Director of the school. According to Triangle consultants M. Frankel and J. Schechtman: “Board members are often focused on whether or not the head of school is performing well, while their own behavior has an equal or even greater potential for disrupting the school.”

Please stay tuned as we will deploy more information for the bylaws updates before our formal request to the General Assembly. If anyone has any comments or questions, feel free to address them to: eaboard@amschool.edu.sv . or schedule an appointment with our General Director, Dr. Polly Parker and me.

Best regards,

Carlos Moreno

Escuela Americana Board of Directors

Reflections regarding Student Success/Quality of Life

Dear EA Community Members,

During my first 6 months at EA, I have really enjoyed visiting with many stakeholders of our school. Students, parents, teachers, and other staff have all been so very friendly and shared so much wonderful information and I look forward to learning more as the second half of the school year begins.

In addition to the great things about EA, I have been troubled to learn that students as young as 4th grade have been suffering from extensive anxiety related to their academic performance at school. These perceptions have been corroborated by our school counselors and teachers who have also reported high levels of stress related to academic performance that has manifested in lack of sleep, general anxiety and even panic attacks related pressures attached to grades. Additional surveys have shown that during the past 15 years, there has been more than a 30% increase in students in both secondary schools and universities who seek mental health services for anxiety related issues.

In addition to these academic stressors, other research in the past 10 years has found that the increased use of technology/social media has been a significant contributor to these new levels of anxiety in our youth. If we think about it, our students live two lives: their digital life and their daily life at school and home. Their social media life can include a focus on "keeping up with their friends" through the projection of images conveying happiness, excitement, and continual success as defined by their peers. This illusion of perpetual bliss conveyed by social media may directly contradict the "in person" life that probably may be less exciting since that reality often includes dealing with common family issues, school related stressors, and normal adolescent concerns such struggles with friends and more intimate relationships, as well as dealing with peer pressures related to alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.

Within the social media life, our children are faced with constant comparisons to their peers where intelligence, athleticism, perceptions of physical attractiveness and popularity along with socio-economic status may leave kids burdened with an unnecessary sense of inferiority that perpetuates unhealthy contemplation regarding their worth in relation to their peers. This potentiality for comparison surfaces on a daily, hourly or even minute by minute basis throughout their day due to the ongoing connection to the unrealistic narratives communicated from the cyber world and I believe that this influence also has a direct connection with increased anxiety, depression, brain development, self-esteem and lack of sleep.

We as parents and educators can help our students navigate these turbulent waters of childhood/adolescence by helping them achieve balance in their lives. In addition to setting expectations for academic excellence that is focused on personal best and not a comparison with others, we need to make sure that our students are participating in activities that speak to their individual passion that provides joy in their lives, quality down time with family/friends, and provide a tempered focus not solely on the perceived success provided by honor roll or other academic accolades such as acceptance at a prestigious college or university. In keeping with these ideas, I offer the following:

I feel it necessary to remind everyone that there is no correlation between high standardized test scores and success in college and adult life .

Some tips for all of us as parents:

Talk to your children about sleep and "down time" -what does that mean to them?
What time are they really going to bed? Are their devices in their bedrooms?
Reflect upon the pressures of high grades and its importance in relation to being a good human being?
Reflect upon "resume building" for college. We know that colleges today are not looking for the student with the long resume but the student who has done something amazing or contributed above and beyond to a specific cause that is meaningful for the student.
What activities are you doing as a family to promote wellness?
What activities provide your children an opportunity to enhance personal well-being?
Reconsider calling or texting your students at school for any reason, by choosing not to text or call during class time you are modeling respect for the learning process and teachers. If you have an emergency, call your student's division office and the message will be promptly relayed. Students often feel the need to respond immediately and their stress increases when they are challenged between responding home and/or following the phone use policies.
Are we elevating the importance of high grades above character built resilience and "grit"? Why is that?
Are we recognizing that too much "screen time" is harmful to brain development and self -esteem?
Provide opportunities to reflect upon the inconsistencies of social media life and how that influence can have a negative effect on self-esteem and self-worth.

I would like to encourage everyone to make a commitment to reflecting upon these issues with our students. As a community, we can all support our kids by addressing wellness, anxiety, and brain development so that each student has the opportunity to grow, develop their natural talents, and love school as they strive for their personal best along the way.

Looking forward,

Dr. Polly Parker

General Director

Escuela Americana

Principles of Good Practice - Board of Directors

Preamble: The following principles provide common ground for interaction between independent school professionals and their many constituents (parents, students, colleagues at other schools, and the public). The NAIS Principles of Good Practice for member schools define high standards and ethical behavior in key areas of school operations to guide schools in becoming the best education communities they can be, to embed the expectation of professionalism, and to further our sector’s core values of transparency, excellence, and inclusivity. Accordingly, membership in NAIS is contingent upon agreement to abide by the spirit of the PGPs.

Overview: The board is the guardian of the school’s mission. It is the board’s responsibility to ensure that the mission is relevant and vital to the community it serves and to monitor the success of the school in fulfilling its mission.

Principles of Good Practice:

1.The board adopts a clear statement of the school’s mission, vision, and strategic goals and establishes policies and plans consistent with this statement.

2.The board reviews and maintains appropriate bylaws that conform to legal requirements, including duties of loyalty, obedience, and care.

3.The board assures that the school and the board operate in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, minimizing exposure to legal action. The board creates a conflict of interest policy that is reviewed with, and signed by, individual trustees annually.

4.The board accepts accountability for both the financial stability and the financial future of the institution, engaging in strategic financial planning, assuming primary responsibility for the preservation of capital assets and endowments, overseeing operating budgets, and participating actively in fundraising.

5.The board selects, supports, nurtures, evaluates, and sets appropriate compensation for the head of school.

6.The board recognizes that its primary work and focus are long range and strategic.

7.The board undertakes formal strategic planning on a periodic basis, sets annual goals related to the plan, and conducts annual written evaluations for the school, head of school, and the board itself.

8.The board keeps full and accurate records of its meetings, committees, and policies and communicates its decisions widely, while keeping its deliberations confidential.

9.Board composition reflects the strategic expertise, resources, and perspectives (past, present, and future) needed to achieve the mission and strategic objectives of the school.

10.The board works to ensure all its members are actively involved in the work of the board and its committees.

11.As leader of the school community, the board engages proactively with the head of school in cultivating and maintaining good relations with school constituents as well as the broader community and exhibits best practices relevant to equity and justice.

12.The board is committed to a program of professional development that includes annual new trustee orientation, ongoing trustee education and evaluation, and board leadership succession planning.

(Excerpted from NAIS's Trustee Handbook, 10th edition, by Donna Orem and Debra P. Wilson)