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MID-ATLANTIC EPISCOPAL SCHOOL ASSOCIATION
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MAESA Matters September 2018
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Greetings!
Welcome back to the school year! At MAESA we've been busy planning our fall events, both professional and liturgical, and hope to see you and members of your school at several of them! In the meantime, we hope that you and your school community are celebrating the start to another fruitful year together.
RSVP to the MAESA Members' Meeting & Luncheon September 21, at St. Andrew's Episcopal School, Potomac MD with keynote speaker Mr. Rodney Glasgow,
Head of Middle School and Chief Diversity Officer at
St. Andrew's Episcopal School
. This meeting is for our schools' leadership teams: heads of school, chaplains, directors of admissions, advancement, diversity, school's board members, senior staff and directors. A networking luncheon, sponsored by MAESA partner
CapX Solutions
, is planned and will offer you the chance to extend the conversation with one another on our keynote topics. To RSVP please e-mail Katherine Murphy
maesaschools@gmail.com
to confirm your attendance for the meeting at 10am and luncheon on Sept. 21, 2018.
MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL & DUES
If you've already renewed your membership and paid 2018-2019 dues, thank you! If you still need to renew you may mail a check or renew on-line. Complete details are on the
membership page
. Your support is appreciated!
Chaplains & Heads of School
we hope that you've marked your calendars to bring your students to one of our two Episcopal Schools Day Services:
Oct 10th 10a.m. at Washington National Cathedral
we welcome our preacher
Lisa Kimball, PhD
from Virginia Theological Seminary.
Lisa is the Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning and Professor of Christian Formation and Congregational Leadership at Virginia Theological Seminary. Lisa’s now academic vocation began as a volunteer youth minister and Episcopal school substitute teacher in Menlo Park, California. Many years later, Lisa’s passion remains equipping people of all ages to claim their baptismal identities for lives of meaning and purpose.
Oct 17th 10a.m. at All Saints in Richmond
we welcome our preacher
The Rev. Dr. Dorothy White
, Chaplain at St. Catherine's School and MAESA Board of Governors member.
MAESA Early Childhood Educators Conference on October 26th
It's time to register your teachers in early childhood and early elementary programs for the MAESA Conference. This year, in addition to preschool and kindergarten workshops, several workshops focus on material for teachers of children in kindergarten through 3rd grades. Take a look at our workshop descriptions and plan to register your faculty of all early childhood ages.
Download the details and the registration form
here
.
"Why I Teach in an Episcopal School
"
In our September feature we hear from
Jo W. Harney,
D.Min.
who is Head of School at
Christ Church Episcopal Preschoo
l
and president of the MAESA Board of Governors. Jo reflects on aspects of prayer and ministry in her school's daily life that create community. Also learn about
St. Andrew's Episcopal School's
Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning in this month's
"
Spread The Word"
and about the school's redesigned academic schedule.
We'd love to feature one of your faculty members or a school activity in MAESA Matters.
Contact us
to be included.
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2018-2019 MAESA Event Dates
Mark Your School Calendar
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September 21, 2018 MAESA Member's Meeting
at
St. Andrew's Episcopal School.
Keynote speaker, Rodney Glasgow, Head of Middle School and Chief Diversity Officer at St. Andrew's Episcopal School, Potomac, MD.
Building and Sustaining a Diverse School Community
As our schools hold true to their Episcopal values and their commitments to harvesting a diverse learning and working environment, our morning together will explore the foundations of an inclusive school community. We will discuss key concepts as implicit bias, identity development, and child development, applying our learning age appropriately to K-12 settings. We will also discuss how to approach difficult conversations and situations around issues of diversity, and how to keep all constituencies - students, faculty, parents, and even board of trustees - moving forward together on diversity efforts, as well as how to balance voices and perspectives within our school communities. Our morning will be an exploration of the critical question: What is the role of Episcopal schools in the work of diversity?
MAESA Early Childhood Conference October 26, 2018
at
St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School
lower school campus
in Alexandria, VA. MAESA's 2018 conference features teacher-to-teacher workshops for our early childhood educators. View a complete description of the workshops and agenda
here
. Download the conference registration form
here
.
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"Why I Teach in an Episcopal School"
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Christ Church Episcopal Preschool
Greenville, D.E.
By Jo W. Harney,
D.Min.
Head of School
Christ Church Episcopal Preschool
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When I ponder the question of why I teach in an Episcopal school, I focus on what makes my experience different from my friends who are public school teachers, all of whom are dedicated, loving educators, with excellent qualifications. We share many of the same ideals, goals, and excitement about teaching, especially as we near the opening of our classrooms in September. So what is it that makes my experience distinct?
First and foremost, we are a prayerful community—not just praying
people
, but a praying
community
. We pray together in chapel, of course, but also in faculty meetings for our colleagues undergoing difficult times. Sometimes I see two faculty members praying together in a quiet hallway or in the school’s administrative office. When the school or an individual is facing a big challenge, faculty members may gather in the chapel early in the morning to light a candle and spend some time in quiet prayer and contemplation. We teach our children to pray in gratitude for all God’s blessings, and it is our goal for these prayers not to become rote. Rather than saying “Let’s pray before snack,” we find that “Let’s thank God for our food” reminds them why we are praying. When a parent is in my office sharing something very personal, like a breakup of a marriage, or the imminent death of a family member, it is definitely a time to pray. I know that my colleagues in all sorts of other schools pray too, but our public embrace of prayer and the freedom to pray as a community provide us with a strong foundation of mutual support.
