After a morning of taking photos, lots of hugs and a few tears — mostly from parents — the first day of school started smoothly. More than anything else, the mood felt like students were picking up from where they left off, as if May were just last weekend.

It’s great to have everybody back on campus.

Click here for more photos from the day

Keystone is welcoming several new faculty and staff members, with impressive backgrounds, strong experiences,a passion for education, and helping our students fulfill their potential.

Chantel Beaugendre – Our new Upper School French teacher is a native of Guadeloupe who was raised in Paris, graduated from The Sorbonne in Paris and has more than 20 years teaching experience. Madame Beaugendre is a long-term sub while Madame Bolshakova is out on family leave.

Tiffany Cristo – Keystone's new music teacher is from San Antonio, and has a B.A. of Music from the University of Incarnate Word. She holds an All-level Texas Teaching Certification, and comes to Keystone with fourteen years experience as a choir director and music teacher.

Belinda Garcia – Upper School Math. Mrs. Garcia has a B.S. in Applied Mathematics Texas A&M University, a Masters in Math Curriculum and Instruction from Concordia University, graduate coursework in math at Texas A&M, and has 30 years teaching experience.

Ann Horst – Middle School French. Madame Horst has dual French and American citizenship. She's a graduate of Metropolitan State University of Denver, and American University of Paris, with 14 years of teaching experience.

Amanda Lopez, PhD - Upper School History. Dr. Lopez comes to Keystone after serving as a college professor at Saint Xavier University in Chicago. She's a graduate of Trinity University and received her master's and doctorate from the University of Arizona.

D'Andre Montgomery – Athletic Director. A former Olympian who reached the semifinals of the 100-meter dash in the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Ms. Montgomery received her bachelor's at Louisiana State University, and a master's in sports administration from Canisius College.

Bella Peters – Development and Communications Assistant. Ms. Peters is a recent graduate of Trinity University, where she received her bachelor's in psychology and studio art, and served as captain of the varsity diving team.

Julie Schweers - Middle School English. Ms. Schweers comes to Keystone with more than 30 years experience in Northside ISD. She has her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Dear Parents,

When Keystone went through its accreditation process in 2020, the team of fellow members of the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest recommended “earnest dedication to vertical alignment across the four divisions: Little, Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools. The work may focus on identification of gaps, redundancies, and common language, as well as generating an agreed-upon scope and sequence of skills and knowledge. Time for conversations and collaboration between and among divisions must be made. Such efforts will ensure a consistency of student experience and will better set up student success.”

For Keystone, this means making sure that the curricula in our four divisions are even better aligned, and that we better explain that alignment. We want to make sure that students who come to Keystone progress even more smoothly through grades and finish their experience here with an education that will help them succeed in school, life and achieve their dreams.

To help us in this work, we are excited to announce that Jennifer Wivagg, PhD, will take on the role of Director of Curriculum and Instruction while remaining Head of Middle School. In this role, she will research best practices among other schools and at the college/university level, continue to support faculty through ongoing growth, and work to align the curriculum across divisions.

Dr. Wivagg has the ideal background to take on this role. She holds a PhD from the Curriculum and Instruction Department with a focus on learning technologies from the University of Texas, and she led curriculum and instructional technology initiatives in the Comal School District before coming to Keystone. 

Dr. Wivagg will continue to serve as Head of Middle School and will pass on more of the day-to-day responsibilities of Middle School to Kassi Mlcak, the current Assistant Head of the Middle School. Mrs. Mlcak has stepped up admirably and has already done good work in helping design student programming and aiding middle school children in making good decisions. 

It is our hope that this administrative move will enable Keystone’s already excellent programs to become even stronger.

Sincerely,

Billy Handmaker

Head of School

“You've got to stand for something

Or you're gonna fall for anything”

-- John Cougar Mellencamp 

We hope you had a great summer and are thrilled to welcome you back. It’s wonderful having students, faculty, and staff on campus, and from what we’ve heard, parents were more than ready for their children to return to school. 

The commencement of school marks one of the most exciting and inspiring times of year. It offers all of us a chance to begin anew, a clean slate if you will, and the opportunity to be who we wish. We hope the first week of school has gone well for you. It’s also wonderful starting this year in a different place than last year when we knew much less about COVID.  

For the past two years, we focused on maintaining the excellent Keystone program and ensuring that students continue to learn and grow in the face of the pandemic. As opposed to what we’ve heard from other educators, Keystone Cobras did not suffer significant learning loss; this is a testimony to the dedication of our students and the outstanding work of our faculty and staff. Academic excellence remained a pillar of our community in the midst of the worst pandemic in over one hundred years. 

As we begin a new school year, we would like to re-emphasize Keystone’s other three pillars - ethical growth, community involvement, and responsible leadership.

Read more here.