The Courtyard: An Upper Division Newsletter

Dear Garden School Upper Division Families,

I hope this finds all of you well and eager for the upcoming respite of the holidays. We want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your tremendous support of our community, not only through your generous support of our annual fund, but through your daily commitment to being available for our communications and your placing trust in us to do right by your children. Educating is a responsibility we take seriously, and we recognize it is impossible without the help of many. Thank you for this.

And another round of thanks must go to our faculty and staff, who have continued to provide tremendously these past 16 weeks. Through incredibly challenging circumstances they have been present, on-time and ready to educate, mentor and support. Thank you faculty and staff!!

Last, I would like to mention that some of you have been asking about upcoming midterm exams. This year, we moved exams to the third week in January (January 20-22nd) to allow greater study time for students and an increased amount of leisure time during the holiday break. Please understand we are in the midst of discussions regarding the look of midterms this year and will be in touch by the end of next week, December 18th, with a detailed breakdown of what you and your children can expect. If you would like to be in touch regarding this or any other matter, simply send me an email at bbattaglia@gardenschool.org or give me a call at 718-335-6363.

If I don’t hear from or see you before we break for the holiday, I want to wish you all a wonderful, safe and restful two weeks!

Until next time,
Brad Battaglia

Running simultaneous in-person and remote programs taxed our systems greatly this fall. The volume created slower than desired connections and sometimes interfered with connecting at all. You may also recall the two Denial of Service Attacks to our internet this year which temporarily disrupted access to our program.

For the last six weeks, we have investigated ways to insulate Garden from similar issues in the future. This included exploring new internet providers, more sophisticated equipment, and strategic approaches to how different groups access WiFi. We are pleased to report we are on the precipice of a new ISP, a massive upgrade of our infrastructure, and a plan for differentiated access.

Next week, we are upgrading a good deal of infrastructure. We’ll have new sophisticated switches and access points installed to work alongside a top-of-the-line firewall. In addition, when we return from break, Garden will have access to a new dedicated line to the school with speeds twice our current connection.

With a new connection, faster speeds, and more reliable equipment, we will create specific lanes for faculty, student, and guest access. Each lane has intentional plans for dedicated volume and specific parameters. This delineation will help ensure a disruption to one is not a disruption to all and give us the ability to be more dynamic about how bandwidth is used.

A reliable connection is a core quality of life issue for educators and students and especially this year, so prioritizing this work was important to us. Many thanks to our facilities and tech team here for shepherding such a great solution for our community. Though tech is never flawless, we anticipate these upgrades will reduce bumps in the road ahead.

Throughout this turbulent year, Garden School seniors have been examining the roots of activism in the United States in the Senior elective “Activism to Legislation.” Through close study of historic events in Women’s history as well as analysis of primary sources such as The Declaration of Sentiments and early twentieth century laws for women, students are realizing the need for activism. I often hear “Oh wow!” from students as they learn of injustices faced by groups such as Native Americans, African Americans, and women. We work to witness the necessity of brave activists like those whose actions raise the consciousness in the general public, and, eventually, lawmakers.

On Saturday, December 5th, the Daniel Webster Society - Garden's interscholastic middle school debate team - participated in its first virtual tournament of the season. There were 195 debaters, comprising 69 teams, from four different states. For the first time in DWS history, and with an aggregate winning percentage of .750, Garden School won first place in the overall school category! We were led by two teams: Sophia (8th grade), Claire (8th grade), and Juliet (8th grade) in the Varsity division, and Robert (6th grade), Giuliana (5th grade), and Nicoletta (5th grade) in the Novice division. Our Varsity team went undefeated, with Juliet Arau taking home a top-ten speaker trophy, and the team finishing tied for first in the division. Robert and Giuliana also received top-ten Novice speaker awards in their first ever tournament. They all were magnificent and represented Garden School and themselves with pride and honor. Well done!

We're so excited to launch Garden School's first Student Ambassador Club. This will be an admission year unlike any other, but Garden's Admission team is committed to offering prospective families as many safe opportunities to engage with the Garden community as possible. Whether Ambassadors are speaking with prospective students over Zoom, during private family tours, producing clips for the Virtual Griffin Campus Tour, coming up with SWAG ideas and virtual events, or just being their awesome selves, Garden's newest Student Ambassadors are excellent representatives of our Garden family. Ambassadors for Garden School this year are Arib ’21, Lorenne ’23, Wilson ’21, Josefina ’23, Cecilia ’22, Daniel ’22, Ilana ’22, Olivia ’22, Pema ’24, Ava ’24, and Ron ’22.

On Thursday, December 10th, all members of the Upper Division participated in a Wellness Homeroom designed to check-in with students and their feelings in these unprecedented times. We began the sessions, held by grade, with five writing prompts and then transitioned to a moderated discussion utilizing our homeroom advisors. While such endeavors are never easy, they help us to support one another as best possible and it is our goal to make sure the health, safety and wellness of all our students always come first.

Lucas, class of ’23, has been named an official Literary Scholar by the Robert Burns Society of New York City. After submitting his essay on the themes of Grief and Endearment in the poetry works of the 18th Century National Bard of Scotland, the reviewers exclaimed that they were impressed with the content, style, and depth of Lucas’ writing. This award typically is given to a University student. With Awards in the last several years going to students at Barnard and Hunter College, Lucas joins an impressive host of fellow Burns Scholars. Congratulations Lucas for winning this prestigious award and for demonstrating admiration and appreciation for class poetry!

The Garden community has been extremely vigilant about doing everything possible to reduce COVID risk from walking in the door. This included significant self-reporting on risk factors in advance of the brief Thanksgiving weekend. That data enabled us to determine how to most safely approach the days following the holiday. We again, will need to understand the risk that various community members pose as a result of plans during our upcoming December Break. Please answer the questions in this survey as honestly as possible so we may appraise our risk as accurately as possible.

Before you know it, the Class of 2021 will be graduating. One of the most important end-of-year events is the Senior Prom. On Friday, December 18, the Senior Class will be hosting our first Senior Prom fundraiser, a Holiday Bake Sale to accompany the Holiday Pasta Lunch. All desserts will be individually packaged. No Nuts.

Please support the Class of 2021 and order a Dessert and/or Candy Cane Gram for your child, friend, or colleague. Orders must be submitted by 3pm Monday, December 14, 2020. Order here.