Secondly, our school is defined by community. Our mission statement says (in part) that we will “create community among families, school, and church.” This means proactively reaching out to the parish to involve them in our ministry. The Rector and I are in constant conversation about ways to encourage participation by school families and parishioners in all events that take place on our campus. The faculty community is nurtured in an intentional way by providing opportunities for sharing meals, sharing stories, and sharing worship. We have asked our faculty members what kind of chapel is meaningful to them, and have responded with some early morning faculty chapels that meet their needs. Pop-up lunches occur from time to time on no particular schedule. Lunch may be served in the hallways of the school, in the parish hall, or in our commons room. Faculty meetings are sometimes given over to small group meetings for sharing stories. The community we build in our classrooms is based on supporting children as they learn to be good friends, helping them treat one another with kindness and respect. We provide many opportunities for parents to join with one another in parenting classes or social events. This has resulted in friendships that have endured long past their children’s enrollment in our preschool. Alumni show up in great numbers for many of our events. This focus on community goes far beyond the typical PTA community in many other schools, and I am grateful for the climate of support and joy it engenders.
Our chapel services and Godly Play lessons are a key component of our life together. Although families are invited to attend any and all chapel services, we specifically designate the first one of each month as “Family Chapel.” Parents, grandparents, siblings, nannies, babysitters, and friends show up to sit with their child among his or her classmates and to participate in the service. They join in the songs, prayers, and silence that we practice and their presence speaks of their support of our Episcopal identity. The children are proud to have their parents with them. Godly Play lessons (taught in each class once a week) are based on the chapel themes and reinforce the learning that has begun in the chapel each week. When parents leave our school, they frequently comment on chapel as being their favorite memory of their child’s time with us.
Finally, the service we provide to the community makes us look beyond our own walls and recognize how much we have to share. Because our children are so young, it is sometimes difficult to find ways to engage them in direct service, although we do ask them to participate in food collections, adoption of needy families for Christmas and Easter, and other simple-to-explain projects. Our parents know that modeling service for their children is the best way to teach them to make it a priority as they grow up. They provide dinner in a men’s homeless shelter once a month, cooking, re-heating, delivering, and serving as their schedules allow. Parents who can’t manage child care for the evening can still participate by cooking at home and delivering the food to school when they drop off their child. Our parents have also implemented projects to collect socks and underwear for shelters and community centers and diapers for a downtown child care center serving the homeless and working poor. It has been very meaningful for me, as head of school, to witness the parent community taking on such efforts without being nudged by the school staff.
We are not unique in praying, serving, worshipping, or coming together as a community, but many of the places that are able to practice all of these in a supportive climate are Episcopal schools. In the three Episcopal schools in which I’ve been privileged to teach, I have arrived at school each morning knowing that my own spiritual needs would be met, that my colleagues and I would support one another in prayer, and that we would help our children to know the love of God and to be grateful.
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"Spread The Word" News from our Schools
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Over the past decade,
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School
and its Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning have worked tirelessly to develop the most research-informed faculty in the country. This commitment to student-centered, research-based practice led St. Andrew’s to redesign its academic schedule for the 2018-2019 year. Over an 18-month period, a task force of teachers and administrators gathered input and research, along with feedback from students and parents, to determine how the flow of each school day could maximize student learning and well-being. Specifically, the task force prioritized:
- Lengthening class periods beyond the school’s 40-minute standard to promote creative teaching and deep learning
- Reduce the number of class periods per day (and therefore the number of homework assignments per evening) to promote focus and moderate the rushed tempo of school life
- Increase time for students to meet with teachers and their peers during the school day for academic enrichment and healthy socialization.
- Minimizing conflicts between class time and other important school activities, including assemblies, field trips, and athletic competition.
The result of this work is a new schedule that will provide St. Andrew’s students with a rigorous research-informed education that gives them time to pursue their passions and focus on their well-being.
Middle and Upper School students will have four classes in a typical day with each class lasting 65 minutes. Research suggests that engaged, focused, deep learning requires longer class periods with fewer transitions during the school day and fewer, more meaningful homework assignments at night. Passing time between classes will be increased to 10 minutes. This creates more time for peer interaction and reflection, and a less stressful flow to the school day.
The schedule affords structured “office hours” several times a week for students to meet with teachers to receive individual enrichment and extra help, and allows for classes to be extended when necessary for science labs, studio art lessons, and other specialized learning. It also provides study hall for Middle School students. The schedule offers ample time for athletics, chapel, advisory, clubs, and assemblies without “borrowing” from academic periods, preserving essential teaching and learning time.
As a destination school for research-informed teaching and learning, St. Andrew’s is excited for this next step in the school’s evolution.
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Let us hear from you!
Katherine F. Murphy
MAESA Executive Director
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