FALL 2018 ST. PATRICK’S PRESS INSIDE Wolfhound Watch 2017–2018 THIS Class of 2018 The Campaign for Commencement St. Patrick’s at Sixty & Sportsmanship Annual ISSUE Award Report ST. PATRICK’S PRESS / Fall 2018 / 1 The Campaign for St. Patrick’s at Sixty Active, Growing, Changing The Campaign for St. Patrick’s at Sixty is a $4-million In honor of our sixtieth anniversary, the Campaign for effort that will: St. Patrick’s at Sixty will raise $4 million to further goals of the current Strategic Plan. These projects will • Create a full-size middle school campus at 4590 strengthen the current educational experience of all of MacArthur Boulevard, NW our students as well as build a range of capacities that • Redevelop Nursery School & Kindergarten Playgrounds will allow the Day School to move forward with agility, and install Sports Deck on the Whitehaven Campus substance, and grace in a rapidly changing world. • Create two new Design & Collaboration Labs for students and teachers on the Whitehaven Campus CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIRS Allison and Kai Reynolds (Tia ’17, Hudson ’21, Ava ’23, Georgia ’23) Mae and Ande Grennan (Anderson W’15, John ex. ’20, Emeline ex. ’21, Thompson ’24, William ’27) Please contact Assistant Head of School for Development Suzanne Burrows at 202.342.7005 or [email protected] for more information. Naming opportunities are available. FALL 2018 ST. PATRICK’S PRESS From the Head of School: Twenty-Five Years On ..................2 School News ..................................................4 Continuing to Enhance Whitehaven Campus Writing & Learning Center Advances Writing, Research, and Study Skills Laugh & Learn: Engaging the Minds of St. Patrick’s Faculty and Staff Accreditation Process Moves to Action Plan Green & White Night 2018 2019 Auction Theme Announced: Come Soar With Us Wolfhound Watch and Sportsmanship Award Welcome, New Trustees Faculty Spotlight ............................................20 Welcome, New Faculty and Staff O’Neil-Carew Award: Fenner Gibson Love of Teaching Award in Honor of Mark Humphreys: Laura Philips Jeff Keffer Service Award: Mary Beth James ON THE COVER: MacArthur Campus students engage with Congratulations, Grade 8 Class of 2018........................ 26 high-quality literature both Commencement Remarks by Manar Morales in the humanities classroom Grade 8 “This I Believe” Remarks and through literature circles, Congratulations, Class of 2018 small reading groups that meet weekly with a faculty or Alumni Corner ..............................................45 staff mentor who joins them Alumni Notes in reading and discussion. College-Bound Graduates Pictured from left to right: Giles Kevill, John Zegger, Annual Report ..............................................49 Isa Rodriguez, Elice Lebedev, and Wesley Solomon, all ’20. Head of School Head of Lower School Director of Auxiliary Programs Kim Mazzarella, Peter A. Barrett Jenifer D. Congdon Dr. Rhia Hamilton Faculty Representative Leonard Moore Rector Head of Nursery School 2018–2019 Board of Trustees Kay Reynolds, Chair The Rev. Dr. Kurt Gerhard Paul Lorenzo-Giguere Matthew Alion David Roberts, Treasurer Mashea Ashton Jim Schufreider Assistant Head of School/ Assistant Head of Upper School/ Nancy Balboa, Co-Vice Chair Nancy White Head of Upper School Director of Secondary School Peter A. Barrett, Head of School Tammy Wincup Daniel P. Spector Placement Mia Bass, Secretary The Rev. Amy C. Yount ’77 Suzanne Clark-Lebedev Editor Assistant Head of School for Michael DeSantis Karolina Jewett, Finance and Operations MacArthur Campus Director/ Tiane Doman Communication Associate Rochelle Hargraves Director of Studies The Rev. Dr. Kurt Gerhard, Rector Ann Adams Mae Grennan Photography Assistant Head of School for Gretchen Hartley, Co-Vice Chair Jen Harris Studio, Bill Petros, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Day School Chaplain Patrick Kean, Junior Warden/ St. Patrick’s Faculty and Staff Erica Thompson Jenifer Gamber Day School Rebecca Kim Assistant Head of School for Director of Admission and Gardiner Lapham Development Financial Aid Katherine Lucas, Suzanne Burrows Lindsay Dietel Spector Parents Association President St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School, 4700 Whitehaven Parkway, NW, Washington, D.C. 20007 202.342.2805 www.stpatsdc.org FROM PETER A. BARRETT, HEAD OF SCHOOL Twenty-Five Years On, St. Patrick’s Certainly Looks Different, but Does It Feel Different? few months into my 25th This Fall Edition of the St. Patrick’s Press opened, with fully redeveloped Nursery year at St. Patrick’s, I offers a look at all three of those key School and Kindergarten playgrounds reflect with gratitude on players in the building and sustaining next to come. the community that has of our community. Interested in a built and sustained such glimpse of what’s on the minds of our So it is certainly true that St. Patrick’s Aan amazing setting for teaching and St. Patrick’s students? Spend some