Page 3 - Priorities #27 2004-July

From the Headmaster
As always, when school is closed for the summer, the school staff is working full speed ahead to get ready for the coming year. In the administrative offices, we are preparing for the year- long accreditation self-study. Dorms are being readied for the first co-educational boarding class. Our two summer camp programs are in full swing. In late July, we host the International Benedictine Youth Conference, which will focus on peace studies.
Fifteen faculty members are taking advantage
of the Priory’s summer grants program to improve their classroom teaching in the fall. This program is completely funded by special donations, and it packs a terrific punch to the quality of students’ classroom experience and faculty morale. Each spring, faculty members write individual grant requests to the school for something each personally wants to accomplish. Requests are reviewed by an administrative team and approved by me. Over the years, we have come to view this individualized approach as the best we can design. Proposals are almost always right on target, and most are granted. This year, all of them were granted. A sampling follows:
• An experienced and a new teacher are working together to improve and coordinate teaching of sixth grade core subjects and seventh grade social studies curriculum.
• Faculty from several subject areas will be integrating elements of a humanities curriculum into their teaching, led by one faculty member who is preparing everything this summer.
• Theology faculty members will be taking a look at the historical foundations of Catholic teaching, world religions, developing new curriculum (Film and Literature and Hebrew Scriptures), and revising the Morality and Social Justice curriculum.
• Community service projects could tie directly to class work (the same as writing a book report) in some parts of the curriculum. The Campus Ministry Coordinator is working out mini- projects that will demonstrate the possibilities this fall.
• We will have another staff member certified in First Responder advanced first aid, and a more efficient management system in the athletics training room by the start of the new school year.
• Astronomy and art history curricula are in the making.
Last spring, the faculty voted the second annual teaching award to their amazing colleague, Mitch Neuger. Board of Trustees
chair Ray Rothrock presented the award, which comes with a generous check underwritten by a former board member, at the annual parent-sponsored (and spectacular) faculty- staff appreciation luncheon.
Mitch is well known as the quiet guy who can accomplish miracles in his sixth grade core classroom, one student at a time. In his six years at the Priory, he has been a fearless leader in moving the middle school towards a more flexible teaching style that supports students’ differences in learning.
A Yale graduate in American Studies, Mitch discovered his love for teaching while interning with a summer program devoted to ending world hunger. He worked with teachers and was stuck with the lasting importance of what they did, he said. This fall, he is leaving teaching, at least for awhile, to pursue a second love. He is beginning graduate studies at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Our proposed conditional use permit revision starts public hearings on July 21. Since Oct, 2003, when the school filed a preliminary master plan, school leaders have met numerous times with town planning staff, volunteers on the town committees, and residents. We have listened carefully to both formal and informal feedback and have made several changes. The result is a revised proposal that I believe meets two compatible goals: it preserves this lovely, rural valley setting and provides for WPS’s educational quality going into the future.
I hope you are enjoying a peaceful summer in the company of loved ones and with at least a little time for activities you love. Soon it will be fall and, as our oft-quoted Benedictine slogan goes, “Always, we begin again.”
Sincerely,
Tim Molak, Headmaster
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Fifteen faculty members
are taking advantage of the Priory’s summer grants program to improve their classroom teaching in the fall.