ANTICIPATION!! ‘Looking Forward to the 2019-2020 School Year’

“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories... water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.” 
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés

We have been reeling from the impact of the 2019-2020 budget cuts, mourning the loss of colleagues we have valued and levels of support we know are beneficial to children...budget reductions hurt schools on multiple levels...they do not destroy us, just shock and shake our souls...we will re-vision, re-think, re-invent and work with our families and students to ensure learning continues and thrives - maybe not as we have known and appreciated it but in some new, creative anticipated way...

The dust of change is still swirling, yet beginning to settle and we are making plans for the new school year with growing anticipation! There will be changes - no denying that! There will also be energy - how could there not be energy when 440+ children enter a building wanting to learn? There will also be opportunities - some familiar, like the Studio and the Learning Commons, and some new ones the students have not encountered before. There will be music, art, movement, climbing, building, creating, inventing, designing, hiking, exploring, thinking, trying, failing, trying again, laughter, tears and great joy, for we are a K-4 school where learning is the heart and soul of everything we do - and that is something to celebrate with great anticipation!

Here's what we do know:

• There will be one Kindergarten Pod, with 4 classes, 2 AM and 2 PM, with an average class size of 20 students
• there will be 7 grade 1/2 classes, one Pod of 4 classes and one Pod of 3 classes, with an average class size of 24/25 students
• there will be 7 grade 3/4 classes, one Pod of 4 classes and one Pod of 3 classes, with an average class size of 27/28 students
• we will continue to have a PE specialist (Mr. Der), a Music specialist (Mrs. Coulson) and an Art specialist (Mr. Kelly); although all of them will only be part-time, they will work with all the students over the course of each school week
• the STEM Before/After School Program will move out of the gym into three of the current Joy Pod classes, and there will be a Kindergarten Program as well
• the School Council will be fundraising to support artist-in-residence experiences, still to be determined & finalized 
• our three pillars of focus - Peace Education, Place-Based Learning & Design Thinking - will continue to guide our work
• we will be using Power School regularly to inform parents of student success, as well as for Report Cards
• we will continue to foster community spirit and growth through our collaborations with Tuscany School & Twelve Mile Coulee School
• Peace Education will guide our programming choices (such as Roots of Empathy) and our student leadership opportunities (such as Peace Ambassadors, Families Helping Families, etc)
• We will have another extraordinary year of learning at EHS as we enter our fourth year of operation!

As we close out this school year, I wanted to share with you an email from a teacher  who recently visited our school during Ignite Your Learning time in the morning:

Oh Lorraine....

Ignite Your Learning is brilliant. I am not sure said much more than "Hello" to (Mr. Simmons), as the students had so much going on (and, well, he was busy teaching 😉)

It started with 3 boys running (at a safe and eager speed) to the learning commons to continue writing their books in hopes of getting them published before the end of the year (the best - love these books!!). And then the maker area flooded with students who all had plans and reasons and intentions. "My sister and I talked about it on the weekend and ....", "I have an idea that might work for improving my house in Wonder Time, so I wanted to try out a few different things..." I know that if I come here and just get started, an idea will come to me and I will build something great!" (He says as he is building amazing cardboard goalie pads for street hockey...maybe.

This was my entire 30+ minutes there. Everyone was happy to talk and share, because they all had so much to say....it was a privilege and a good learning experience to be in this space, see it in action and talk with (Mr. Simmons).

Thank-you for allowing me this time with you school. It was just what I needed. 

Sometimes it's important to see things through someone else's eyes, just to remind ourselves how amazing our place of learning truly is:)

Life will always happen to us, regardless of what we think should be happening instead! Our work in schools is to teach resiliency and persistence in learning despite the greatest or most hidden barriers - there is nothing we cannot accomplish together! We are looking forward to an amazing fourth year at EHS with tremendous excitement and anticipation - now that we have had some time to mourn the changes, shift our mindsets and look to the future with the same bright and shining eyes our children bring to school each and every day.

Lorraine Kinsman, Principal