September 13, 2007

Dear Friends,

Year Four.

What to say?

First, my deep gratitude to everyone who has brought us this far on the way. Literally hundreds of people have given of their love, their time, and their treasure to create something from nothing. Thank you.

And what a magnificent school you have created! When Ryn Blecke Fleischer and I started to put some flesh on the bones of the mission, to build program and curriculum, and to recruit faculty, we had a feeling that it was all going to work very well. In our most ambitious dreams, we never expected to come so far so fast, and have so much fun doing it. You can be truly proud of what you have built.

Two challenges, one medium term, one longer and more subtle:

1. The operations of the school are paid through tuition and through fund raising. It is not uncommon that in the start-up years, there is a major dependence on the latter. As we go forward, however, we must bend all our efforts to reaching an enrollment of at least three hundred (we are currently at 245) to achieve financial stability. It is critical that we all become articulate, enthusiastic, and informed ambassadors for the school.

2. It is at this stage, or sometimes the following year, that start-up schools make a fundamental strategic error, namely that the school is done. Such a mistake undercuts one of the huge, and unusual strengths of the Bay School: the habit of innovation and courage in dealing with ambiguity. I am determined to do all I can to prevent this happening here, and have taken some administrative steps to institutionalize the process.

Both of these sound prosy and mundane during the exuberance of these opening weeks; and I do not want to undermine that exuberance. In all the excitement, however, I hope we can keep these deep needs in our minds, and reflect on our own roles in meeting them.

Have a wonderful year!

Fr. Malcolm

2007 Faculty Retreat and Summer Institute

By Tony Pickering

As soon as I delightedly accepted the job of dean of faculty at the Bay School, I was told "Great, now you can help us plan the three-week summer retreat and institute!" I had heard about this annual event, of course, but I didn't think it was really true; certainly it was an exaggeration. Three weeks of the sacred summer talking about work? No faculty would stand for it, and if they are obliged to show up, I was sure the mood would be grim at best.

I could not have been more mistaken. The conversation was rich and the faculty engaged in exploration of difficult topics with a dynamism and eagerness that speak volumes about its commitment to this institution. The Summer Institute is designed as an opportunity for the entire faculty to take a deep breath after completing the school year to assess where we are as a school, as discipline teams and as individual teachers, and to set goals for the future. It is remarkable and exciting that Bay devotes this amount of time to professional development and reflection, and it was clear from the first hour of the retreat that members of the faculty deeply valued and enjoyed the time spent together considering questions that were obviously of profound importance to them as professionals. Looking over the notes taken during our discussions, I am amazed by the depth of understanding and sensitivity that this faculty has around issues of education and adolescent development.

During our opening two-day retreat, the goal was to reconnect with the school's mission and to assess progress. Some of the topics that we considered and discussed were:

• Favoring depth over breadth in the curriculum
  
• Commitment to cross-disciplinary instruction
  
• Our effectiveness in teaching and modeling the school's precepts
  
• Stewardship of time
  
• Raising whole spiritual, physical, intellectual, and cultural beings
  

The faculty at the Bay School shares a sense of purpose, and this was demonstrated throughout the retreat. The mission is clearly visible in the activities, conversations, and relationships that take place on a daily basis at school. This is a faculty that is also dedicated to the arts of reflection and assessment, and they took the opportunity provided by the retreat to take stock of what the Bay School does well and where it can improve.

The following excerpts from our conversations regarding the school's mission and the precepts may give an idea of the depth and frankness of discussion that occurred:

• "The precepts establish a common language that enables us to have difficult conversations about issues such as respect and conflict."
  
• "We do a pretty good job of talking about some of the global challenges, but some of the more local issues involving social justice are not dealt with as much."
  
• "Because we are encouraged to focus on depth over breadth, I don't think of myself as a purveyor of information so much as someone who models how to think."
  
• "We have to make sure that when we do cultural celebrations they are meaningful; otherwise they can be perceived as shallow, which is antithetical to the school's mission."
  

The faculty finished the retreat with a renewed grounding in the school's abiding principles and a commitment to continually improving what it does through collaborative work.

The next two and a half weeks were devoted to curriculum planning, discipline team work, and all-faculty professional development and discussion. Some of the major topics addressed were:

• Writing across the curriculum, writing to learn
  
• Appropriate and effective use of homework
  
• Assessment of student learning; use of rubrics
  
• Curriculum mapping technology
  
• Teacher mentoring, evaluation and ongoing professional development
  
• Gender differences in and outside of the classroom
  

Our final session was a celebration of some of the specific projects and activities that the different disciplines will be undertaking this year. This was an excellent way to finish our time together in that it gave us all a number of specific examples of the creativity, passion, and innovation that are taking placing at the school. Some of the courses, projects and questions that our students can look forward to being engaged with are:

• Tap dance/jazz music collaborative improvisation
  
• "Do we have enough fresh water in California for a growing population?"
  
