Dear Parents,
It has been a great beginning! Yesterday’s glorious opening day with our First through Eighth Class students was followed with this morning’s precious arrival of our Primary friends. While exteriorly the weather has been close to perfect, interiorly the climate has been balanced with nothing less than extraordinary exuberance!
Having spent the summer getting ready, waxing floors, manicuring the grounds, cleaning the classrooms, creating new bulletin boards and planning engaging lessons (just to name a few preparatory activities), we were poised on every level to receive your children with open hearts! Preparations from your end were obvious as well; the children arrived with bright white shirts, shiny new shoes, crisp slacks and socks, freshly labeled notebooks and, most importantly, glowing, shining faces (reflective of eager, open hearts and minds)!
During these first days, I know that each teacher is taking time to set a particular tone and lay a strong foundation of routines and procedures. Equally importantly, each teacher is also laying the foundation of trust and reverence while relationships are being renewed and others are being made anew. Attending to the process that’s necessary to build the foundation of a strong relationship is not only good, current educational practice, it is an integral aspect of our educational legacy!
Rooted in that legacy, on Wednesday we gathered as a community of the whole – to connect, to welcome, to honor the presence of each one, to introduce new members and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, to remind ourselves that our educational philosophy is grounded in God’s Love. Our goal is to provide an environment in which each one comes to know the Heart of Jesus (source and symbol of God’s Love). Flowing from that goal, our hope is that each one learns to live a life reflective of that Heart, developing and then using his or her particular gift in the service of others and for the sake of our world.
Through the intercession of St. Philippine Duchesne, the grace of God and the collective efforts of Academy parents and Academy faculty and staff alike, may it be so!
Maureen Glavin, rscj
