Past Principal Outreach Articles

Principal Outreach
A Newsletter from Bob Ruud, WLS Teaching Principal, to WLS Families

May, 2007

Dear WLS Families,

There’s a lot going on. Here’s what’s most important, from my point of view...

A Montessori Point—The Role of the Adult is to Remove Obstacles from the Path of the Child’s Development: So often, educational methods are the clever or diabolical or self-serving conception of the adult in the institution of school. Maria Montessori was adamant about this point: that defining the adult’s role in the child’s education must start with an understanding of what the child’s nature demands. She thought she was the only person who thought that, and she very nearly was. She said of schools for adolescents: “Schools as they are today are adapted neither to the needs of adolescence nor to the times in which we live.” Hmmmm... You might think she said that a few minutes ago, rather than a a lot of decades ago. This pertains directly to several big ideas that are being discussed in our school now....

Secondary Extension Investigation Project: Several of us have visited Great River School in St. Paul, one of only five Montessori high schools nationwide, a charter school in its third year. It really got us thinking about what has come to seem a responsibility that those of us in Montessori education have: and that is, to offer as true an interpretation of Maria Montessori’s approach as possible, and offer it, at the highest possible level of quality, to as many children and families as we can. At the very least, we need to see what would be involved in extending our program into 9th grade and beyond. Quite a few of us have some ideas about what that might look like. We also have some awareness of the complications. But just recently, we decided to at least do some research and find out more, and someday soon go to our board and say, we don’t think we should do this, and here’s why...., or we think we should do this, and here’s why.... We have a very dedicated team of people who have already met three times and are meeting again on June 11 at 5 PM. Our building project is on hold, pending the results of the team’s findings, and the board’s response to whatever the team recommends.

Extended Campus: This idea is somewhat related to the previous one, but is more prompted by short term needs than long term vision. That is, that we are considering moving the middle school class to St. Andrews Church, just five minutes walk down the bike path to the west. There’s a bigger space there we might be able to use, which would be especially advantageous, since the number of students is increasing substantially. Also, it would free up some space here in the main building, for use especially by upper elementary, which has a large number of students in it as well. This is far from a done deal: the fire marshall needs to inspect the building and say whether or under what conditions the room would be usable for our middle school. And the church council needs to decide whether they want to rent out the space for this purpose (the pastors seem very positive about the idea).

Progress Reports: These are numerical ratings, General Achievement Test scores, and anecdotal assessments done by the teachers at the end of the year. They will be mailed out no later than June 15.

Staffing: We are sorry that Juliet Holder has decided to leave her lower elementary position at WLS this year. She has taken a teaching position in the school where her husband teaches in Anoka, and they will be moving up there. Good for her; our loss. We are busy searching for her replacement.

Sponsorship for Training: We are sponsoring Carol Harris for Montessori training. Sponsorship means that she will take three summers of training to complete her elementary certification, and will be obligated to teach in our school for a certain time afterward. We are working out when she will join our staff in what capacity (and we’re thinking she probably won’t be ready to take over a whole class of lower elementary as soon as this fall, so we’re looking for a trained,  experienced person to do that).

Lock-Down Drills: Your child may mention that there has been some discussion of the lock-down drill that is scheduled for next week. All classes are preparing for it, and we speak of it in simple terms: it’s just one more way of keeping everybody in the school safe. We are trying hard not to make the children anxious, but we do have to prepare them for such an emergency. We’ll make it just matter of fact, without much discussion about all of the reasons why a lock-down might be necessary. Please feel free to get in touch if you have questions, or if your child is worried about this.

Board: There’s always a board election at the annual meeting, which was just held in April. Mark Lokhorst was re-elected to a two-year term. Alicia Williams was appointed to the board to fill a vacancy in January, and she was elected to a two-year term. Gordon Decker served two terms a few years ago and decided to run again, and he was elected to a two-year term (current board member Henrik Lyder decided not to run for re-election). Teachers re-elected to one-year terms were Patti Quinn, Bob Ruud, Deana Siekmann, Liesl Taylor, Beth Wilson, and Sherry Wolfe. Officers are currently Richard Hess, Chair; Mark Lokhorst, Treasurer; Bob Ruud, Secretary. There will be election of officers (conducted by the board itself) again in July. Patti Quinn and Jon Hokanson are the representatives to the JMS/WLS Building Company. Parents are encouraged to come to board meetings. There is a Parent Forum scheduled before each meeting, 6:15 PM, in which parents can ask questions, offer suggestions, and voice concerns. The official meeting starts at 6:30 PM. Meetings are held at WLS, usually in the middle school classroom, on the fourth Monday of the month, with some exceptions: the June meeting is on the 25th.

Board members:   

• Parents: Richard Hess, Jon Hokanson, Mark Lokhorst, Henrik Lyder, Alicia Williams (Henrik’s term ends in June, and Gordon Decker’s begins in July)
• Teachers/Staff: Patti Quinn, Bob Ruud, Deana Siekmann, Liesl Taylor, Beth Wilson, Sherry Wolfe.
• Randi Shapiro is not an official member of the board, but she does attend all of the meetings, and does the reports on finances and various administrative issues.

Vision: We are working deliberately and patiently toward this full configuration, with the High School part just a dream, at this point, and the third upper elementary an embryo....

As we live by our mission statement:

The World Learner School’s mission is to create a school that supports an experiential collaborative learning (Montessori) program that empowers children to unfold their full potential as whole and unique persons in classroom, local and world communities.

Thanks for Support: From fundraising to chaperoning to substituting to feeding us at conference time: we are truly grateful for your support. Thanks, Henrik, for your excellent service on the board—and your invaluable technology trouble-shooting! Thank you, thank you, everybody. It’s been a great year. Thank you all so much!

That’s all for this time. There’s calendar below, and below that a list of some of the things are board and administration need to work on over the coming months. See you here next time...

Calendar:   
    Monday, May 28: No School—Memorial Day
    Thursday and Friday, May 31 and June 1: Middle School End-Of-Year Camping Trip
    Monday, June 4, 2 PM: Medallion Ceremony in the back yard at school
                 6 PM: Potluck picnic at Minnewashta Park
    Tuesday, June 5: Middle School Graduation
    Wednesday, June 6: Last day of school 0607
    June 11: Summer School begins
    June 15: Progress reports mailed out

Time Frame    
    Task/Event