Reaching 100 Means it's Time to Celebrate!

Reaching 100 is always a cause for celebration and on Monday our senior kindergarteners took full advantage by coming together for an afternoon of activities to recognize the 100th day of school. Their fun learning projects included: 

• counting 100 steps from a certain location and seeing how far that takes them 
• trying to bounce a ball 100 times (while standing inside a hula-hoop) 
• recording how many words can be made from the letters that comprise the words "one hundred days" 
• decorating paper "100" eye glasses 
• putting 100 dots on special 100-day hats 
• making Fruit Loop necklaces with 100 loops 
• counting to 100 by ones, fives, and tens 
• finding 100 words hidden around the room 
• rolling dice and then racing to roll enough numbers to add up to 100.

As I look back over the first 100 days of school, I believe the Administration and Board have made solid and substantial progress in many areas, including a strong Strategic Planning process, our self-study work as part of our re-accreditation by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS), great momentum for our Annual Giving Program, and a thoughtful, energetic, and comprehensive review of our security protocols (more to follow on this important topic in the coming weeks). Our students are benefiting from the new outdoor athletic facilities and the 1:1 Program, among other innovations new this school year. Thank you to all the members of the USM community who play a key role in our work – perhaps we should all get a pair of those glasses!

Guiding Principles Reaffirmed: USM Self-Study Continues

I would like to share the School’s Guiding Principles with you. Together with our Mission Statement, our Common Trust, and our Diversity Statement, our Guiding Principles represent our School philosophy. 

Last January, the faculty began a process of reviewing and updating the Guiding Principles statement that was first developed in 2002. Changes reflect today’s educational landscape with references to “global communities” and “information literacy.”  

As part of USM’s re-accreditation process by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS), the Guiding Principles will be reviewed by Visiting Team members during their time at USM this fall. The team will look for congruence between what we say we do and what they observe. (For background on the ISACS re-accreditation process, please see my blog post from February 10, 2012.)

Please take a moment to review our Guiding Principles, which clearly enunciate our teachers’ commitment to each student’s intellectual, social, emotional, ethical, and artistic development.

Our Self-Study is also a vital part of our ISACS re-accreditation process. During Monday’s in-service day, our faculty and administrators worked diligently in their self-study committees. (The School prepares a comprehensive report, referred to as the Self-Study, which addresses every aspect of academic and non-academic life.) Under the leadership of Judy Bloch, our self-study coordinator, the committees—ranging from PK-12 English to Financial Management and Operations —engaged in in-depth discussions to describe current practices and identify strengths and challenges facing the School. 

I am so impressed by the level of commitment and the thoughtful deliberations, as these committees move forward on their work on the report.