• The nature of the immigrant experience and questions of identity
  
• Local neighborhood sculpture design
  
• Elective courses in hydrology and geology
  
• Game theory and its real-world applications
  

I feel very fortunate to be part of this community and this was certainly the most rewarding summer I have ever spent as an educator. In my role as dean of faculty, I look forward to being an aid to the faculty as it channels its abundant energy, intelligence, and creativity into practices that benefit our students.

Tony Pickering,
Dean of Faculty, Spanish Teacher

Welcoming New Members of the Bay School Faculty and Staff

As we begin our fourth academic year at Bay we are pleased to enthusiastically welcome the seven new members of our faculty and three new administrators. Following a nationwide recruitment process that included more than five hundred applicants, these experienced and visionary educators complete the Bay School's founding faculty. Joining the faculty team are Mathematics teachers Katy Cryer and Jean Menapace, Literature/Humanities teacher Ellen Greenblatt, Biology teacher Krissa Lebacqz, Digital and Studio Art teacher Karen Hellyer, and Spanish teacher Tony Pickering who also serves as the Bay School's first dean of faculty.

Also directly engaged in the academic program are Matt Eddy who has assumed the position of academic dean in addition to his teaching responsibilities as a member of the science faculty, learning specialist Charles Roth, and school counselor Jeremy Marshman. Edward Chen has taken on a senior level administrative role as Bay School Director of Educational Technology and will oversee the school's technology infrastructure as well as providing ongoing vision and direction related to the use of technology in the classroom to facilitate and expand the academic program. A warm Bay welcome to all!

Click here to read Bay School Faculty and Staff Biographies.

2007-2008 Student Orientation Programs

The Senior Class on Retreat

The 2007-2008 academic year will go down in the Bay School history book as monumental, our first year having all four classes, with graduation of the founding class of 2008 on the horizon in June 2008! After a summer that seemed to pass with the blink of an eye, 245 Bay School students and 35 teachers marked the start of the new school year with grade level orientation programs that began on Thursday, August 23rd for seniors and freshmen.

The senior class retreat was a two-day overnight program based at the Marin Headlands Institute located in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) in southern Marin County. Seniors began the journey of their final year at Bay by (literally) hiking the last four miles to the retreat center, winding through the dramatic hills of the Marin Headlands. While on their trek they played "get to know you" games and intellectual puzzles along the way, discussing the experiences of summers past as well as all that lies ahead during the upcoming year.

Their time at the center was spent reconnecting to one another. One activity allowed for each senior to talk with every other senior for one minute—asking themselves and each other about core values and different perspectives. Marshmallow treats shared around a blazing bonfire ended the first day, and the following day's discussions and activities focused on considering the many ways in which the Class of 2008 has the opportunity and responsibility as seniors for setting a positive tone as student mentors for their younger schoolmates. After a morning discussion in small groups the class agreed to adopt a new core value for the year and to share it with the entire school community at the opening ceremony with the full school as a witness. Their precept focuses on the value of intellectual curiosity and will be realized through the launch of a new student-to-student tutoring program for freshmen and sophomores. What a wonderful beginning to what will be a great year!

Read the Class of 2008 Senior Class Precept

Freshman Orientation

While seniors were traversing the hills of the GGNRA, freshmen in the Class of 2011 were getting to know each other and learning their way around the Bay School campus and its surrounds in the Presidio. Beginning with a building-wide scavenger hunt, our new students came to know all the essentials about the school schedule, academic program, athletics, and members of the faculty and administration who are here to support them. Meeting in small groups with their advisors, the freshmen also considered the school mission in depth, especially focusing on the final part stating the school's intention to "build a diverse community of trust, resourcefulness, affection and good humor." Students and their advisors also began work on "Where I am From" poems that have become a tradition among freshman classes at Bay. The process encourages students to self-reflect and consider the many unique characteristics, interests, and backgrounds that they contribute as individuals to the Bay School community as a whole.

Friday, August 24th was spent learning about our immediate neighborhood, the Presidio of San Francisco. Following a presentation about the history of the Presidio given by Damien Rafa, a member of the Presidio Trust staff, students headed out into the field for a day of volunteer work at Crissy Field doing trail work, at Thomsons' Reach Creek rebuilding native habitat, and at the native plant nursery where they planted and repotted plants that are indigenous to the Presidio.