time looks different than it did a quarter learning across the more than 60 years with the remarks made by members of of a century ago. And to the extent that the Day School has been educating the Class of 2018 at their Graduation that the expansion of grade levels, young people. Of course, it is those Dinner in June. We also report on enrollment, faculty and staff, campuses, young people themselves, 470 this year, year-end honors for three remarkable and facilities—our reach, if you will— for whom this community exists and representatives of our talented faculty provides a rather larger scale for our who, in turn, breathe their life, energy, and staff, recipients of the Love of work, one could observe that it feels and spirit into it. Similarly animating Teaching Award, the O’Neil-Carew different than it did then. However, I the community are the talented and Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching, wonder if any such difference in feel dedicated faculty and staff, now 112 and the Jeff Keffer Service Award. As actually holds up. strong, who have chosen to spend their for our parents, Commencement days with our students, to challenge and speaker and outgoing Trustee Manar Throughout my more than 40 years engage them and, in doing so, to make Morales—mother of Jacob ’15, as an educator, I have recognized, and clear to those students that they are, in Joseph ’18, and James ’21—has filled relied upon, the power of language in the language we prefer here, “known, so many of the roles identified above. how we describe the nature of our work, loved, and respected.” Please read her charge to last year’s in how we strive for precision and depth graduates in this edition. of understanding in that work, and In part because we enroll children in how we knit together a community as young as three years old and in These are the essential ingredients around it and in support of it. Indeed, part because St. Patrick’s is just that in creating the St. Patrick’s School to in offering the concept of Exceptional kind of place, Day School parents are which I was called 25 years ago, and Literacy as the “larger purpose, standard, never far away, and their commitment they have remained so across the last and destination” for our work 20 years and generosity of spirit also energize quarter-century. Back then, St. Patrick’s ago, I wrote, “The spoken and written this community—in support of enrolled students in Nursery School word enables human beings to interact their children, in support of the to Grade 6 on a single campus. Now, with, understand, and influence the important work that we do here, and we have a fully articulated middle world around them, hence the primacy in support of the many activities school program, comprising Grades of an exceptional literacy for our and initiatives designed to promote 6, 7, and 8, on a separate campus, in a students. The ability to comprehend our collective health and well-being wonderful building designed specifically and to organize the spoken and written as an institution. They are Trustees, for that program. Yet a third campus word, and the struggle to accomplish Parents Association officers, Room provides an athletic field and stadium that sometimes difficult task, prepare Parents, and Back-to-School Night complex that is the envy of our peers. an individual to understand and attendees. They are Family Fun Day, On the Whitehaven Campus itself, the communicate effectively with others, Book Fair, Grandparents & Special Gymnasium & Performance Center has to seek new knowledge, and to fulfill a Friends Visiting Day, Gifts for Good, replaced a much smaller facility tucked greater sense of personal responsibility.” and Auction volunteers. They help into the main Day School building, its their children make trail mix, soup, and characteristic curved corner and double- I believe that how we talk about the sandwiches for those who are homeless heighted ceiling memorialized in the work that we do really matters. The in our city and then deliver the food to Upper School Art Studio. It is difficult language on which we rely not only those individuals on the street. They get to remember that we didn’t always have describes that work but shapes that their children to school, generally on a stunning Elementary School Library work, as long as the language is sincere, time, cheer on their teams, and delight atop a three-story addition on the west is genuine. And I believe that the in their performances. end of that building. And just this fall, an exciting new Design Corridor has continued on page 12 2 / ST. PATRICK’S PRESS / Fall 2018 Kindergarten students—from left to right, Soliana Tesfalem, Clara Frost, Zoe Jones, Jonathan Young, and Alexa Reishman— captured during recess on the Across-the- Street Playground. ST. PATRICK’S PRESS / Fall 2018 / 3 SCHOOL NEWS Campaign for COMMITTEE St. Patrick’s at Sixty Honorary Chairs Enhances Whitehaven Campus Judy Heisley Bishop & Leland Bishop April McClain-Delaney & John Delaney t.