The Courtyard: An Upper Division Newsletter

Dear Garden Families:

With January coming to a close, I want to reach out to welcome everyone to the third quarter of the academic calendar. We have weathered a great number of challenges and are hopeful for brighter days ahead. The goal in each of our newsletters is to make you aware of the exciting things happening inside Garden each and every day. Some of our highlights are known to all, but we aim to give you a look at lesser-known moments as well that make our school special. We like to showcase individual members of the community as well as groups, programs and initiatives and hope you use these newsletters as a springboard into further communication and dialogue. With all this said, we want to thank you all for your commitment to Garden and are excited to see so many contracts coming back in already. The momentum building is undeniable.

Until next time, be safe and stay warm.

Brad Battaglia
Upper Division Head
Director of College Counseling

In case you have not yet checked yet, re-enrollment agreements are waiting for you in your inboxes. A few new features include e-signatures, the option for tuition refund insurance, and an early signing discount for families who reenroll by the February 14 due date. We are thrilled to see how many families have already enrolled for next year. We have record applications for next year and enrollment contracts for new families go out in a few weeks, so be sure to secure your child’s seat at Garden as we enter the exciting Road to 100! Any questions regarding re-enrollment or admissions can be sent to ksullivan@gardenschool.org.

Last week, we unveiled the new Strategic Plan to dozens of community members. Today, we began unpacking pieces of it with select students. After months of collaborative community level work, it was exciting to begin showing the fruits of this collective effort and we eager to share it with everyone. If you were unable to join Head of School, Chris Herman, yesterday, he will offer a second live webinar session on Tuesday, February 2nd at 6pm. This session will be nearly identical to the first talk and is intended for those unable to attend last night. RSVP here to learn about the Garden Road to 100 strategic plan which will guide our work as we approach our centennial.

Each yearbook is a phenomenal amount of work that encompasses the highlights of the school year. The theme the staff chose for this yearbook was Broadway. The group reflected upon their time at Garden and thought about the memories, experiences, and lessons learned throughout the years. Like anything else, their time here has been filled with every emotion, and ups and downs along the way. Broadway showcases are similar in the sense that they contain stories of joy, happiness, tragedy, and of course drama. Although this year has been very different from the rest, the yearbook team has worked incredibly hard to bring the Garden community a book that holds all the best moments and memories from the year. Let us take a moment now and thank the entire staff, and their tireless advisor, Ms. Blair Wright, for the work that has occurred already and will continue on for several months. The early indications make it clear this is a book no one will want to miss.

The Seniors in Mr. Kruczek's History/Social Sciences elective will be taking Humanity Through Conflict this semester. The genesis of this course was the social unrest extant in society, and the resulting tension, leading to a dismissal of our common humanity, that came as a result. He thought it would be useful to find instances of moments of great peril and conflict that bore witness to the opposite - a revelation of "the better angels of our nature" in the worst of circumstances: armed conflict. The idea: if it can happen there, it can happen now. Students will find this recurring theme in works of historical fiction such as Slaughterhouse-Five, The Killer Angels and For Whom the Bell Tolls

We would like to congratulate our Daniel Webster Society Debate Team for another masterful performance, as they once again took first prize at a virtual tournament brining together teams from across the entire city. As with last month, there was a novice and veteran league. The results were as follows: Our Novice group, comprised of Robert G. and Nikoletta G. came in 7th place overall as a team. Garden School placed second overall in the novice division and again took First Place in the Veteran Division with a winning percentage of 75%. Congratulations Team!!

Great ideas are not created in a vacuum. That's what Theodora R. in Ninth Grade encouraged us to think about when she wrote a winning essay for the 2021 Immerse Essay competition that awards high school students with a scholarship to study with Cambridge and Oxford scholars this summer. Indeed, Theo’s essay did not come out of a vacuum. First, Mr. Battaglia, our Upper School Head, asked students to write an article for Immerse. Students could choose from a list of dozens of prompts. Theo decided to write about creativity because she and her peers wrote and illustrated a graphic novel for Mrs. Massand's English class, using Google Apps for Education. The project got her gears turning, and she used Mr. Roselli's Freshman first-period Writing class to hammer out ideas and write several rough drafts. Writing is not easy, but it's incredibly gratifying. So, with profound admiration for Theo, we announce her winning essay and celebrate her search for creativity!

For the past month, Garden School students in both divisions have been crafting and posting kind and supportive thoughts for all to see. The idea came about when Kristen Manson and Agustin Melara, our talented co-directors of this year’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Theme, were considering different ways to celebrate the new year. As the idea has grown quite popular, and our wall more colorful, we are planning to continue the practice well beyond next week’s flip of the calendar. If you have something supportive you wish to post, please let us know and we’ll assist!

If you have roamed the halls these past few weeks you have likely noticed a growing fleet of paper airplanes making their way around the school. As our 8th grade students in Mr. Hale’s science class learn about climb, cruise, descent and landing, the group have been tasked with crafting unique aircraft that achieve a variety of aims, such as great distance, extended airtime and banked turning just to name a few. The class will make their official flights next Thursday, but it has already been a joy to see them tweaking their efforts day by day as they search for the perfect flight.

Michelle Ferreira has been with Garden School since 2017, coming to us from the world of banking. She instantly made a positive impact within our Physical Education program, not to mention our sports teams, but not everyone knows of her feats as a runner outside school. Running throughout middle and high school, Ms. Ferreira developed a love of competition that translated well to a number of sports. In college, she walked-on to her school’s lacrosse team and played multiple years as a defender. After college, she ran occasionally to relieve stress but was encouraged to run a marathon following a conversation with her high school track coach. By the time she started at Garden, Ms. Ferreira was already well into her training for the 2017 NYC Marathon. She ran the race and then decided she wanted to keep going. Marathons in Tokyo, Chicago and a second tour of NYC followed. If conditions allow, Ms. Ferreira will run the Berlin Marathon later this spring with a goal of eventually tackling London and Boston as well, completing a prestige loop of the six largest running events in the world. Good luck, Ms. Ferreira!