Sophomore and Junior Class Orientation Activities

The returning classes of 2009 and 2010 spent their one day orientation programs on August 24th engaged in activities designed to strengthen cohesion within their grades through group interaction. Throughout the sophomore year students will be asked to consider an important part of the school's mission that reads: "To combine academic excellence with a strong community focus" exploring what it means and how it can translate into daily experience at school. To begin the process, students and teachers spread out across San Francisco's diverse neighborhoods to survey differences in culture, architecture, and environment. They returned to school to share their observations with their classmates.

Meanwhile, the juniors spent the morning working on their piece of the mission—the line that states "to encourage compassion, confidence and intellectual curiosity." Using that prompt, the students drafted a class mission statement. Class representatives will hone the junior mission over the course of the fall, and class activities and meetings will be geared at reflecting on whether the class is meeting its self-prescribed goals.

In the afternoon, the juniors participated in group games at Golden Gate Park. The activities required that the students worked closely together and supported each other to solve a range of physical challenges. Good weather and great group work ensured that the newly minted juniors started the year as a cohesive and spirited class.

Many thanks go to: Assistant Head of School/Senior Class Dean Moneeka Settles, Junior Class Dean Nancy Wheeler, Sophomore Class Dean Julie Taufa'asau, and Freshman Class Dean Matt Hannibal, as well as the entire Bay School faculty, for planning and leading orientations that launched the new academic year with a strong momentum!

A Bay Group's Summer Travels in Costa Rica
By Teah Strozer - Bay School Chaplain

What a great trip! 15 Bay School students, accompanied by two members of the faculty, traveled to Costa Rica for two weeks in June. Sure we had expectations, but the reality far exceeded them. Running through airports, ending up in elevators to nowhere, finally arriving late at night in Costa Rica, we left our comfort zone far behind. The smells, sounds, and heat of an unfamiliar country greeted us.

For breakfast the first morning we had delicious fresh fruit, pineapple, watermelon and papaya, as well as rice, beans, eggs, and grilled plantains. After breakfast we drove to our first national park where we saw monkeys and birds of the Central American forest. We also visited a butterfly research center. We saw a volcano crater with its layered colors. We walked in the rain forest with Lucas, an indigenous person of the Bre-Bre tribe, who showed us medicinal plants of the forest. One plant prevented malaria, the sap of another healed deep wounds, and a third took care of infections. The forest came alive for us through him. He explained passionately that what we do in the United States seriously affects how his people will be able to survive. What Lucas said is clearly true; the choices we make at home have a direct effect on the rain forest, the Bre-Bre, and ultimately us, because as he said, it is all connected. The students said that even though they had heard about the importance of protecting the rain forest, it became a reality when we were able to see and experience it first-hand.

The next day we had lots of fun flying through the rain forest canopy on zip lines. Best of all were our home stays in a small town called Tres Seches. We paired off and met our different families. The town consists of about 75 families all of whom know each other. They greet each other walking through town. None of the homes were locked. Our students realized that even though the showers were cold, there were no iPods, computers, or other technology--people seemed happy. One of our students mentioned how surprised she was at how continually inventive and creative the children were as they made up endless games to play. Some of the older teenagers from town helped us to paint a sidewalk mural for the local high school. None of the families with whom we stayed spoke English. At first, our students were a little nervous about spending four full days and three nights with their host families. But, by the time they left, each of the students commented that the home stays were one of the most rewarding parts of the trip. As we were leaving one of the students shouted out of the window of our bus to his family "I love you" and we were off.

Then we were on the road again going to visit a Dole banana processing plant. We were shocked to learn that they paid their Nicaraguan workers only $1 a day. We saw the bananas soaking in chemicals before they were shipped to the United States. Quietly we each decided we didn't want to eat those bananas any more. Seeing the reality of the processing plant showed us dramatically how important organic farming is and how buying food locally that isn't processed or shipped thousands of miles makes a difference.

Later that day we arrived on the Caribbean coast where we went body surfing for the rest of the afternoon, and the next afternoon as well. Our last two days in Costa Rica were spent white water rafting. The night before our first day on the river we laid awake listening to it rain as it does only in the tropics. The next morning the Pacuare River was too dangerous to raft so we went out on another river located nearby instead. The following day the Pacuare was low enough to be safe and we were on our way. There are several ways to talk about our day on the Pacuare. We can talk about the five students and one faculty member whose boat overturned, we can talk about the sublime ride we had flowing down a canyon of green, or we can... But we've run out of space. Hopefully we have whetted your appetite for your own trip to this magnificent natural world.

