Dear Parents,
Today we celebrate Earth Day! It is a special day to honor and celebrate God’s beautiful creation. It is also a day to remind us of the great responsibility we have to take care of the Earth. This time of sheltering in place has allowed us to see just exactly how much impact we have on the earth and its resources. Hopefully as we return to life as usual we will remember these lessons and make changes that will affect the earth for the better.
As we continue with remote learning for the remainder of the year we will follow the school calendar. On Friday, May 1st, the students will be off school for a teacher professional development day. The students can use this day to catch up on their assignments or take time to relax. Following the calendar the last day of class for our 8th graders will be on May 29th and for the rest of the school the last day will be June 5th. There are many wonderful celebrations that take place in May as well. We are looking at virtual ways to still have these celebrations and will keep you updated with when these will take place.
We recognize that for our 8th-grade students not being at school is particularly challenging. We are thinking of creative ways that we can celebrate our wonderful 8th graders. One of the ways is to give them special “shout-outs.” Every week we will be honoring a few of our eight grade students in our Wednesday Round-up. We are so proud of the remarkable young men and women the eighth graders have become and we want to celebrate them as a school community. This week we are featuring Camden, Deirdre and Brud. Please see below my letter for their “shout-outs.” As you can see from their own words and our teachers’ words they really explemfily what it means to be a graduate of The Academy.
Every morning at The Academy we started our day together with prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. We will be doing this every Tuesday morning as a way to still come together as a community and pray. We will be sending out a link to the video and we are asking that all students join us on Tuesday mornings to begin the school day with prayer and the pledge along with any announcements.
The faculty and Board of the Academy are grateful to our families for the support you provide your students and us. We know it has been an adjustment to have the children learning remotely and appreciate your role in making this possible. It is our prayer that God will guide us through these difficult moments with grace, love and health.
Sincerely,
Kristina Reyes
A poem by Catherine (Kitty) O’Meara, a retired teacher from Madison, Wisconsin/March 2020
***
And people stayed at home
And read books
And listened
And they rested
And did exercises
And made art and played
And learned new ways of being
And stopped and listened
More deeply
Someone meditated, someone prayed
Someone met their shadow
And people began to think differently
And people healed.
And in the absence of people who
Lived in ignorant ways
Dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
The earth also began to heal
And when the danger ended and
People found themselves
They grieved for the dead
And made new choices
And dreamed of new visions
And created new ways of living
And completely healed the earth
Just as they were healed.
