I received the text last Saturday afternoon. A Hillbrook family was reaching out to let me know that they had extra space in their home in case someone in our community needed a place to stay after being evacuated from the fires. Thirty minutes later, we had made a match, and a member of our community gratefully settled into their home.
Earlier that day, another family had reached out to share information about an organization they lead that was helping to gather supplies, again, letting me know that they were available if someone needed something. Another community member reached out to offer help in coordinating a drive for people who had been displaced. Yet another community member texted to offer childcare if someone needed it.
The responses affirmed for me what I have always known about this community. We are a community that cares for each other, that takes action when needed, that truly lives our core values – be kind, be curious, take risks, be your best – especially in times of crisis.
It is against this backdrop – the ongoing uncertainty of a global pandemic and the impact of one of the largest fires in California state history – that we start the 2020-21 school year. We start in Learning Mode 2 – full distance learning for all students – while standing at the ready to transition to a hybrid model with what we hope will be the approval of a waiver by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department.
Each year we choose one of our core values as a theme for the year. It seems fitting that, in this unprecedented and unpredictable year, we focus on “be your best.” Throughout the past six months, I have been inspired by how our community has consistently stood up and shown the persistence and the character required to be our best. Whether it was the nearly instantaneous pivot to distance learning in March, the extraordinary philanthropic support that increased our flexible tuition budget to nearly $2.3 million and ensured more than 28 percent of our students can pay less than the top tuition rate, the rapid and resounding call from our community to support Black Lives Matter in June and over the summer, the generous support provided to those who are reeling from the recent fires, or the reimagination of all of our practices and procedures to prepare for this coming school year, our community has shown a resilience and an ability to live in the moment and give our best day in and day out.
As we prepare for the start of the year, it is worth highlighting a few things:
- We welcome 71 new students representing 51 new families into our community. Our largest entry points are JK, with 15 new students, kindergarten, with 23 new students, and 6th grade, with 12 students.
- We welcome 10 talented new employees to our team. I encourage you to review the following biographies of our new employees, as well as an overview of new roles and responsibilities that are being taken up by our returning employees, including recently promoted Associate Head of Lower School Kelly Scholten and Middle School Dean of Students Laura Hale.
- The constraints created by the pandemic have challenged us to reimagine our program in ways that will bring value long after the pandemic has disappeared. The new 8th grade Social Impact & Leadership class, for example, is a core class that will be taught by new Associate Director of the Scott Center Matt Callahan. The class provides a rigorous, interdisciplinary space that builds upon our 8th grade capstone experience and enables students to pursue meaningful work connected to social impact & entrepreneurship. Another example is the numerous outdoor learning spaces that have been identified on campus, and enhanced with improved wifi access. These new outdoor spaces will amplify our ability to use our campus as a classroom, something that has always been core to the Hillbrook experience and will now be even more central to how we approach each and every day. While we often bemoan the challenges of the pandemic, we have never lost sight of the innovation and transformation that emerges from a crisis.
- The work of Black Lives Matter and the fight for justice and equity remains a critical focus for our community. The recent shooting of Jacob Blake reminds us that the protests of this summer while shining critical light on the challenges of systemic racism did not resolve generations of inequity. A group of employees this summer created a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Teaching Philosophy that builds upon our Statement of Inclusivity and offers insight into how we approach this important topic for children and as a community. We will be sharing more details about the continuing evolution of our program in the year ahead, as well as creating space for engagement for all members of our community in the weeks ahead.
I also want to encourage people to listen to Season 2, Episode 1, of Remarks & Reflections, a podcast I started last year. The podcast offers insight into topics that are important to the Hillbrook community and the broader worlds of education and parenting. In the opening episode, I talk with Associate Head of School Colleen Schilly and new School Counselor Genna Lyons about how families can support children as they transition back to school. Colleen and Genna offer advice and reassurance to families, offering ways to help children and adults manage the stress and anxiety we are all experiencing at this time.
Tomorrow morning, we will officially launch the school year with our Opening Flag. We will have an opportunity to celebrate the start of the year, welcome the new members to our community, and, of course, continue a decades-long tradition of telling jokes.
We will also have our first opportunity to think about what it means to be our best, both as individuals and as a community. I encourage all of us, children and adults, to take the opportunity afforded by the start of the year to pause and reflect. I encourage each of us to remember that every day affords us a new opportunity to grow and learn, a chance to meet someone new or try something we have never tried before, a chance to notice a problem and try to fix it, to see someone in need of help and offer to lend a hand, a chance, as we have said at Hillbrook for more than 80 years, to reach beyond ourselves to make a difference in the world.