At the end of our trip several students made it a point to say that the trip was a life changing experience. They learned that you don't need 'things' to be happy (in fact, too much may be a hindrance), that you can choose the direction of your life by what you love, that a single person can make a difference, and that preserving the rain forest (and the whole of the natural world) is of major importance for all of us.

For more information visit: http://infiniteforest.com/home.html.

Trip chaperones: Teah Strozer, Bay School Chaplain, and Steve Glass, Athletic Director

Computer Assisted Design Class at Bay – August 2007

During the summer, in mid-August, the Engineering Club at the Bay School held it's first computer-aided design workshop for both students and teachers. Seven Bay School students, one BAY Fund student, and two Bay School teachers were introduced to SolidWorks, the industry standard application for computer-aided design that is used by engineers. The workshop was organized by Eugene Mizusawa, Director of Senior Projects at the Bay School, as part of the growing Engineering Technology Program at Bay, and was instructed by Shad Laws, a practicing engineer and doctoral candidate in engineering at Stanford University. Ryn Blecke-Fleischer, former Bay School academic dean, was brought on board for the curriculum development and evaluation of this workshop.

Following their introduction to computer-aided design, the students were provided with their own copies of SolidWorks so that they could become more skilled through practice. This workshop opens the door for Bay School students to move to the next level of engineering where they can make use of the power of SolidWorks in their design and fabrication efforts. This will be especially important for any present and future Senior Project that involves a design and engineering component. The ten-hour workshop took place during the late afternoon hours over three consecutive days on campus and is the first of four engineering workshops that are planned for the 2007-2008 academic year.

For more information please contact Eugene Mizusawa at: emizusawa@bayschoolsf.org.

Exploring Provence – From a Teacher's Perspective

French students who have completed their three-year requirement will have an opportunity to take a new elective this year, "France et La Provence". The course, conducted exclusively in French, will focus on the history, geography, culture, and literature from the region with an emphasis on the cities of Nice, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence and Avignon. In preparation for teaching the course Shellie Banks, a fourth year French teacher at Bay, spent twenty-six days this summer exploring the region. Following are Shellie’s observations.

"I had no idea how distinctly different the south of France is from the rest of the country; my previous trips to the region had only lasted two to three days and consisted mostly of beaches and shopping. In order to effectively teach this new class I knew that I had to return to the South and that I needed to immerse myself in the history and culture. This time I traded in the beaches and shops for the mountains, historical monuments, perched villages, art museums, and the countryside that have earned this region its glowing reputation. During the three week expedition I was able to visit the cities of Nice, Marseille, Aix and Avignon, as well as St-Paul de Vence, Entrevaux, Digne le Bains and Verdon. I took countless train rides through the countryside and the Alps, visited numerous Greek and Roman monuments, bridges and churches, spent hours admiring the works of Cezanne, Chagall and Matisse, roamed through the narrow winding streets of medieval villages, collected texts, brochures, postcards and memorabilia, and tasted the delicacies of provincial cooking while mingling with the natives. For the first time in my life I felt compelled to keep a travel journal which I will share with my students next trimester. My only regret was that I had arrived too late to see the purple lavender fields before they were harvested; however, this gives me a good reason to return to France et La Provence."

Shellie Banks teaches French and Spanish at the Bay School

BAY Honors

Congratulations to the following members of the Bay School community for their recent achievements and accolades:

High Fives go to Mathematics teacher and Outing Club advisor, Andy Shaw, who earned his WFR certification this summer. WFR stands for Wilderness First Responder. WFR certification is the result of a 10 day, 80 hour course, in which he learned how to provide advanced first aid and stabilizing care in remote wilderness settings.

Thunderous applause goes to Ana Bayat, French and Spanish teacher, for her performance in the role of the Narrator in the Shotgun Players production of the play "The Epic of Gilgamesh with a Long Prologue" performed at the Ashby Stage Theater in Berkeley from August 16th through September 2nd. Ana received critical acclaim for her role. The Daily Planet labeled her speech as a "crisp BBC accent" which was just what the director was aiming for. Ana's next show will open in January at the New Conservatory Theater Center.

The Bay School is the recipient of a 2006 Promising Practice Award, given by the national Character Education Partnership (CEP) in recognition of our Ethics Through Mindfulness Program. Each year CEP gives Promising Practices Awards to schools and districts for implementing unique and specific strategies in character education that others may learn from and replicate. A Promising Practice is a unique and specific character education strategy or program that addresses one or more of CEP's Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education. In 2006, CEP gave 126 Promising Practices awards to schools and districts across the United States and Canada.

View award details.

View the Bay School "Guiding Precepts"

September 2007 Events Calendar