The Rhythms of the School Year, Version 57

I started school in 1967. I have never left it. I began sharing thoughts about school in 1998 as a Middle School Head. I am sure I have written some variation on this theme in May or August of each of those 27 years as an administrator.

I am so grateful to have realized early on the joy that being in education brought me. I am fulfilled by the role of trying to create conditions that enable students and faculty alike to maximize their potential, to thrive. I am challenged by my failures and rewarded if ever I am part of the team that succeeds in fostering growth and passion for learning. 

Unlike the dismissive and, frankly, insulting cliché about educators liking their roles “for three reasons: June, July and August,” I am a firm believer that no successful educator views summer break as a reason for being a teacher or coach. The best educators use their summers to recharge, to imagine new lessons, new offenses or defenses, new choreography, to reflect on the challenges of the year just finished, to take themselves and their next round of students and/or colleagues to a higher level of learning and accomplishment. 

The theme that I personally return to and often write about in May and June is the incredible gift not of months “off,” but of months of a changed routine. Summers for educators bring a slow wind-down from a year just finished and a soft reboot for a year upcoming. Ideally, they involve some in-between time when the mind and body are both just recharging. 

I aimed for that reflecting and recharging, that gazing back and projecting forward, in the agenda for our final staff and faculty gatherings of the year on Thursday and Friday, May 22 and 23. At a traditional luncheon on the 22nd, we celebrated the retirement of Melissa Williams after 21 years at FWCD. We also marked five-year milestones of FWCD employees and wished the best to departing faculty and staff. The gathering on the 23rd included our entire staff and faculty and was a chance for the Senior Leadership Team, minus the three division heads who had their own divisional meetings, to briefly highlight the accomplishments and milestones of their own teams in 2024-25.